84 



Louis Agassiz, 



portant zoological works, as Etudes Critiques siir les 

 Mollusques Fossiles, a most elaborate work containing 

 one hundred plates, a volume on tertiary shells 

 with fourteen plates, also a work on fossil echino- 

 derms, with thirty-seven plates. Add to these the 

 No7nenclator Zodlogicus and his Bibliographia Zodlo- 

 gice et Geologic^, upon which he worked at this time, 

 and we may form some conception of the labours of 

 this remarkable man. 



The Prince of Canino, Charles Bonaparte, was, 

 in all probability, among the first to discuss with 

 Agassiz a proposed visit to America. In a letter to 

 Agassiz in 1842, this friend and naturalist wrote: 



I indulge myself in dreaming of this journey to 

 America in which you have promised to accompany 

 me. What a relaxation ! and at the same time 

 what an amount of useful work." 



In another letter he begged Agassiz to keep him 

 in mind for the American trip, as in 1844 he would 

 find himself free to go. That Bonaparte appreciated 

 that the move would mean much to science is shown 

 by the sentence, '^The mere anticipation of this 

 journey is delightful to me, since I shall have you at 

 my side, and may thus feel sure that it will make an 

 epoch in science.'' 



The stupendous undertakings of Agassiz, while 

 they were far-reaching in their scientific value were 

 not remunerative, hence he was continually in finan- 

 cial straits. These difficulties became so overpower- 

 ing that he was forced to write to Bonaparte that the 

 trip to the United States, though tempting, was im- 

 possible unless he could go under conditions that 



