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LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS

OF

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2017 with funding from
Boston Public Library

https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollectOOagas_0

LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS

OF

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

WITH

A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORK

EDITED BY

G. R. AGASSIZ

WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER
ILLUSTRATIONS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
(ftbe fttoergide pretftf Cambri&0e
1913

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY GEORGE R. AGASSIZ

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published October IQ13

PREFACE

Any one who attempts to present a faithful impression
of Alexander Agassiz’s life is confronted with unusual
difficulties, for his versatile and restless energy covered
a very extraordinarily wide field, and his personality was
so large that we are hampered in our view of him by
our own limitations. The morphologist considers his
earlier work the most important ; the geologist, that his
reputation rests chiefly on his extensive investigations
of coral reefs ; the zoologist remembers his vast collec-
tions of marine life gathered in a dozen extended voy-
ages widely scattered over the surface of the globe ; and
to still others he appears as the creator of a vast museum
and one of the greatest benefactors of the oldest univer-
sity in America ; while those who delve among ancient
civilizations and primitive races might well be surprised
at the extent of his poaching in their preserves, a mere
detour in his many wanderings in the pursuit of science
or search of health. In the world of affairs he was
known as an extremely capable and successful mining
man, who was said to employ his leisure moments in
some sort of scientific study.

When I first began to collect material for a life of
my father, I hoped that it would be possible to tell it
in his own words. But grave objections to such a plan
soon appeared ; one of the foremost being the mysteri-
ous disappearance of most of his later correspondence
with his stepmother. It is, moreover, a much more dif-

VI

PREFACE

ficult matter to make a characteristic collection of letters
now than it was in past generations. Uautres temps ,
d’autres mceurs ; to-day we no longer keep trunks full
of old letters stored in our attics, nor do we write the
leisurely and carefully penned epistles of our fore-
fathers, while the roomy lofts that harbored them have
vanished.

After it became apparent that it would be necessary
to cast this book in its present form, I would gladly
have handed the material to a more experienced bio-
grapher. Since no suitable person was available, it has
fallen to me to complete the work, for lack of a fitting
Boswell.

I wish to take this opportunity of most cordially
thanking the many individuals who have kindly allowed
me to examine my father’s letters and have assisted in
numerous other ways. I trust that they will consider
their number a sufficient excuse for not mentioning
them personally.

Most especially do I wish to express my warm appre-
ciation for the help of the following persons : first and
foremost, Mr. Samuel Henshaw, the present Director
of the so-called “ Agassiz Museum,” who has given
no end of invaluable assistance ; my wife, whose sym-
pathy and help have been no small factors in finishing
this book ; my aunt, Mrs. H. L. Higginson, who has
furnished much of the material for the earlier pages ;
Miss Elizabeth H. Clark, my father’s secretary for
nearly thirty years ; Sir John Murray ; Dr. A. G. Mayer ;
Dr. H. B. Bigelow ; Professor H. L. Clark; and the pre-
sent Mr. Q. A. Shaw.

My warmest thanks are also due to Professor Bar-
rett Wendell, who has kindly read the manuscript,

PREFACE

Vll

and has suggested many final touches. I likewise beg to
acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. E. T. Brewster,
who has been at the pains to examine the work at
two different stages, and has offered much valuable
criticism.

G. R. A.

CONTENTS

I. Descent and Boyhood 1

II. First Years in America .... 14

III. The Museum becomes his Headquarters . . 28

IV. The Calumet and Hecla Mine ... 53

V. The Revision of the Echini . . . .91

YI. Lake Titicaca 124

VII. The Newport Laboratory 151

VIII. Three Cruises of the Blake . . . 165

IX. Mexico and India 191

X. More Wanderings and Work . . . 213

XI. The First Albatross Expedition . . . 243

XII. Coral Reefs 269

XIII. The Bahamas and Bermudas .... 288
XIY. The Great Barrier Reef .... 310

XY. The Fijis 322

XYI. The Tropical Pacific 345

XYII. The Maldives ....... 380

XYIII. Later Years 397

XIX. Eastern Pacific Expedition .... 419
Index 449

ILLUSTRATIONS

Alexander Agassiz ( photogravure ) . . . Frontispiece

Cecile Braun ( photogravure ) 4

Alexander Agassiz, at the age of 12 . . . .12

Anna Russell ( photogravure ) 28

Alexander Agassiz, about 1860 ( photogravure ) . . 44

The Cambridge House 126

In the Newport Laboratory 156

The Deck of the Blake 174

The Albatross 244

Emptying the Trawl 254

Laboratory on the Deck of the Croyden . . . 316

Figures showing the Development of an Atoll . 338

The Sultan on board the Amra .

. 386

Diagram of a Maldive Atoll

. 388

“Castle Hill,” Newport .

. 398

Elizabeth C. Agassiz ....

404

The University Museum .

. 416

Easter Island Images ....

. 428

Chart 1. Atlantic Expeditions

In front cover pocket

Chart 2. Pacific Expeditions

In back cover pocket

LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS

OF

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

CHAPTER I

DESCENT AND BOYHOOD

Agassiz is not an uncommon name in that part of
Switzerland known as the Canton de Vaud. In this re-
gion, about halfway between the western end of Lake
Neuchatel and Lake Geneva, lies the little village of
Bavois, the cradle of the family from which springs the
American branch. Here, for many generations, “ Les
Agassiz de Bavois ” appear to have been small landed
proprietors. The family can be traced as far back as
1539, when the name of one Pierre Agassiz of Bavois
appears on some public documents. His direct descend-
ant, the Rev. Jean Francois Agassiz, died in 1681 while
he was pastor at Payerne. After him, in direct descent
from father to son, there were five generations of Pro-
testant ministers who had parishes in various towns and
villages of Switzerland.1

The grandfather of the subject of this biography,,
and last of this long line of ministers, was the Rev.
Louis Benjamin Rodolphe Agassiz. The inscription on

1 A member of this family, David Agassiz, went to Paris with Necker
in 1753 ; and subsequently to London, where he founded the English
branch of the family, whose members have occupied honorable positions
in the army, the navy, and the civil service. An English Agassiz settled
in British Columbia in 1852, where his descendants are still existent.

2

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

a piece of silver given him by the municipality of Orbe,
a much-valued heirloom in the possession of a great-
grandson, attests that his influence was as great in the
schools as in the pulpit. He seems to have been of a
liberal turn of mind, for he used to go out shooting
early of a Sunday morning, and, returning homeward as
the congregation was gathering, it was his habit to lean
his gun against the church doorway, when he went in
to preach his sermon. He married a member of a family
of well-known Swiss physicians, Rose Mayor of Cudre-
fin on Lake Neuchatel. A tradition among her descend-
ants declares that in the family councils of her day her
firmness of wdll was the deciding force.

