234 Women in Science. 



Mrs. Louis Agassiz has contributed to scientific literature in 

 writing jointly both with her husband and son. ' A Journey in 

 Brazil ' is ver3' largely the work of Mrs. Agassiz, who accompanied 

 her husband during his entire journey and kept full notes of all that 

 occurred. 'Seaside Studies in Natural History,' a most charming 

 book, was written by Mrs. Agassiz and Dr. Alexander Agassiz. 

 Mrs. Agassiz has also written on natural history topics for chil- 

 dren. Her ' Life and Letters of Louis Agassiz ' may well be classed 

 with her scientific work. It is so happily written that it is as inter- 

 esting as a novel, and one lays it down with a kinder feeling for the 

 world. 



The island school so auspicioush' begun by Agassiz was aban- 

 doned after the second year, as the island proved to be too inacces- 

 sible. Outgrowths of this famous school of science are the various 

 marine laboratories of the eastern United States, chief among which 

 is the one at Woods' Holl, Massachusetts, first opened to students 

 in June, 1888. The present tendency in biology to investigate the 

 life histories and to study the minute structures of plant and animal 

 life is largeh^ due to the influence of our Grays and Agassiz, and the 

 opportunities afforded at these schools by the sea-shore. Among 

 the women who have been studying at Woods' Holl during the 

 three summers this laborator^^ has been open I may mention the 

 following: Professor Cornelia M. Clapp, of Mount Holyoke Col- 

 lege, who was also at Agassiz's Penikese laboratory, has spent 

 every summer at Wood's Holl. She prepared her material for study 

 during the first summer and is now writing her paper On the 

 Lateral Line of Batrachus tau, one of the toad fishes. Miss Piatt, 

 a student at Bryn Mawr, formerly of Harvard, last summer at this 

 laboratory was studying the development of the brain of the shark. 

 She has gone to Germany to continue her investigations. Miss 

 Marcella L 0'Grad3% a professor at Vassar, was working on the 

 problem of Kupfer's Vesicle. Miss Randolph is now in Germany; 

 at Woods' Holl she was stud^'ing the embryolog}' of Spirorbis. 



Science is exacting, requiring the devotion of months and even 

 of years to the completion of a series of observations which, some- 

 times, must be carried on with little or no interruption; therefore 

 w^e much more often find women popularizing the results of stu- 

 dents of science, rather than adding to the positive knowledge of the 

 world by studies and researches of their own. So many women 

 have written popular books on natural history, especially for chil- 

 dren, that I shall not attempt to name them. 



There is the tendency at present for women to work out for 

 themselves problems in the physical world independently of their 



