874 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 858 



and German languages and in science, 

 which proved a great advantage in his 

 future career. His mother was an artist, 

 and we have hints that her temperament 

 was very different from the placid uni- 

 formity which is said to have been charac- 

 teristic of his father. The father and son 

 are said by Dr. Walcott, who knew them 

 both well, to have apparently belonged to 

 absolutely different types.'^ When I some- 

 times observed outbursts of indignation, 

 and impatience in Alexander Agassiz, I 

 was always reminded of a passage in the 

 quarrel between Cassius and Brutus in the 

 play of Julius Ciesar. 



Cassius exclaims : 

 Have you not love enough to bear with me, 

 When that rash humor which my mother gave me 

 Makes me forgetful? 



And Brutus replies. 

 Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth, 

 When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 

 He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. 



In 1849, at the age of thirteen years, the 

 young Agassiz joined his father in Amer- 

 ica, and his later education took place at 

 Harvard College and the Lawrence Scien- 

 tific School at Cambridge, Mass., where the 

 elder Agassiz occupied the chair of natural 

 history. He used to refer with much 

 pleasure and satisfaction to the manner in 

 which he was befriended, soon after his 

 arrival in the country, by Augustus Low- 

 ell, the father of our President Lowell. 

 In 1855 Alexander Agassiz graduated at 

 Harvard. Two years later he took the 

 degree of S.B. in civil engineering, and 

 later a second S.B. degree in natural his- 

 tory. Between 1856 and 1859 he taught 

 in the Agassiz School, and here it was he 

 first met, as a pupil, the young lady who 

 was to become his wife. In 1859 he was 

 appointed an assistant in the United States 

 Coast Survey, and worked in California 

 and Washington Territory. 



^ Boston Evening Transcript, April 6, 1910. 



In 1860, at the age of twenty-six, he 

 married Anna Eussell. It was a love 

 match, and the young couple started out 

 with a very slender income. In the same 

 year Agassiz was appointed assistant zool- 

 ogist in the Museum of Comparative Zool- 

 ogy at Cambridge, founded by his father. 

 His connection with this institution lasted 

 as long as he lived — a fuU half century. 

 During half of that period he acted as 

 curator, succeeding his father. On resign- 

 ing the curatorship in September, 1898, he 

 served on the faculty of the museum as 

 secretary. In 1902 he was made director 

 of the University Museum. 



In 1863 Agassiz became interested in 

 coal mining in Pennsylvania, but after- 

 wards turned his attention to the copper 

 mines of Lake Superior, acting as superin- 

 tendent of the Calumet and Hecla mines 

 from March, 1867, to October, 1868. It 

 was in consequence of his ability, atten- 

 tion, devotion and business habits that 

 these mines turned out a great financial 

 success at a later date. Up to the time 

 of his death he was president of this suc- 

 cessful company. 



In 1869 he had a severe illness at Cam- 

 bridge from the effects of over-work, 

 anxiety and exposure at Calumet, from 

 which it is believed he never fully recov- 

 ered. The years immediately preceding 

 this illness had been full of all the financial 

 and other worries connected with mine 

 superintendence and the care of a large 

 and growing business. Still even at this 

 busy period we find the dominant note of 

 Alexander Agassiz 's life continuously 

 sounded — the desire to add to the sum of 

 natural knowledge. 



As a boy he had accompanied his father 

 on his cruise in the Bibb off Nantucket, 

 and in 1851 he aided in the survey of the 

 Florida Reefs. Before he had reached the 

 age of thirty over twenty publications had 



