The Agassiz Memorials, 271 



Resolved, That the Board of Regents deeply 

 sympathise with the family of the deceased, on 

 account of their sad bereavement, and that a copy 

 of these resolutions be transmitted to them. 



DR. PARKER'S OPINION OF AGASSIZ. 



Mr. Chancellor: — It may seem presumptuous 

 in me to rise to move the adoption of the resolutions 

 submitted. 



To calculate the distance and magnitude of the 

 sun, requires an astronomer, and to analyse its 

 chemical properties is the province of the spectro- 

 scopist, but multitudes who are neither astronomers 

 nor spectroscopists can delight in the revelations 

 which are made in regard to that luminary. 



I am not a scientist ; still, I can appreciate, 

 in some degree, the labours of one who shone a 

 star of the first magnitude in the firmament of 

 science ! 



It is sixteen years since I first met Professor 

 Agassiz, whose death the Board of Regents so 

 deeply lament. It was at commencement at Har- 

 vard University, in 1858, the first year after my 

 return from a long residence in China. The Em- 

 peror Napoleon had made tempting offers in the 

 way of high position to Professor Agassiz to go to 

 Paris. Intense solicitude on the part of his friends 

 in Cambridge and the country generally, was felt as 

 to his decision. It was on this occasion that their 

 anxious suspense was relieved, as Professor Agassiz, 

 after dinner, rose and announced his determination 



