Life in Cambridge. 1 1 1 



which I have with all true lovers of science respecting 

 your important undertaking, Contributions to the 

 Natural History of the United States!' This series 

 was originally intended to embrace the facts he had 

 accumulated in America, — a work of great expense 

 that was carried through by the aid of Francis. C. 

 Gray, who aroused so great interest in the subject that 

 a remarkable subscription list was obtained. In the 

 Preface Agassiz says : I must beg my European 

 readers to remember that this work is written in 

 America, and more especially for Americans ; and 

 that the community to which it is particularly ad- 

 dressed has very different wants from those of the 

 reading public in Europe. There is not a class of 

 learned men here distinct from the other cultivated 

 members of the community. On the contrary, so 

 general is the desire for knowledge, that I expect to 

 see my book read by operatives, by fishermen, by 

 farmers, quite as extensively as by the students in 

 our colleges or by the learned professions, and it is 

 but proper that I should endeavour to make myself 

 understood by all.'* 



The series of ten volumes was never completed, 

 but the four that were, stand to-day a monument to 

 his energy and to his extraordinary fact-collecting 

 faculty as exhibited in his American life. 



The completion of the first volume celebrated his 

 fiftieth birthday. 



On the eve of this anniversary his pupils gave 

 him a serenade. As midnight came their young 

 voices rose in a grand choral of Bach's, and when 

 the master appeared, bewildered and delighted, he 