Louis Agassiz, the eldest surviving child of this mar-
riage, was born in 1807 while his father was settled in
the parsonage of the little village of Motier on the Lake
of Morat, to the east of Lake Neuchatel. Owing to the
slender means of the family, his mother was much op-
posed to his desire to become a naturalist, so he acquired
the foundation of his scientific education while fitting
himself to be a doctor of medicine. This double devo-
tion caused his mother no little uneasiness ; with much
shrewdness she held that, for a penniless boy, the life of
a naturalist, delightful if one had an income of fifty
thousand francs a year, was little less than sheer madness.
So for a short period he actually practiced medicine ;
it was not possible, howrever, to keep him long from the
path for which nature intended him, and he was soon
started on that brilliant career, of which no description
is necessary.1

While making the rounds of the German universities,

1 See Louis Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence, by Elizabeth C.
Agassiz.

DESCENT AND BOYHOOD

3

taking a semester here and another there, as is still cus-
tomary in pursuing a university education on the Con-
tinent of Europe, Louis Agassiz fell in with young
Alexander Braun, afterwards a distinguished botanist,
son of Carl Braun, Postmaster-General of the Grand
Duchy of Baden. The two became boon companions,
and through the resulting friendship Louis met Braun’s
sister Cecile, who became his wife, and the mother of
Alexander Agassiz.

Her father, Carl Braun, the son of a village school-
master, was a man of rare sagacity, great energy, and
affectionate disposition. His leisure hours were devoted
to scientific studies, chiefly astronomy and mineralogy.
His wife, a woman of much intelligence and charm, had
enjoyed all the advantages of an unusually liberal and
careful education. In their spacious house at Carlsruhe
their four children1 lived in an atmosphere that was
delightful and unique. The father possessed an admira-
ble collection of minerals and plants, and his sons were
provided with work-tables, microscopes, and books of
reference. The father’s habit of talking over all the
questions of the day with his family, the mother’s en-
couragement of everything that could cultivate a love
of beauty, made the family life of the Brauns particu-
larly stimulating. Music was one of the favorite pas-
times of the brothers and sisters, who were constantly
practicing four-part songs, which they sang at home and
during their walks.

In such surroundings Cecile grew up, shy, reserved,
sensitive, and artistic. Her gifted nature found its ex-

1 The youngest member of the family, Maximilian, afterward became
a noted mining engineer, a fact worth recording in view of his nephew
Alexander’s achievements in a like capacity.

4

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

pression in a very rare talent for drawing. The Agassiz
family still possess some beautifully drawn portraits
from her pencil that are remarkable for an unusual
combination of delicacy and vigor. Her son Alexander
doubtlessly inherited from her his great facility in
drawing objects of natural history with such accuracy
and beauty.

After her marriage to Louis Agassiz the couple
settled in Neuchatel where he had been lately appointed
Professor of Natural History. Cecile Agassiz never felt
quite at home in Neuchatel ; her nature did not easily
adapt itself to new surroundings, new circumstances,
and a new society. She missed the familiar stimulating
intercourse of a home where music, poetry, and litera-
ture were part of the everyday life. But she always took
a sympathetic interest in her husband's work, and her
rare artistic talent enabled her to be of the greatest
assistance to him. Some of the best drawings in his
“ Fossil Fishes," and “ Fresh Water Fishes" are from
her hand.1 In her character we have the clue to the
curious fact that the elder and younger Agassiz be-
longed to distinctly different types.

The very general belief that men of unusual abili-
ties inherit many of their qualities from their mothers
offers a ready explanation for the marked difference in
the characters of Louis Agassiz and his son. Alexander
inherited from him a love of science and an extraordi-
nary ability and thirst for work; but his sensitive and

1 The original drawings of the Fossil Fishes are now in the British
Museum, for which they were bought at one of Louis Agassiz’s frequent
moments of financial need. Some years ago when his daughter, Mrs. H.
L. Iligginson, was examining them there, the young assistant who had
been detailed to show her the drawings remarked, “I notice that those
signed by the artist ‘ C. A.’ are much the most beautiful.”

wastes l yctybcu&n/

DESCENT AND BOYHOOD

5

apprehensive temperament he acquired directly from
his mother.

Naturally it has been sometimes the habit to compare
the two men. But beyond the fact that both had a pas-
sionate love of science, pursued by very similar methods
of work, and that the son followed in the footsteps of
the father in developing the Museum that the latter had
founded, they had less in common than might be sup-
posed. The father’s optimism was always a cause of
anxiety and trouble; the son possessed a singularly clear
sight for the rocks ahead, and a very marked ability to
steer his course clear of them. The habits of thought
of each were necessarily different. Louis was the last
of the great naturalists who believed in the special cre-
ation of species, and the theological tenets that it im-
plied. Alexander, though always extremely cautious in
any speculations that did not rest on a solid foundation
of ascertained fact, passed his early scientific life under
the stimulus that the teachings of Darwin gave to a new
school of science.

The elder Agassiz, buoyant and robust, loved appre-
ciation, was fond of teaching, and had a genius for
stimulating his students. More especially after his com-
ing to America he was preeminent as a great teacher.
Few people can now realize how intense an interest he
kindled in science wherever hew’ent in the New World,
or how eagerly people of all kinds thronged to his lec-
tures in communities not easily roused to abstract enr
thusiasms or given to scientific excitement. Alexander,
retiring and reserved, had no gift or desire to excite
popular interest ; he hated notoriety, disliked, teaching,
and while his activities extended over many fields, his
intellectual life was devoted to research. The essential

6

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

difference between the two men may be suggested in the
statement that one was temperamentally a great teacher
and the other a great investigator.

Jeffries Wyman, a well-known American naturalist
who died in 1874, once said that Alexander Agassiz had
already contributed more to the advancement of pure
science than his father. If such a statement could be
considered seriously then, it must have been much more
true in 1910, at the end of an active and busy life de-
voted chiefly to scientific research.

Louis Agassiz belonged to that type of naturalist
which has the gift and the desire to interest the general
public. Men of this kind are fortunate in achieving a
reputation in some degree commensurate with what is
their due. Such men as Alexander Agassiz seldom re-
ceive an adequate recognition from any but their peers.

Alexander Agassiz was born on December 17, 1835,
in the simplest of little apartments at Neuchatel. He
was the eldest of the three children of Louis Agassiz, a
boy and two girls. Curiously enough, it is not certain
what really was his full name. As a young man he
supposed it to be Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe, and
when he became an American citizen his naturaliz-
ation papers were so made out. Later in life, however,
he discovered among some old family documents a
certificate of birth that referred to him as Alexander
Rodolphe Albert. His earliest recorded adventure is an
expedition he made when only five or six with his
mother and her sister to the valley of the Aar, where
his father was studying the glacier, encamped on its
moraine in a rough stone shelter under a huge over-
hanging boulder known as the “ Hotel des Neuchatel-
ois.” An old lithograph shows the party clambering up

DESCENT AND BOYHOOD

7

to the encampment, with one of the guides carrying
Alexander in a large basket strapped to his shoulders.

