208 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



stores of knowledge derived from new investigations before tbe 

 savants of this continent with the simplicity and self-forgetfulness with 

 which a child would pour its toys into your lap; and I have heard him 

 talk with apparently equal interest before a company of farmers and 

 mechanics, whose knowledge of nature was almost infinitesimal. Yet he 

 was most exacting of his students, sometimes even to a discouraging 

 severity. He would say, "There is the subject, there are the tools; tell 

 me what you can learn about it." Perhaps the severity of his own methods 

 prevented his fully sympathizing always with the struggling, discouraged 

 student. But one thing is clear, those who survived the fiery ordeal are 

 among the foremost in their departments everywhere; and if they carry 

 scars of their hard warfare, they are not of shame but of honor. They 

 ar3 all in front. 



One of the most marked features of Agassiz's mind was its tendency 

 to discover analogies, relations. Severe as was his scrutiny of particu- 

 lars, marking the slightest variation from the typical form, things were 

 not intlependent and unrelated, but parts of one great whole. His gen- 

 eralizations were as comprehensive as his examinations were minute. 

 He saw system, provision, adaptation, everywhere. He had so pene- 

 trated the divine purpose, he 'had become so imbued with the methods 

 and the forms of nature, that he could draw a whole from anyjiart of 

 a figure, and predict the image of an inhabitant of an unexamined zone 

 or stratum. This ability, partly natural, partly acquired, enabled 

 Agassiz to perform marvels in discovery. A solitary scale of a new 

 species of fish was found in the fossiliferous rocks of Scotland. As 

 no naturalist of the island could determine, and hence delineate, the 

 species of fish to which the scale belonged, it was sent to Agassiz, 

 then residing in his home in Switzerland, to see if he could con- 

 struct the fish from the scale, giving its size, form, and probable 

 habits. He examined the scale ; determined what the size and form 

 of the fish must have been; made a drawing of it; gave a full 

 description of its habits ; and returned the scale with his monograph and 

 drawing to Scotland. Now it so happened that while Agassiz in his 

 study in the shadow of the Alps was constructing this fish from a single 

 scale, and describing its habits, a whole impression was found of a fish 

 of the same kind or species as that whose scale had been sent to him. 

 The Scotch naturalists were excited with intensest curiosity to learn 

 whether he, with a single scale, would be able to correctly draw and 

 describe the fish. What was their mingled delight and astonishment on 

 opening his communication to find that he had so accurately figured and 

 described the fish that hardly a line of his drawing needed to be erased 

 or changed that it might conform to the original recently found. 



Not only was his knowledge of the structure of fishes so perfect 

 as to enable him, from a single scale, to construct the whole fish, but his 

 knowledge of the period in which the different families and species of 

 fishes existed upon the earth was such, so accurate, so minute, that he 



