CHAPTER n 



1849-1860 

 FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA 



As there was no railroad between Neuchatel and 

 Paris in those days, Agassiz and Mr. Felix Marcel, in 

 whose charge he was placed, made the journey by dili- 

 gence. Here Alex joined his cousin, Dr. Charles Mayor, 

 who, on account of religious persecution, was leaving 

 Switzerland with his family to settle in the United 

 States. At that time it was thought far safer to cross 

 the ocean in a sailing vessel, rather than in one of those 

 new-fashioned contrivances, a transatlantic steamer. The 

 party accordingly embarked at Havre in the French ship 

 Le Joseph, and endured a tedious passage of forty-five 

 days to New York, which they reached sometime in 

 the summer of 1849. On his arrival Agassiz was met 

 by his father, who at once took him to Cambridge. 

 From here Louis Agassiz writes to a friend, " Je reviens 

 de New York avec mon fils, c'est vous dire que je suis 

 bien heureux maintenant. C'est dans toute la verite de 

 P expression et a part de la partialite paternelle un char- 

 mant garcon." 



Shortly after the boy reached Cambridge, his father 

 took him to Nahant, then the favorite seaside resort of 

 the Boston Brahmins, where he met some lads of his 

 own age, sons of his father's friends. Alex could not 

 speak any English, but the boys managed to make them- 

 selves understood in Latin ! Fond as the Romans were 



