No. 375.] EDITORIALS. 199 
“ Voted: That this board do now proceed to the election of a 
Professor of Zoology and Geology in the Lawrence Scientific School 
in the University at Cambridge. Whereupon, ballots being given 
in, it appeared that Professor Louis Agassiz, late of Neuchatel, 
Switzerland, was chosen. 
“ Voted: That the President be requested to lay this election 
before the Board of Overseers, that they may concur in the same if 
they see fit.” 
According to the statement in Marcou’s Life of Agassiz, we are 
led to infer that this appointment was accepted in February, 1848. 
In March Agassiz began his instruction at Harvard, and with it 
there began a new era in zoological science in America. Anatomy 
and embryology were henceforth to assume their proper position, 
and this country was to advance along new lines, until now in mor- 
phological science it stands second only to Germany among the 
nations of the earth, It seems, therefore, peculiarly fitting that the 
American Naturalist, founded as it was by four pupils of Professor 
Agassiz, — Alpheus Hyatt, Edward Sylvester Morse, Alpheus Spring 
Packard, and Frederick Ward Putnam, — should pay some attention 
to the fiftieth anniversary of Agassiz’s appearance as a teacher in 
America, — an anniversary which indicates not only a change in the 
character of zoological science in America, but as well a change in 
the academic position of zoology in our educational institutions. 
We therefore present in the foregoing pages a sketch of the life of 
Agassiz and reviews of some aspects of his work, kindly written at 
our request for this occasion. 
The Fur-Seal Problem. — We are very glad to see in two or three 
recent numbers of Natural Science editorials upon the fur-seal problem 
in which the necessity of prohibition of pelagic sealing is admitted, 
if the herds of the Pribilov and Commander Islands are not to be 
exterminated. In fact, this journal fully supports the contention of 
the government of the United States. This is no more than could 
be expected from a scientific journal. The whole problem of the fur 
seal is a question of fact, and these facts are capable of but one 
interpretation, unless they be garbled, as was recently done by one 
Englishman high in authority. In a word, the position of the British 
government is indefensible ; but it is hardly possible to hope for any 
sensible arrangements until there is a change in the personnel of 
those who are directing the British Empire. 