In due time he went to school at the Gymnase of
Neuchatel. A number of small books, the prizes of his
school life, preserved from those days, show him to have
been a faithful little scholar. What is known of the early
life of the boy foreshadows his later years. He was
rather quiet, with the bewitching smile so characteristic
of the man. One of his cousins remembers him as very
gentle and patient in their noisy games. When she came
to play in his house, she saw a certain wardrobe with a
drawer where the little chap, already a collector, kept his
treasures, mostly mysterious objects in alcohol. When-
ever his playfellows approached too near this sacred
storehouse, he would exclaim earnestly, “ Please don’t
touch my anatomy ! ”

Another anecdote relieves one of any suspicion that
he might have lacked his full share of a healthy boy’s
mischievousness, and shows that he developed at an
early age his characteristically democratic tendencies.
The small boys of Neuchatel were much interested in
politics. They were arrayed in two parties, the Royalists
and the Reds. The former, who consisted of the sons
of the nobility and “ Swells,” were devoted to Prussia,
and loyal subjects of Friederich Wilhelm ; the Reds were
Swiss who wished Neuchatel, like the other cantons,
to form part of Switzerland, and resented the author-
ity of the Governor, who was appointed by the King
of Prussia. The Governor, a retired Prussian general,
and a martinet who liked to show his authority in the
smallest details, was so lacking in the rudiments of humor
as to complain to Louis Agassiz that his little son was not
saluting him politely, and Alex was punished. Meeting

8

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

the Governor on the street the next day, the boy saluted
him in the most abject possible manner. The Governor
complained again, whereupon the elder Agassiz, much
incensed, gave his son a sound thrashing, for the father
was a great admirer of the King, who, at the suggestion
of Humboldt, had assisted him in many ways. Not con-
tent with this, the Governor singled out his diminutive
adversary at a school celebration and held him up for
reproof before a large audience.

When it was Alexander’s turn to receive his prizes
from the Governor, he was so angry that he refused
them with scorn, turned his back on the representative
of the King, and, to the delight of the Reds, walked
out of the room. This led to further difficulties at home.

Infuriated at the Governor’s treatment, this youthful
patriot collected a band of confederates of his own age,
stormed the castle on the night of a large dinner party
at which his father was present, and smashed all the
windows of the state dining-hall. Louis Agassiz, suspect-
ing the instigator of this outrage, rushed home, but
found his son safely in bed and apparently asleep. Com-
menting on this episode in after years, Alexander Agassiz
remarked that it was perhaps fortunate he emigrated to
the United States at an early age, as with his views he
would surely in due time have been hung or shot.

The salary of Louis Agassiz was entirely insufficient
to support his family and publish his scientific works.
By 1846 he had exhausted the resources of his relatives,
friends, and, indeed, the entire little community of Neu-
chatel, who came generously to his assistance. He gladly,
therefore, accepted a subsidy from the Prussian Crown,
obtained through the influence of Humboldt, to make a
scientific exploration in the United States.

DESCENT AND BOYHOOD

9

Leaving Neuchatel in March, without his family, he
passed some months in Paris among his scientific friends,
busy with the publication of his “Systeme Glaciaire.,,
When this was finished, he went to England, where he
was anxious to see his friend Sir Charles Lyell, who,
having lately given some lectures at the Lowell Institute
in Boston, had arranged with Mr. John Amory Lowell
that Professor Agassiz, on his arrival there, should
deliver a course. Thus the first link was forged in the
chain which bound Louis Agassiz and his son to the
New World, and fixed them in the community centred
about Harvard College.

In view of her husband’s departure, Mrs. Agassiz and
her two girls had already joined her brother, Alexander
Braun, who was then Professor of Botany at Carlsruhe.
For some months, however, Alexander remained at Neu-
chatel to continue his studies at Monsieur Godet’s board-
ing-school.

In 1847 he joined his mother at Freiburg in Baden,
where her brother had become Director of the Botanical
Garden. Here Agassiz went to the Burger School and
was fortunate in coming under the influence of two such
eminent men as his uncle, Alexander Braun, and von
Siebold, the naturalist, to whom he undoubtedly owed
much of his taste for natural history. Professor Braun
allowed Alexander to join the excursions that he took
with his pupils in the Black Forest, and von Siebold
gave him aid and advice in his entomological collection
which was sufficiently valuable to induce the savant, by
way of payment, to reserve the choicest specimens for
himself, much to the disgust of the embryo naturalist.

There was in Freiburg a young clergyman who made
it part of his duty to take a number of boys on tramps

10

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

through the Black Forest. On these walking trips the
boys put up in farmyards, slept on hay, and lived on
bread, butter, cheese and milk, which cost only a few
cents. Those who could not stand the life were gradually
weeded out, till at the end of each outing the little band
consisted only of hardy boys who could easily walk their
thirty to thirty-five miles a day. On the last day of one
of these expeditions they walked nearly fifty miles to
catch a train returning to Freiburg.

Mrs. Agassiz and her little family lived in most
straitened circumstances in a tiny apartment near the
Schwaben-Thor, one of the city gates. She greatly loved
the quaint old walled cathedral town, and its beautiful
surroundings. Although now an invalid, she was still
able to take short excursions into the country with her
children. Here she would establish herself with her
sketch-book, and draw the flowers that her little girls
brought her, or likenesses of the peasants, while Alex
was busy collecting butterflies or caterpillars, in whose
development he was already interested.

The Freiburg winter, with its bracing and sunny air,
was an especially happy time for the children. Alexander
now became a proficient skater, an art in which as a
young man he excelled. Some of the meadows were
regularly flooded; and here the boy and his mother spent
many happy hours, while she sat in one of the high-
backed sleds of that region, which he skillfully guided
through the gay crowd of all ages who glided grace-
fully over the ice.

At home Mrs. Agassiz superintended her children’s
drawing, and accompanied them on the guitar, for music
and drawing were as much a part of the daily life as
reading and writing. In accordance with this custom

DESCENT AND BOYHOOD

11

Agassiz was made to study the violin, which he loathed.
Perhaps practicing in the Cathedral on early winter
mornings, when his hands were so numb that he could
scarcely hold the bow, did not tend to lessen his distaste ;
especially as, when he was too cold to play properly, his
teacher used to rap him over the knuckles for not doing
better. At all events, he never touched a violin after
coming to America. Although he disliked music, he re-
mained an excellent judge of it, and no one could have
been more sensitive to a false note ; but he preferred
silence to the best of music, and bad music he found
insufferable. In the happy days of his married life, how-
ever, it was not uncommon to hear him, while busy over
his work, unconsciously whistling the latest air in perfect
tune. He was said to be a good critic of the technique
of the violin : once toward the end of his life, when
crossing the Pacific, he went up to the first violin of
the orchestra, that now deepens the gloom of a dinner
at sea, and asked him where he had learned to bow, as
that was the way they taught youngsters in Freiburg
when he was a boy. A dislike for music is probably not
so uncommon as many people suppose, but it is seldom
found in connection with so much knowledge of the art.

Some one had given the children of the little family
at Freiburg all the volumes of Schubert’s “ Natural
History,” full of colored plates of animals drawn to
scale, with explanatory text. One of their favorite
amusements was to take very large sheets of paper on
which they copied these illustrations, increasing them
with a pair of compasses to their natural size. When they
had made a sufficient number of pictures, they would
pin them on the wall of their playroom, learn the text
by heart, and hold an exhibition. One groschen was

12

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

the price of admission to the entertainment, which con-
sisted in the reciting of the text appropriate to each
illustration.

