Obituary. 561 



ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. 



The sudden death of Mr. Agassiz was announced in the last 

 number of this Journal. He was returning 1 on the steamer 

 " Adriatic" from a trip to Egypt and southern Europe, in company 

 with his son Maximilian, and was apparently in about as good 

 health as usual, of late years. He was found dead in his berth, 

 on March 27th. 



In his death the world has lost one of its most eminent scien- 

 tific men, and probably the most liberal patron of natural science 

 that this country has known. 



He not only conducted, at great cost, numerous extensive explo- 

 rations of the deep sea and coral islands and reefs in all the 

 great oceans, but he personally wrote many of the volumes of 

 reports on the results of his expeditions. Moreover, he induced 

 many of his colleagues, both in this country and Europe, to write 

 reports on his various collections, paying personally all the 

 expenses of their publication, including the most liberal illustra- 

 tions, and provided in his will for their completion, by a bequest 

 of $100,000, besides an equal amount for the general uses of the 

 Museum. His zoological and embryological works, both before 

 and after his deep-sea explorations, were voluminous and of 

 great importance, and his contributions to our knowledge of the 

 physical geography and geology of all the great coral-reef 

 regions are of inestimable value. 



But aside from these investigations, the building up of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, from the comparatively small 

 institution, with small funds, as it was left at the death of his 

 father, into a magnificent museum, liberally endowed, and filled 

 with a wonderfully rich collection, has been one of the great 

 achievements of his life. He was not only its curator and 

 director for many years, but also by far the most liberal of its 

 patrons, for his gifts to the Museum amount to upwards of a 

 million dollars. 



However, to the world at large he is, no doubt, more widely 

 known as the eminent mining engineer and financier, who devel- 

 oped and managed during many years the great Calumet and 

 Hecla Copper mine, which made him and some of his friends 

 wealthy. It is stated, in the Mining and Scientific Press, and 

 in the Engineering News, that this is the greatest single copper 

 mine in the world, and that it has paid in dividends over 

 $110,000,000. Its wonderful success was due to his skill and 

 energy. When Mr. Agassiz commenced to develop it in 1865-6, 

 it was considered as almost worthless. 



He was also interested in various other important lines of 

 business. But his fame, apart from his scientific work, will, in 



Am. Jour. Sci. — Fourth Series, Vol. XXIX, No. 174. — June, 1910. 

 37 



