446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
of the coral reefs of the world. Five years would have been required 
for the preparation of this crowning work which would have borne the 
same relation to his coral-reef studies what his “ Three Cruises of the 
Blake ” did to his early deep-sea work—an epitome of the whole subject. 
For eighty-two years the Agassiz father and son had been active leaders 
in science, and he hoped for five more years of productivity. 
But this was not to be. He had for several years been suffering 
from an impairment of the circulation, and had retreated for rest and 
recreation to the genial climate of Egypt and southern Europe. 
He was returning from England in the steamship Adriatic and 
never did he appear to be in happier mood than upon the night of the 
twenty-sixth of March, 1910, but on the morning of the twenty-seventh 
he failed to appear, and when his son Maximilian entered his father’s 
cabin it was seen that he had fallen into his last long sleep. Many a 
guarded secret had the ocean revealed to him, and it was fitting that 
far from the sight of land with only the waves around there came to 
him the mystery of death. 
When I was young and struggling, his hand befriended me, and his 
great mind gave direction to the thought of the life I have led, and I 
think upon his spirit with gratitude and reverence, for he was my 
master in science. 