The most exciting of Alexander’s experiences at Frei-
burg occurred on Easter morning, 1848. It was the
year of the Revolution that swept over Germany. The
insurgents held possession of the town, while the gov-
ernment was massing troops outside, to meet Hecker’s
expected approach. Mrs. Agassiz was seriously ill in
bed, and did not realize the gravity of the situation.
Unable to celebrate the Easter holiday with her child-
ren, she allowed them to go to their Uncle Alexander’s,
who lived about two miles outside the city. No sooner
had they arrived at their uncle’s than firing was heard,
and they were sent back. Their walk home was through
a scene of great confusion, squads of soldiers marching
hurriedly, men on stretchers, people shouting, “ Hecker
is coming ! Hecker is coming ! ” On reaching the city
gate they found it barricaded. The girls began to cry,
but their small protector kept quite cool, opened nego-
tiations with those on the inside and persuaded them to
let the little noncombatants in. When at last safely at
home, they bolted the doors, closed the shutters, and
lighted candles. The girls tried to busy themselves at
their mother’s bedside, and through the chinks in the
closed blinds Alex watched the capture of the town by
the government troops. Several cannon-balls fell into
the attic, and the blind through wrhich he was looking
was grazed and broken by a ball which made his cheek
feel hot as it whizzed past.

As Mrs. Agassiz became weaker, the thoughtful child
grew more quiet and serious, for he adored her and
must have realized that her end was near. He now took

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ AT THE AGE OF TWELVE
From a drawing by his mother

DESCENT AND BOYHOOD

13

charge* of the pathetic little household, kept the small
accounts, did the errands, went to market every day,
and strove like the true mite of a man that he was to
relieve his mother of anxiety. In the summer of 1848
she died and the children were taken to their Uncle
Alexander’s. Soon letters arrived from the father in
America, directing that the girls should return to their
aunts in Switzerland, while it was arranged that Alex
should remain with his Uncle at Freiburg.

After his mother’s death, Agassiz passed his vaca-
tions with his Swiss relations. Not being able to pay
the stage fares, he trudged back and forth between
Freiburg and Neuchatel or Lausanne, passing his nights
under a haystack or in the house of some friendly peas-
ant, “ and almost anybody would give such a tiny trav-
eler a piece of bread or bit of cheese ” — he used to say.

In the spring of 1849, after he had lived nearly a
year with his uncle, he was sent for by his father,
who was now settled as Professor of Natural History at
Harvard. Hearing that America was a land of freedom
where one could do what one chose, Alexander cele-
brated his departure from Freiburg by jumping on his
violin as he set out for the New World.

CHAPTER II

1849-1860

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

As there was no railroad between Neuchatel and
Paris in those days, Agassiz and Mr. Felix Marcel, in
whose charge he was placed, made the journey by dili-
gence. Here Alex joined his cousin, Dr. Charles Mayor,
who, on account of religious persecution, was leaving
Switzerland with his family to settle in the United
States. At that time it was thought far safer to cross
the ocean in a sailing vessel, rather than in one of those
new-fashioned contrivances, a transatlantic steamer. The
party accordingly embarked at Havre in the French ship
Le Joseph, and endured a tedious passage of forty-five
days to New York, which they reached sometime in
the summer of 1849. On his arrival Agassiz was met
by his father, who at once took him to Cambridge.
From here Louis Agassiz writes to a friend, “ Je reviens
de New York avec mon fils, c’est vous dire que je suis
bien heureux maintenant. C’est dans toute la verite de
1’ expression et a part de la partialite paternelle un char-
mant gargon.”

Shortly after the boy reached Cambridge, his father
took him to Nahant, then the favorite seaside resort of
the Boston Brahmins, where he met some lads of his
own age, sons of his father’s friends. Alex could not
speak any English, but the boys managed to make them-
selves understood in Latin ! Fond as the Romans were

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

15

of bathing, when it came time for a swim, their lan-
guage was found inadequate to convey the idea, so the
invitation was given by waving a bath-towel.

Agassiz soon imbibed the atmosphere of freedom of
his adopted country, and could hardly realize that it
ever had been possible for a small boy to be nagged and
punished for political opinions. In the fall of 1849 he
was sent to the Cambridge High School to prepare for
college. This was a famous school in those days ; al-
though one of the few schools from which one might
enter college, it still made its chief object the education
of its pupils. Louis Agassiz gave there an annual course
in Natural History, and special attention was paid to
instruction in Physics and Chemistry; the small labora-
tories being better than those then existing at Harvard.

Professor Agassiz’s little house on Oxford Street must
surely have seemed a strange home to the small for-
eigner. The household, besides the father, consisted of
a dear old artist, Mr. Burkhardt, a young Harvard stu-
dent, Mr. Edward King, an old Swiss minister called
“ Papa Christinat,” who was supposed to look after the
housekeeping, a bear, some eagles, a crocodile, a few
snakes, and sundry other live stock. These last enliv-
ened the home life in various ways. Sometimes there
was a wild chase to capture the eagles, or a hunt to
discover in what corner of the house the snakes had
hidden themselves. Once, when there was a large party
at dinner, an uncertain and heavy tread was heard upon
the cellar stairs, and Bruin, having broken his chain, and
broached a cask of wine, lurched into the room.

This erratic household lasted until the spring of 1850,
when Louis Agassiz brought home his second wife,
Elizabeth Cary. She established order out of chaos, sent

16

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

for the two children abroad, and made her house one
of the centres of the intellectual life of the day. From
the first she went straight to the heart of the mother-
less boy, and she stayed there for the rest of her life,
his devoted friend and companion.

It is to this second mother that Louis Agassiz’s three
children owe the happy home they found in the New
World, and the pleasant and interesting life that sprang
up about it. She was the wise spirit who guided the
family and presided over its varied interests with un-
failing cheerfulness and courage. Her constant concern
and sympathy in all that related to her adopted children
never failed. The place that she won in their lives in
the beginning, she held to the end. To their children
and grandchildren, superior beings in her loving eyes,
the wonderful influence of her tender solicitude is an
abiding memory.

Cambridge was then the centre for a small group of
very distinguished men. Louis Agassiz’s brother-in-law
Felton, Peirce the eminent mathematician, Child the
English scholar, Asa Gray and Jeffries Wyman the na-
turalists, Longfellow and Lowell, were at home in the
Agassiz house, and the talk that flew about was a liberal
education.

Some member of the college staff was constantly drop-
ping in. It might be Professor Peirce to ask the young
people to come over to breakfast with his mother, or to
bring some mathematical puzzle, which Alex invariably
solved. Sometimes Professor Child would appear with
a college theme for the girls to try their hand at.

The visit of an eminent foreign savant was no un-
usual event. Some of them must have furnished endless
amusement for the younger members of the household,

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

17

and been sore trials to the decorous New Englanders
who frequented the house. Once a distinguished visitor
came to pass the night. As he apparently lacked all
the articles generally considered indispensable to the
shortest visit, he was asked if he wanted anything. To
this he contentedly replied, “ Non, non — Ah ! un peu
de pommade, s’il vous plait.”

On another occasion the son of the great Ampere
came to pay an afternoon call and stayed several weeks.
He proved to be a man of wide information and a
delightful and entertaining guest, but he had his little
peculiarities. After a few days he bethought him to
send for his baggage, a small hand satchel containing
an amazing quantity of scientific treasures. It was his
custom on Sunday to appear in a gorgeous expanse of
white shirt front. As the week advanced, this gradually
disappeared beneath a more and more closely buttoned
coat, to emerge again in full splendor on the following
Sunday.

