Record. xliii 



The artificial production and perpetuation of varieties in plants 

 and domesticated animals through selection and cross-fertilization, 

 and the tendency of such varieties to revert to the primitive type 

 when abandoned to the operation of natural causes, have long been 

 familiar to naturalists, as to horticulturists and breeders; but, 

 notwithstanding recognized difficulties in classification growing 

 out of cross-pollination in certain genera of plants, belief in the 

 general fixity of species was held by most botanists until well 

 after the middle of the last century. To Agassiz the fact that 

 species remain constant throughout geological periods of in- 

 determinate duration appealed conclusively as a proof of their 

 essential immutability. It is not surprising, then, that for him 

 the ''Origin of Species" was virtually the re-statement of a dis- 

 credited thesis, and ''natural selection," "struggle for existence," 

 "survival of the fittest," but specious phrases coined to give 

 new vogue to an erroneous and discarded speculation. For 

 Agassiz "evolution" meant even more than "a gratuitous 

 supposition opposed to all sound physiological notions"; he 

 read in it an attempt to dethrone the God whose directing 

 power and wisdom he saw everywhere manifested in the pheno- 

 mena of life. As a working hypothesis evolution has sup- 

 planted the doctrine of final causes; nevertheless, it is difficult 

 to see that its acceptance by Agassiz could have added to the 

 sum or to the permanent value of his immense achievement 

 whether in the observation of facts or in the discovery of their 

 natural relations. 



On his arrival in America, Agassiz found an inexhaustible 

 field for research in the marine fauna of the Atlantic seaboard; 

 and a marine laboratory, equipped for the study of live animals 

 as wtII as the rich material gathered fresh from sea and land, 

 became an essential part of his working outfit. The results of 

 fifteen years of comparative research in anatomy, embryology, 

 and zoology, conducted largely at East Boston, at SulUvan's 

 Island, S. C, and at Nahant, Mass., were published, in part, in 

 his "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States 

 of America" (1857-1862); a superbly illustrated work, in large 

 quarto form, announced to appear in ten volumes, but cut short, 

 with the issue of the fourth volume, in the second year of the 

 Civil War. In addition to his great "Essay on Classification," 

 the subjects treated are "North American Testudinata," 

 "Embryology of the Turtles," "Acalephs in general," "Cteno- 

 phorae," " Discophorae," "Hydroids," and the "Homologies 



