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less checked by ill-health and foreign investigations ; — 

 casting aside the privileges offered him by Mr. Lawrence, 

 and devoting himself to the hard work of the professor- 

 ship in the lecture-room. Meantime, owing to his small 

 salary, and the heavy load of debt which pressed upon 

 him, he was obliged to give public lectures constantly, 

 traveling for that purpose during the intervals of his col- 

 lege course. Commencing his college lectures without 

 specimens for illustration, he taxed himself to the utmost 

 to defray the expenses of securing them. Worn out in 

 health and exhausted in purse by this constant drain 

 upon both, in his untiring labors, he established a female 

 school in his own house, hoping in that way to meet his 

 family expenses and the constantly increasing cost of his 

 scientific lectures. The munificent donation of $50,000 

 by the Hon. Francis C. Gray, and the graht of $100,000 

 by the State, with the outlay of $10,000 by Agassiz him- 

 self, from his own purse, gave the museum its first foun- 

 dation ; and to this work Agassiz has devoted himself 

 from choice and attachment to our country, and not from 

 necessity. During the darkest days of his labors, when 

 the difficulties of his scientific position were the heaviest, 

 he received an earnest invitation to the Jardin des Plan- 

 tes, as he did various other offers to return to Europe, and 

 a strong request to unite himself with the University of 

 California, at a salary of $20,000 per year. He was 

 never tempted, however. He felt that he had here com- 

 menced a work which was to be the success or failure of 

 his whole life. He was completely identified with it." 



Writing of the laborious work of microscopy Agassiz said 

 " I think people are not generally aware of the difficulties 

 of microscopic observation, or the amount of painful prepa- 

 ration required to fit the organs of sight, and touch for the 

 work. In old times men prepared themselves with toil 

 and vigil for entrance into the temple : and nature does 

 not open her sanctuary without exacting due penance from 

 her votaries. It seems an easy matter for a man to sit 

 down and look at objects through a glass which enlarges 