The winters were full of gayety and merriment. In
the evening there were pleasant sociables at different
houses ; in the daytime an hour or two could always be
found for skating on Fresh Pond. Here Agassiz and his
sister Pauline skated together with a skill and grace that
were celebrated in their day. Certainly the Cambridge
life of those old times had a delightful quality of its
own. Every one enjoyed so many things with his neigh-
bors that it seemed as if they were all living together
in a happy family circle. If there were a reading by
Mrs. Kemble, or something new at the Boston Museum,
where Warren acted to delighted audiences, or if Booth
were to play, the community hired an omnibus, and
everybody who could go, went. Afterward over a pleas-

18

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

ant, simple supper at somebody’s house in Cambridge,
the gay gathering would discuss the event of the even-
ing. There were private theatricals at Mrs. Charles
Lowell’s, and German plays in which Alexander acted.
Were there a party in Boston, or theatrical entertain-
ments at the Cushings’ in Belmont, or at the Cabots’
in Brookline, the omnibus again came forth, and the
fun and expense were shared by the neighbors.

The winter vacations in those days lasted six weeks.
This enabled Louis Agassiz to accept an invitation to
deliver a course of lectures at the Medical College at
Charleston, South Carolina, during the winters of 1851-
52 and 1852-53. Here the family were most hospitably
received in the homes of the Rutledges and Holbrooks,
where young Agassiz got some experience of plantation
life on the Santee River.

Mrs. Rutledge, “ the most stately and hospitable of
Southern matrons,” had given the Professor, for a labor-
atory, the use of her pleasant cottage on Sullivan’s Is-
land. Here, “ within hearing of the wash of the waves,
at the head of the beautiful sand beach which fringed
the island shore,” the boy spent much of his time with
his father, studying and collecting.

During these visits Alexander Agassiz made a num-
ber of warm and fast friends, so when civil war swept
over the land, sympathy for them was one of the rea-
sons that prevented him from joining the Federal army.

Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, of Charleston, a lifelong
friend, in writing, shortly after his death, to his sister
Mrs. Higginson, says of those days : “ I always think of
him, altho’ I have seen him often since, as the charming
boy who came, fresh from Switzerland, and spent part
of a winter here with your father, Count Pourtales, and

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

19

Mr. Burkhardt. He was so different from other boys and
so delightful, a most charming boy — just at the age
when boys are so seldom charming, and I, only three or
four years older and not yet married, was a good play-
fellow for him. Dr. Ravenel delighted in him and al-
ways predicted distinction for him. We taught him to
ride (he as ‘ a Switzer ’ had never learnt), and to pad-
dle a canoe, and go crabbing, and had very gay times
with him at my aunt’s little country place, ‘ Belmont.’
Then he went to college and I never saw him again for
more than twenty-five years. He was a grave quiet man
then (not long after his wife’s death), and I spoke to him
as ‘Mr. Agassiz,’ but he smiled and said, ‘You always
call me Alex.’ ”

Do men mature faster in the shadow of the Alps, that
certain qualities, which made such a marked and distin-
guished personality of the man, were already so evident
in the boy? For this quiet youth already possessed an
unusual power of concentration, and a gift of accomplish-
ing what he intended to do. The thoroughness and ease
with which he worked, his great reserve, his sudden
explosions of indignation, his quiet and entire devotion
to those he loved, his occasional outbursts of mirth,
as delightful as they were unexpected, his unfailing
charm, — all these belonged to the Swiss boy no less
than to the scientific man of cosmopolitan friendship
and fame.

In the fall of 1851 he entered Harvard, at the age of
fifteen and a half, with the class of ’55. His classmates
included such well-known men as E. H. Abbot, R. T.
Paine, F. B. Sanborn, Theodore Lyman, Professor J. K.
Hosmer, Judges Mitchell and Seawell, Bishop Phillips
Brooks, and Francis C. Barlow, the first scholar of the

20

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

class, who entered the Civil War a private, and left it a
major-general.

While in college Agassiz lived at home, first on Oxford
Street, and later in the house on Quincy Street, opposite
the northeast corner of the College Yard. This, with the
exception of a few years during his married life, was his
home for the rest of his days.

Thanks to the thoroughness of his European training,
he was able to read Latin and Greek better than most
of his classmates. Many years after their graduation,
Theodore Lyman said of a long-winded Latin oration at
some solemn public function, “ I ’ll bet Alex was the
only man who understood it.” Agassiz had, however,
no natural sympathy for the classics, and the scientific
trend given to his early studies had intensified a dislike
of the subtle analysis of language and the dryness of
grammatical hair-splitting, fatal to a high place in his
class. But in the subjects that interested him he was
preeminent, studying mathematics under Peirce, and
working hard at chemistry under Cooke in the more than
modest laboratory in the basement of University Hall.

Already his well-trained mind was capable of long
application, and the hours he usually devoted to work
would have crushed the easy-going undergraduate of
to-day. Nor was his time entirely given to subjects
connected with the curriculum, for a beautiful set of
drawings on wood intended for an unpublished textbook
of his father’s, attests his interest in natural history.

Even at an age when philosophy usually has such a
charm for an active mind, it held no interest for him.
Possessing to the fullest extent the dislike of meta-
physical speculation so common among men of science,
and already, unlike most of them, a man of action, he

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

21

devoted himself to the study of the knowable, and left
groping among the intangibles to others. With this
trend of mind, with too fearless a nature, and of too
sturdy a morality to feel the need of religious support,
it is natural that he early adopted an attitude toward
the infinite now so common among scientific men. His
views on religious matters are perhaps best illustrated
by Huxley’s well-known opinions on such questions, for
Agassiz had almost as little sympathy with the specula-
tions of Haeckel as with the most orthodox dogmas.

Those were the days of small classes, when it was
possible to know all one’s classmates and to be intimate
with many. Although younger than his companions,
he was a great favorite with them, and was known by
the name of “ Swiss.” He entered with much enthus-
iasm into the theatricals of the Hasty Pudding Club,
where among its archives many of his posters and draw-
ings are still preserved. As president of the Natural
History Society he took a considerable interest in its
meetings.

It is an evidence of his many-sidedness, that, too
poor to accept an election to the Porcellian Club while
in college, he was after graduating made an honorary
member of that institution, noted for its good fellow-
ship and esprit de corps , where natural history was
seldom the topic of conversation.

Agassiz was of medium height, dark, and at that time
rather slight, though remarkably powerful and active.
There is still in existence an enormous pair of Indian
clubs, so heavy that the average man can hardly hold
them at arm’s length, which he used to swing. Then as
now regattas and examinations were apt to conflict, and
his fondness for rowing may in part account for his

22

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

not graduating higher than twenty-fourth in a class of
eighty-two.

He pulled bow on the University Crew, at about one
hundred and forty pounds, a position that he also filled
while in the Scientific School. Rowing was managed in
a simpler way in those days, when the only distinction
between an amateur and a professional was, that one
was a gentleman who rowed for pleasure, and the other
an individual who did so as a business. It is refreshing
to learn that the members of the University Crew of
the day bought, out of their own pockets, the first
racing-shell ever seen at Harvard.1 On its arrival in
Boston, they carried it across the city on their shoulders,
and reimbursed themselves from the prize which they
won, from the best professionals of the day, at the next
regatta on the Charles.

