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NATUKAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



PENIKESE — A Reminiscence. 



By One of its Pupils. 



Copyright secured 189?. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE JOURNEY. 



Penikese is a name ever to be remembered by me 

 with the greatest of pleasure, — for it was there I 

 passed some of the happiest hours of my life. I re- 

 member it all: the ground, with its undulating billows 

 sodded with the sparing green and brown of low 

 grasses or covered with sandy loam; the waters, with 

 their rusty and smutty rocks rearing their jagged 

 edges above the quiet expanse of the bay, or dashed 

 against by turbulent waves; and the boulders, with 

 their whitened faces; lying confusedly as they had 

 been cast upon the wave-beaten beaches or strewn, 

 like ancient sentimels, here and there about the 

 fields; — I picture them all as if it were but yesterday. 

 Then the buildings — the laboratories, the lecture- 

 rooms, and the professors' house — (the last the most 

 conspicuous of them all), mean in themselves yet 

 dear from their associations, — I think of each and I 

 love each. Ah! Shall I ever experience such free, 

 such happy, such truly joyous hours again? But 

 let me tell you how I happened going to Penikese 

 Island, and what I saw, heard, and did there. 



I had been sitting, one fine morning in early 

 spring, by a cosy grate fire, perusing the columns of 

 my favorite morning paper, when my eyes fell upon 

 a short paragraph which instantly arrested my atten- 

 tion. It was the notice of a "Summer School of 

 Natural History," and read as follows: — 



"Mr. John Anderson, of New York, has presented to a 

 body of Trustees, the island called Penikese, in Buzzard's 

 Bay, for the site for a Summer School of Natural History, to 

 be in the charge of Professor Louis Agassiz, whose purpose 

 is to give free instruction, to teachers of the science, in cor- 

 rect methods of study in this most important branch of edu- 

 cation." 



The subject was one of peculiar interest to me, 

 and, as I read, visions of what a grand opportunity 

 would thus be afforded to study Nature so filled my 

 mind, that they took complete possession of my 

 senses. 



Natural History was always and is now for that 

 matter, my favorite study; one might almost say I 

 had been born and bred a Naturalist. From my 

 earliest recollection I was often made supremely 

 happy by the present of a robin's or a sparrow's egg, 

 or some other similarly common natural object, from 

 the bounteous collection of a friend. To me, it was 

 untold gold. If an egg, I would hold the delicate 

 shell in my fingers, slowly and carefully turn it from 

 side to side, examine its glossy surface and perfect 

 proportions, look at the holes in its extremities to see 

 how thick the shell itself might be, and often — though 

 I hardly dare to tell it for fear of being laughed at — 

 wonder how much wind had been required to expel 

 its contents. From my first egg I soon reached my 

 hundredth — and more. Then I formed the plan of 

 making a general collection in all of the different 

 branches of Natural History which, carried into ef- 

 fect, was successful beyond my most sanguine ex- 

 pectation. Thus, at an early period of my life, in 

 the full glow of scientific ardor, a short and almost 

 insignificant newspaper paragraph — insignificant, per- 

 haps, to all save a few — appeared at once to open to 

 me a possible path to scientific fame and attainment 

 that in my youthful ambition seemed limitless. The 

 opportunity and the Master, the best that the coun- 



try, nay the world, then afforded! I immediately ap- 

 plied for admission, and received, by return of mail, 

 an answer from Professor Agassiz himself — in 

 his own hand-writing and with his own autograph at- 

 tached — accepting me as his pupil and inclosing full 

 instructions. Thenceforward I could eat, drink, 

 think, and dream of nothing save Penikese. Oh, how 

 I longed for the time to come when I might journey 

 thither. 



At length the day for my departure arrived. How 

 eagerly and with what a glad heart I packed my 

 trunk and valise and started tor the nearest railroad 

 station. My friends must certainly have thought me 

 hard-hearted as I left them, shouting my good-byes 

 from the top of the coach to which I had sprung, 

 with as much apparent joy as if a rich Uncle had just 

 died and bequeathed me a fortune, and I was forth- 

 with going into the possession of it. 



I was soon on board the train and travelling toward 

 my destination. How slowly we appeared to move. 

 It seemed as if I might easily have outdistanced this 

 or any other train, today, cn foot, — and yet we must 

 have been going at fairly rapid speed. Having com- 

 posed myself as best I could, I found amusement for 

 a time, in watching from the window, as they passed 

 in quick succession, the fields, covered with curling 

 stalks of young grain or downy with soft heads of 

 timothy and other grasses; the new-mown hay lying 

 in loosely scattered heaps or gracefully-curled swaths 

 upon its bristling stubble; or, here and there, a soli- 

 tary person still working at his daily toil. Close by, 

 in a nearer portion of one of the meadows, a tall, 

 lank individual was standing on an immense load of 

 hay, upon which he was stowing away fork-full after 

 fork-full as it was pitched to him by an equally tall, 

 lank individual, who was standing on the ground be- 

 low; while a fine pair of blacks stood, in lamb-like 

 attitude, just in front of the load. Another moment, 

 and, frightened by the noise of the train, the blacks 

 were scouring the fields, like a pair of wild prairie 

 mustangs, bearing with them the fast-decreasing pile, 

 — while one of the tall, lank individuals was assisting 

 the other to rise from the ground. Then we dashed 

 by to where a number of coatless workers were rak- 

 ing the hay, with the utmost diligence, into small, 

 rounded piles, that it might the more easily be pitch- 

 ed upon the cart which should arrive for it. Past 

 these we went, to a large swamp dotted here and 

 there with hummocks where grasses, huge, rough 

 brakes, and delicate ferns grew in luxuriance and 

 abundance; and upon some of them, nearest the 

 track, I could even distinguish wild flowers rearing 

 aloft their slender stems and delicate heads, and tell 

 the species of many of them. Then we came to a 

 long, thickly-wooded stretch, where a forest of trees, 

 large and small, extended far along the track on 

 either side, arching their tops and intermingling 

 their branches as if they would bind us with their 

 mystic spell; but, like a prisoner who would not be 

 bound, we dashed through and by them, only to 

 emerge into the light of still more fields, and still 

 new scenes. Weary with gazing at these, I then, 

 tried to count the telegraph poles as they appeared 

 to whiz by us, or watched the wires as they travelled, 

 or appeared to travel, now up and now down my 

 window, as the height of one pole above another or 

 the inequalities of the road-bed showed themselves. 

 Thus amusing myself, now with this scene now with 

 that, we journeyed on, hour after hour, until, at 

 length, the scene materially changed and salt water 



[TO BE CONTINUED.] 



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