I02 



Louis Agassiz. 



letter was from Dr. Bache, offering him a six-weeks' 

 tour on the Florida Reef to answer certain questions 

 regarding the growth and formation of coral. Noth- 

 ing could have been offered Agassiz that would 

 have deHghted him more. We can well imagine 

 that Darwin's writings on coral reefs had excited his 

 interest and that he longed to make incursions into 

 this most fascinating of all fields of zoology. Dr. 

 Bache gave him the entire control of a vessel, and 

 the expedition started well equipped with appliances 

 and assistants. 



One result of this expedition was to provide the 

 growing collection at Cambridge with fine specimens 

 of corals, sea fans, shells, fishes, in fact, a very 

 fair representation of the fauna of the gulf as found 

 at Tortugas, and, which now rest in the fine museum 

 at Cambridge. Agassiz had stopped in Charleston, 

 S. C, on his way south, there forming extremely 

 pleasant acquaintances, and in 185 1 he received the 

 offer of a professorship in the Charleston Medical 

 College which, curiously enough, he found to be 

 more remunerative than his present position, as the 

 professorship at Harvard required him to give out- 

 side lectures to bring the salary up to his expenses. 

 This, and the fact that hard work was telling upon 

 him and that he required a quieter life, inclined him 

 to accept, and in 1851 we find him installed and at 

 work in anew laboratory on Sullivan's Island, which 

 was washed by the warm waters of the gulf which 

 brought the forms he now had become familiar with 

 directly to his doors. Here the naturalist passed 

 many happy hours, obtaining what was a rest to 



