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SCIENCE 



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



1870, were the most active, fruitful and 

 enjoyable of his whole life. His financial 

 position had greatly improved and his 

 mind was crowded with new schemes and 

 new ideas with reference to the study of 

 the ocean. He visited the Challenger ex- 

 pedition when the ship reached Halifax in 

 May, 1873. He was enthusiastic about 

 our captures, and he could teach us much 

 we did not know, especially about echino- 

 derm and annelid larvas. I remember he 

 showed us how he had proved that Tor- 

 naria was the larva of Balanoglossus. All 

 the younger men of the expedition were 

 pronounced evolutionists or Darwinists, 

 and the name of Agassiz conjured up op- 

 position to such views, but the impression 

 made by Alexander Agassiz was excellent 

 in every direction, the general judgment 

 being that the younger Agassiz was a very 

 different man from his distinguished 

 father. It was freely prophesied that he 

 would have a very brilliant scientific fu- 

 ture. He was buoyant, cheerful, confi- 

 dent and possessed a fund of dry humor. 

 He was rather above medium height, with 

 brown eyes and dark complexion. He had 

 a fine presence, dignified bearing and gra- 

 cious manners. The following note re- 

 ceived on board the Challenger some 

 months after his visits indicates conscious 

 capacity and the overflowing joy of life: 

 "We are all flourishing here after a very 

 successful summer at Penikese, about 

 which you must have seen plenty in the 

 papers. The museum is getting fuller 

 than an egg, and I don't know what we 

 shall do for room. We have just secured 

 the collection of Wachsmuth — the finest 

 collection of crinoids there is from the 

 west, and with what we have, our collec- 

 tion is now superb. I shall attack them 

 soon I hope." (Cambridge, October 24, 

 1873.) 



The scene, the outlook on life, was sud- 



denly changed. His father, Louis Agas- 

 siz, died on December 14, 1873. His be- 

 loved wife, Anna Russell, who had tenderly 

 nursed and watched at the bed-side of her 

 father-in-law during his last illness, caught 

 cold from exposure on the night of his 

 death, and died from pneumonia within 

 ten days thereafter. 



This was a terrible blow to Alexander 

 Agassiz. The light and brightness of his 

 life had suddenly been extinguished. A 

 cloud fell upon him which nothing on this 

 earth could completely clear away. His 

 mental attitude towards the future is 

 plainly stated in a letter written from 

 Peru in March, 1875, and received on 

 board the Challenger when we were voy- 

 aging in the Pacific. It evoked the deep 

 sympathy of the Challenger naturalists. 

 He says : 



I hear of your whereabouts through the papers 

 occasionally, though lately I have not seen any- 

 thing concerning your movements, as I have been 

 wandering about in Chili and Peru, out of the way 

 of all newspapers. I could not stand the associa- 

 tions of my house after the terrible ordeal I had 

 to pass through, and for about five months I have 

 been listlessly running from place to place trying 

 to wake up an interest in outside matters. It is 

 all weU enough as long as I am on the move, and 

 there is the excitement of constantly seeing new 

 things and new people, but when I am settled 

 down for any length of time, and attempt to do 

 any continuous work, it is impossible for me to 

 throw ofE my troubles, and life seems unendurable. 

 Yet I can not deny that I have had a great deal 

 of pleasure on my trip to South America, and 

 imder ordinary circumstances it would have been 

 to me a great store of future enjoyment. As it is 

 I look upon it as so much time passed, and reaUy 

 dread the moment when I shall reach home, or 

 rather my house, for no place can henceforth be 

 a home to me. 



Even here, however, what I have called 

 the dominant note of his life — the desire 

 to get new knowledge — rings out strongly, 

 for the rest of this distressful letter is 

 taken up with a detailed description of his 



