Williams : Louis Agassiz. 



29 



Tufts broad, extensive, solid and dense. Stems slender, elongate, 

 1 to 2 inches, copiously radiculose below, repeatedly innovating, with 

 fasciculate branches above ; branches without radicles. Leaves as 

 in the minor form. 



Hah. Muddy banks of the Wye, near Builth, in company with 

 Tortula cylindrica, Hypna, &c. 



LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



By Rev. S. Fletcher Williams. 

 ( Continued.) 



In the winter of 1865, having long been engaged with untiring zeal in 

 the cultivation of his favourite pursuits, Agassiz was compelled by the 

 state of his health to rest from work, and seek change of scene and 

 climate. " Europe," he says, " was proposed ; but, though there is 

 much enjoyment for a naturalist in contact with the active scientific 

 life of the Old World, there is little intellectual rest. Towards Brazil 

 I was drawn by a life-long desire. After the death of Spix, when a 

 student of twenty years of age, I had been employed by Mastius to 

 describe the fishes they had brought with them from their celebrated 

 Brazilian journey. From that time, the wish to study this fauna in 

 the regions where it belongs had been an ever-recurring thought with 

 me ; a scheme deferred for want of opportunity, but never quite 

 forgotten." But Agassiz was quite unwilling to visit Brazil on a mere 

 vacation tour. To him, as to all true scientific workers, complete rest 

 was distasteful. On the other hand, he was conscious that he could 

 effect little working alone. " I could not forget," he wrote, " that 

 had I only the necessary means, I might make collections on this 

 journey which would place the Museum in Cambridge (U.S.) on a 

 level with the first institution of the kind. But for this a working 

 force would be needed, and I saw no possibility of providing for such 

 an undertaking." Whilst he was still considering where to apply for 

 aid in this emergency, Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, unasked, offered to pay 

 all the expenses, personal and scientific, of six assistants. Agassiz 

 accepted this munificent offer. Let it be remarked, in passing, that 

 subsequently Mr. Thayer did much more than he had promised, 

 continuing to meet all the expenses which w^ere incurred until the last 

 specimen was stored in the Cambridge Museum. The assistants who 

 sailed with Agassiz were, Mr. James Burkhardt, the artist ; Mr. John G. 

 Anthony, conchologist ; Mr. Frederick C. Hartt and Mr. Orestes St. 



