No. 375.] AGASSIZ’S WORK ON FOSSIL FISHES. 179 
new branch, in which no one has as yet done anything of importance, I feel 
sure of success; the more so because Cuvier, who alone could do it (for the 
simple reason that every one else has until now neglected the fishes), is not 
engaged upon it. . .-. Now that I have it in my power to carry out the 
project, I should be a fool to let a chance escape me which certainly will 
not present itself a second time so favorably. 
Three years after the date of this letter the first vrazson of 
his immortal Poissons Fossiles appeared, the publication of which 
in five large quarto volumes, illustrated by nearly four hundred 
folio plates, extended over the interval from 1833 to 1844, and 
was followed by a supplementary volume, entitled Monographie 
des Poissons Fossiles du Vieux Grès Rouge oú Systéme Devonien 
(Old Red Sandstone), with an atlas of thirty-three plates, in 
1844-45.1 
The author’s work on this “vaste publication” was embar- 
rassed by difficulties of the most aggravating nature. There 
were first of all the exacting terms imposed by his publisher, 
Cotta of Stuttgart, who eventually withdrew from the under- 
taking as being too expensive; and afterwards the financial 
hazard involved in the maintenance of a private printing estab- 
lishment. The restrictions of many museum authorities relative 
to the transportation of specimens proved also a serious 
hindrance, necessitating as it did a journeying about on the 
part of himself and an artist until he had ransacked every 
collection worthy of the name in Europe. To say nothing of 
the personal expense and labor he was subjected to by this 
plan, it was unsatisfactory for yet another reason, to which he 
refers as follows in the preface to his Poissons Fossiles : 
N otwithstanding the cordiality with which even n the inost TART spi 
mens have been placed at my disposition, a 
from this mode of working; namely, that I have rarely been able to compare 
directly the various specimens of the same species from different collections, 
and that I have often been obliged to make my identification from memory, 
or from simple notes, or, in the more fortunate cases, from my drawings 
alone. It is impossible to imagine the fatigue, the exhaustion of all the 
faculties, involved in such a method. The hurry of traveling, joined to the 
1 For the actual dates of publication of the various parts and plates, see the 
list compiled by W. H. Brown, and prefixed to’ the Catalogue of British Fossil 
Vertebrata, by A. S. Woodward and C. D. Sherborn (London, 1890), pp. 
V-xxix. . 