This crew, by the way, made crimson the Harvard
badge. In order that it might be more easily recognized,
one of its members, Charles W. Eliot, the future Presi-
dent of the University, bought some crimson handker-
chiefs in Boston. These the oarsmen bound on their
heads, thus establishing the college color.

Agassiz retained his interest in rowing all through
life ; even in his last years he could judge a crew at
a glance and pick out its weak points with singular
accuracy and swiftness. Occasionally he would appear at
the Museum so hoarse that he could scarcely speak;
then some one was sure to ask him how he caught such
a bad cold. An expression of shyness and sheepishness
would steal over his face, and he would explain that
he had been to a boat-race and fancied he must have
shouted rather too loud.

1 The bow of this boat now hangs in the west room of the Harvard Union.

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

23

The four years of hard work, athletics, and simple
pleasures sped quickly. Class Day at Harvard was a
very different affair in those times. The Cambridge
belles of the day tied with their own hands the wreath
of flowers that was wound high up around the classic
tree behind Harvard Hall. Under the eyes of a gay
and eager throng clad in its best, the class in its oldest
clothes gathered in a circle about the tree. The chief
marshal threw his hat in the ring as a sign for the fray,
and there was a wild struggle for a bit of the historic
wreath. There were simple “ spreads ” in the students’
rooms, there was dancing on the college green, and the
undergraduate life of the class of ’55 was a memory of
the past.

On leaving college, Agassiz entered the engineering
department of the Lawrence Scientific School. Here,
devoting himself entirely to congenial subjects, his real
ability asserted itself. He graduated in 1857 with a
Surama cum Laude . Then he turned his attention to
chemistry, occupying a desk in the laboratory under
Professor Horsford. On his return from the West, when
settled at his work in the Museum, he took another
degree at the Scientific School in 1862, this time in
natural history.

His father’s affairs, notwithstanding the fostering
care of the son, were in a more than usually deplorable
muddle shortly after Agassiz left college. Louis Agassiz
possessed but a hazy idea of the value of a dollar, and
the modest funds of the household budget had an alarm-
ing way of converting themselves into alcoholic speci-
mens at the most inopportune moments.

In order to retrieve the family fortunes Mrs. Agassiz
proposed, with the assistance of her stepson, to start a

24

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

girls’ school. The upper story of the house was con-
verted into schoolrooms, the recitations were to overflow
into the other stories. The unrivaled reputation of Louis
Agassiz as a great and inspiring teacher immediately
made the school unique and gave it an unqualified suc-
cess. It became the girls’ school of its day; special
omnibuses brought the pupils out from Boston ; while
parents in other parts of the country made arrangements
for their daughters to live in the neighborhood, that
they might enjoy its special advantages.

In speaking of the scope of the school the elder
Agassiz said, “ We will teach the girls everything but
mathematics, and the poor things can learn that almost
anywhere else;” a remark hardly just to the son, who
unlike the father was an excellent mathematician.

Those were busy days for Agassiz, who, while pursu-
ing his studies at the Scientific School and the Chemical
Laboratory, prepared the tabular view of the studies of
the school, kept the books, and paid the teachers, be-
sides teaching the girls mathematics, chemistry, physics,
French, and Latin.

It was a trying experience for a young man of twenty,
to teach with dignity and success a school full of girls,
some older than himself. Many of his sisters’ friends
were pupils in the school, and it must often have been
difficult for him to forget that the night before he had
danced with them in Boston or Cambridge.

In 1857 there was a celebrated race between the
Volante, a crew composed of well-known young men
about town, and the university crew of which Agassiz
was still bow. His pupils and two thirds of Boston lined
the “ Back Bay,” and watched the defeat of the Harvard
boat after an exciting struggle. The next morning at

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

25

school many of the girls appeared wearing black ribbons
on their arms, and for once, as he walked to his desk,
the young master gave them a smile.

He always disliked teaching, and as by 1859 the
school was firmly established, he began to look about
for some other means of earning a livelihood. Warned
by his father’s example of the dangers that beset the
path of a scientific enthusiast of slender means, Agassiz
had at this time no intention of embracing the career
of a naturalist. For he had fallen in love with one of his
pupils, and was anxious to place himself in a position to
be able to marry.

Naturally turning to the profession of engineer, for
which he had fitted himself, he obtained the position of
aid on the Coast Survey, through his father’s friendship
for Professor Bache, then its superintendent. At once
he left for San Francisco to report to Mr. Lawton on
board the Fauntleroy, destined to spend the summer in
the Gulf of Georgia and survey the boundary between
the United States and British Columbia. After his de-
parture it was noticed that the young lady, who later
became his wife, adopted a very frugal method of life,
as if fitting herself to be the companion of a poor man.

He reached Colon on one of the wretched and dirty
little steamers of the Vanderbilt line, and crossed the
Isthmus of Panama, a region that later became familiar
through frequent visits, where he got his first view of
the splendor of a tropical forest, — an impression that
he never forgot.

While waiting in San Francisco for the Fauntleroy,
he went up on a coast steamer to Crescent City to sur-
vey the bay. Here the Fauntleroy picked up the party
and they had a wretched passage to the Straits of Fucca.

26

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Owing to the foggy weather but little surveying was
done ; as there were practically no observations to work
up, this left the day free. Agassiz was never a man
who could spend the time doing nothing; so in self-
defense he turned to the study of marine animals, mak-
ing notes and drawings which he sent to his father to
show the character of the fauna. Copies of these letters,
written in French and too technical to be given here, are
preserved in a crumbling old letter-book. They show a
wide familiarity with the subject, remarkable in a young
man of twenty-four who was just starting life as an
engineer.

It was while cruising in these waters that he first
learned of the existence of the Canadian branch of
the family, through the letter of an irate stranger who

wrote, “ Unless you take your d sheep off my ranch,

I will shoot you at sight.”

On another occasion his restlessness of mind got him
into a scrape that only his skill as an oarsman saved
from being a tragedy. While the Fauntleroy lay an-
chored somewhere in the Gulf of Georgia doing nothing,
he put off by himself in a light boat, came across an
Indian graveyard, and stepped ashore to inspect it.
After a time he chanced to look up and saw two canoes
filled with Indians racing for him from different direc-
tions. He jumped into his boat, but was no sooner under
way than he quickly saw that the canoes were approach-
ing at such an angle as to be sure to intercept him. It
meant death to be caught, and he instantly formed a
plan of escape. Eowing along steadily he reserved his
force, and waited till the canoes full of shouting sav-
ages were close upon him ; then with a tremendous spurt
he slipped out between their bows. The canoes came

FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA

27

together with a crash, and in the confusion a few power-
ful strokes put him beyond their reach.

