8 



THE REPLY. 



To this letter the Trustees made the following reply : — 



To Louis Agassiz, Professor of Zoology and Geology in the Lawrence 



Scientific School, Harvard College. 



Sir, — The subscribers, Trustees of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 at their last meeting, received from you a communication, offering, as a 

 donation to the Museum, all the collections you have made in Zoology since 

 the year 1 852. This gift they gratefully accept. In so doing, however, they 

 desire to express their conviction that, while the sum of ten thousand dollars, 

 by which in general terms you describe the cost to yourself of these collec- 

 tions, is undoubtedly much below the sum you have thus expended, still they, 

 are pensible that the importance of what you have now so freely contributed 

 to the cause of science is to be measured by no such modes of computation. 

 For they are aware that to you personally — to your genius, your love of 

 science, your courage and disinterestedness — the original establishment of 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology is due more than to any other cause 

 whatever, or to all other causes united. They are aware that you have per- 

 sonally given what they believe will prove a decisive and guidiDg impulse to 

 the study of Natural History in these United States. They therefore can- 

 not accept your munificent gift without remembering that, whatever may 

 have been its pecuniary cost, your character and services have imparted to 

 it much the largest portion of its great and acknowledged value. Neither 

 can they omit to express their earnest hope, not only that you may long live 

 to enjoy and sustain the Institution which you have founded, but that future 

 generations, mindful of what they owe you, may, with equal fidelity, carry 

 on the work you have begun with so much energy and success. 



We remain, very faithfully, your friends, 



Nathaniel P. Banks, Governor of the Commonwealth ; 



Eliphalet Trask, Lieutenant-Governor ; 



Charles A. Phelps, President of the Senate ; 



John A. Goodwin, Speaker of the House of Representatives ; 



George S. Boutwell, Secretary of the Board of Education; 



Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judical Court. 

 William Gray, Nathaniel Thayer, 



Jacob Bigelow, Samuel Hooper, 



James Walker, Samuel G. Ward, 



George Ticknor, James Lawrence, 



Trustees of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 



