up the Rio Negro. 



H5 



On arriving at Para Agassiz was much broken 

 down and fatigued by the arduous duties of the 

 trip, yet he could scarcely restrain himself when new 

 fields opened all about and drew him on. Here 

 he found a letter from the Emperor, who announced 

 that he had a New Year's present for him in the 

 shape of a collection of fishes from the southern 

 rivers of South America, which, with the eighteen 

 hundred species that Agassiz had secured, made a 

 most valuable collection. The great variety of fish 

 life impressed him constantly, and in a letter to the 

 Emperor he said: ''Another side of this subject, 

 still more curious perhaps, is the intensity with 

 which life is manifested in these waters. All the 

 rivers of Europe united, from the Tagus to the 

 Volga, do not nourish one hundred and fifty species 

 of fresh-water fishes ; and yet in a little lake near 

 Manaos, called Lago Hyanuary, the surface of which 

 covers hardly four or five hundred square yards, we 

 have discovered more than two hundred distinct 

 species, the greater part of which have not been ob- 

 served elsewhere. What a contrast ! " 



The expedition throughout Brazil was continued 

 for sixteen months, and its results were given to the 

 world, and the friends of science who made the 

 journey possible, in a joint volume — A Journey in 

 Brazil^ by Professor and Mrs. Agassiz. 



It was a hfe in the forest, drifting along with the 

 wonders of tropical nature on every hand ; and that 

 Agassiz made the most of it is demonstrated by the 

 present collections of the fauna of Brazil in the 



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