In the late fall the Fauntleroy returned to San Fran-
cisco, where she was delayed a week or so off the Heads.
Again he filled his idle moments, and devoted himself
to the study of the Discophorous Medusae so common on
the coast. While in San Francisco he made in the bay
a collection of the Viviparous “ Perch” (Embiotocidse),
first discovered by Mr. A. C. Jackson in 1852 when
exploring those waters in search of a suitable spot for
a naval station. Several dozen beautifully colored draw-
ings of a number of these “ Perch,” made by Agassiz
at the time, are still in existence, but have never been
published.

As there was no work to be done by the Coast Sur-
vey during the winter, he obtained leave of absence to
accept an invitation of the superintendent of the Paci-
fic Mail Steamship Company to be his guest at Acapulco
and Panama.

After a visit of some three months at Panama, Agas-
siz concluded that his humble post offered no immed-
iate prospect of marriage. So he sent in his resignation,
little dreaming that in after life he should refuse an
earnest request of the President of the United States to
accept the highest position in the Coast Survey.

The call of heredity was in Agassiz’s blood; closing
his transit he made, straight as a homing pigeon, for his
father’s Museum, which he ever afterwards made his
headquarters.

CHAPTER III

1860-1866

THE MUSEUM BECOMES HIS HEADQUARTERS

On his return from California, Agassiz was appointed
“ Agent” for the newly established Museum of Com-
parative Zoology. For this position the salary, fifteen
hundred dollars a year, was given to the Museum by
Theodore Lyman, a pupil of Louis Agassiz and a class-
mate of his son. Thanks to this generosity, Agassiz
now found himself in a position to marry Anna Russell,
.the daughter of George R. Russell, a well-known East
India merchant of Boston.

The marriage took place in the fall of 1860 ; as the
bride’s family was in Europe, the ceremony was cele-
brated in Brookline at the house of her sister, Mrs.
.Theodore Lyman. Being too poor to have a home of
their own, the young couple started life with Professor
and Mrs. Agassiz in the Quincy Street house. These
.early years of Agassiz’s marriage, crowded with work,
were undoubtedly the happiest of his existence, for
always after that his life was clouded with ill-health
or sorrow, and most of the work of his later life was
accomplished under the shadow of both.

Although obliged to practice the most rigid economy,
there was no shadow on his life then. He rejoiced in his
scientific work, and appreciated good company. Exist-
ence was simple in the sixties, and his tiny income
did not imply the restrictions it would now necessitate.

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 29

At times so gay and entertaining, he possessed, like his
father, that indefinable quality of charm which made him
welcome everywhere. Years of sorrow never quenched
that charm or deadened his genial hospitality.

His sister Pauline had married Mr. Q. A. Shaw and
was living near by in Jamaica Plain. His wife’s relatives
were widely scattered throughout Boston ; both she and
her husband had a large circle of friends, and their
opportunities for seeing pleasant people were far greater
than the time that either could devote to them. In writ-
ing of those days Theodore Lyman says, “I do not
know of any married man who could look back on better
years, except the money.” For the younger Agassiz was
never able to accept a life cramped from lack of funds,
with the elder’s happy philosophy.

Unlike his father as he was in many other ways, the
son nevertheless inherited his unusually quick temper.
Although his characteristic outbursts of indignation
became less frequent, and were much softened with
advancing years, yet this readiness to righteous wrath
was not wholly irresponsible for the numerous serious
melees in which he became involved at various times,
adventures that would have immersed most men in end-
less difficulties, but from which with ready resourceful-
ness he always contrived to emerge triumphant.

An example of this, in his later life, comes to mind
now. On one of his visits to Berlin he went one evening
into a restaurant, sat down at a table and ordered din-
ner. A few moments later a party of officers took seats
at a neighboring table, and his waiter at once devoted
himself to them. Agassiz called across to the waiter
that he was waiting for his dinner, whereupon one of
the officers came over to him and arrogantly called

30

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

his attention to the fact that the man was waiting on
them. Agassiz remarked that he was not speaking to
him ; the officer handed Agassiz his card ; the latter tore
it up ; the officer started to draw his sword, but, before
he could get it out of the scabbard, Agassiz knocked
him down with a chair. In the confusion which fol-
lowed, he jumped into a cab, drove to the embassy, and
stated his case. The upshot of the matter was that the
officer was forced to apologize.

Sometimes his anger warped his judgment, a weak-
ness of which he was not unconscious. For after writing
a letter in a moment of excitement, it was often his
habit to keep it till the next day, and then destroy it.
Occasionally his indignation was not wholly reasonable,
but it took such whimsical turns that it endeared him
the more to his friends. One day at Newport he was
looking over some charts with one of his sons and dis-
cussing his next trip. It so happened that the latter had
not been in Newport for several years. Suddenly Agas-
siz looked up and beheld in the distance a buggy tied
to a tree, and a couple of men fishing on the rocks.

“ There,” said Agassiz, “ they are at it again ! The
way everybody drives all over the place and ties his
horses everywhere is perfectly outrageous. The worst
of it is that when they are spoken to, they are so inso-
lent ! ”

With that he stalked off toward them, and was well
across the lawn before the thought that he might need
protection from the insolence of these intruders oc-
curred to his son. When he finally came to his father’s
aid, he found him upbraiding the trespassers for their
iniquities in plain Anglo-Saxon. These unfortunates,
whenever they could get a word in edgewise, endeavored

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 31

to make the most abject apologies, while their attitude
suggested a caterpillar, who when poked with a stick
curls up and tries to disappear. As quickly as possible
they got into their buggy and drove off, two deeply
humiliated men. Then Agassiz turned to his son and
observed in perfect good faith, “ You see how insolent
they are ! ”

Before speaking of the early work of his scientific
life, it might be well to say a few words in regard to
the origin of the institution with which it was ever after-
ward connected. The elder Agassiz on settling in Cam-
bridge had stored his treasures in a shanty built on piles
on the marshes of the Charles River, close to the bridge
that now leads to the Harvard Stadium. In 1850, the
collections, having outgrown this primitive shelter, were
removed to a wooden building on the site of the present
gymnasium. By 1852, the care of the collection had
grown to be more than the very modest means of Louis
Agassiz could meet, and a fund of $12,000 was raised
by private subscription to purchase it for the college.
The expense of its charge, however, still remained in
his hands, and he devoted untiring enthusiasm and in-
genuity to increasing and maintaining the specimens.

In 1858, the Corporation of Harvard College made
a small allowance for the care of the collections, and in
the same year, $50,000 left by Mr. Francis C. Gray to
found a museum, was placed at the disposal of the
elder Agassiz, under the condition that the institution
should always be known as “ The Museum of Compara-
tive Zoology.” Accustomed to the European method of
seeking government aid, Louis Agassiz went to the
State Legislature, and to every one’s amazement ex-
tracted $100,000 from those hard-headed New Eng-

32

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

landers, while at the same time a further fund of
$71,000 was raised by private subscription. Armed
with these resources, he built what was then intended
to be, and now actually is, a portion of the northeast
wing of the present huge structure. This first section
of the building was completed in the spring of 1860.
The personnel of the Museum was planned much after
the organization of the Jardin des Plantes. Many of the
early assistants later became professors at Harvard or
other universities, or were placed in charge of mu-
seums, which were afterward established all over the
country.

Alexander Agassiz’s position, besides giving him the
care of the department of Radiates, included the gen-
eral charge of the work and business of the institution.
This involved a vast amount of mechanical labor in
arranging and storing the immense mass of material
which poured in from all sides ; for the plans of Louis
Agassiz were always on a huge scale, far beyond his
resources in men and money. To this was added the
establishment and care of all exchanges, and the dis-
entanglement of the financial difficulties into which the
cheerful optimism of his father constantly plunged not
only the Museum, but also the family purse.

The following letters, selected from his correspond-
ence of that time, may give some suggestions of how
eager and many-sided was his activity in developing
the relations of the Museum with other institutions, in
making exchanges of specimens, and in stimulating the
interest and cooperation of scientific men in all parts of
the world.

The first is to the leading physician in Santa Bar-
bara, whose acquaintance he had made in California.

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS

33

TO DR. J. B. SHAW

Cambridge, Apl. 13, 1863.

My friend, Mr. Levi Parsons, tells me that you have
been kind enough to offer to make collections for us
here. I cannot allow my letter to him to go without
thanking you sincerely for your efforts in behalf of our
Museum, and I shall look forward with pleasure to the
time when we may receive something from you. We
have absolutely nothing from Santa Barbara and that
region, so that everything you find, no matter what it
is, provided it creeps on land or swims in the water, or
flies in the air, is acceptable. Be not afraid either of
sending too many specimens. They are always valuable
for exchanges. I shall in the course of a few weeks
send you a few circulars containing directions for col-
lecting; we are at present out of them and wait for the
printers. In the meanwhile I would call your attention
to a few animals of which we shall desire especially to
have specimens at this time : they are the starfishes, sea-
urchins or sea-eggs as they are called, all kinds of corals,
of which I hear there are several species in the channel.
As all these things are preserved dry, as well as in
alcohol, they will be but little trouble. Before being
set in the sun to dry it would be a good plan to dip
them into hot water ; this kills at once and removes all the
salty matter. The beaches after a storm are good local-
ities for collecting masses of dried shells, starfishes, sea-
urchins, corals, thrown up by the waves. The fisher-
men’s seines when drawn up leave crabs, etc., on the
beach of no use to them. The fish market is the simplest
way of getting a good collection of fishes.

34

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO C. B. RICHARD & BROS.

Cambridge, May 24, 1864.

Gentlemen : —

I forward to-day to you per Adams Express 9 boxes,
8 of which contain live-stock to be forwarded to Prof.
H. Milne Edwards, Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France,
care of H. L. Muller and Cie., Havre. The food of the
animals is marked on the boxes, but to make sure I
repeat here :

No. 1 contains Reptiles and needs no care except air.

2 contains a Marten ; needs scraps of meat and
water.

3 a Lynx ; needs same food as No. 2.

4 & 5 contain Squirrels ; need nuts, scraps of
bread, corn and water .

6 W oodchuck ; eats turnips, raw potatoes, scraps
of vegetables and water .

7 Owl ; needs only meat.

8 Eagle ; needs meat and water.

If these animals are fed once a day it is enough
except the woodchuck, No. 6, which had better be fed
twice. I send in the ninth box nuts, turnips and corn
for the food of the squirrels and part of the food of the
woodchuck. I suppose of course that scraps of bread
and the necessary remnants of fresh meat can be ob-
tained on board the steamer by the person who has
charge of them. The lynx ought to be bothered as little
as possible ; it is a female with young and she is rather
cross on that account. I suppose the cages of the lynx
and of the woodchuck ought to be cleaned about once
in four days, if they get offensive, and clean hay or
straw put in. This can easily be done by means of a
poker to scrape out the old hay.

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 35

Hoping that this small menagerie will have a favor-
able passage, I remain,

Yours very truly,

Alex Agassiz.

TO J. J. KAUP,1 DARMSTADT

Cambridge, Feb. 25, 1865.

Your note of January 10, addressed to father, has
been received some time and as father has not written
you for so long, he wishes me to answer you that you
may not think he has entirely neglected your affairs.
He is very much pleased at your continued exertions in
behalf of our Museum and hopes that the invoices we
have made have been acceptable. You say nothing in
your letter of the Echinoderms which were sent about
the same time with the turtles and in which I had put
a package of shells selected for you by Mr. Anthony.
We feel quite envious of your Dinornis bones and hope
that the time may come when you may spare us a skele-
ton or a cast at any rate. Speaking of casts, father is
very anxious to have a suite of your magnificent casts
for our Museum ; but unless we can have a little time
to pay for them, till gold has come down again to reason-
able prices, he hardly dares to ask you for them. We
have thus far done so little to please the public and have
sacrificed the wishes of the common populace for so long
to the demands of strict scientific investigations, that
he feels it is about time for him to do something in
that way, and as this combines the demands of the pub-
lic and of the scientific men, he can hardly apply his
means to a better purpose. We shall be able to supply

1 A zoologist of note, most of whose published work relates to birds
and fishes.

36

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

your wants of N. American insects during next summer
and in the fall we shall try to make you a good invoice.
We have a very good and conscientious entomologist
(P. R. Uhler) at work at the Museum who will do all
that can be done and to whom the collection of Coleop-
tera you are about sending will be particularly welcome.
As you see by the papers, our prospects to finish the
war during this year and reduce the whole to a mere
insurrection are quite good and from your letter I judge
that the news we have been sending to Europe the last
few weeks has been very welcome. I trust your prophe-
cies about Maximilian will come true, and that the
Monroe Doctrine and the Star Spangled Banner will
yet reign supreme over the whole of North America, in
spite of John Bull and Napoleon.

At the outbreak of the Civil War most of the Mu-
seum assistants left to join the Federal army. As Agas-
siz was only recently naturalized, and could not forget
his warm friends in the South, he concluded to stay at
home and prevent the disintegration of the Museum.
With his temperament, it must have been a sore trial
for the young naturalist to find his share in the bitter
struggle confined to eagerly watching the progress of
events. When it became apparent that the war was draw-
ing to a close, he thankfully rejoiced with those at home
who hoped soon to see the end of much misery and a
reunited people.

After the fall of Richmond, the assistants, who had
returned to the Museum, were again drafted, but this
time to follow Professor and Mrs. Agassiz to Brazil.
The voyage, at first contemplated chiefly for the sake
of Louis Agassiz’s health, had developed, thanks to the

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 37

generosity of Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, into a scientific
exploration of the Amazon on a considerable scale. The
departure of his father in April, 1865, left Alexander
Agassiz in sole charge of the Museum, until the return
of the party in the summer of 1866.

In writing to Professor Kaup about this time, after
telling of his father’s journey, he says : “ Of course this
general riddance of all the assistants here leaves me
entirely alone to look after this immense Museum, and
I can hardly hope to do more than take care of what
comes in.” The letter concludes : —

“ I can read German as well as English, but I do not
like to write German except when necessary, and as I
suppose English is perfectly familiar to you I write in
English. I so rarely have occasion to practise my Ger-
man either by writing or speaking, that it gets very
rusty and I of course prefer to use English when I can
as it comes more naturally. We all feel (at the North)
in a splendid condition and high spirits after all our
late successes. Zee, Richmond, Johnston, have all sur-
rendered. The war is finished this side of the Missis-
sippi and the Rebels across in Texas are already talking
of surrendering. Our French and English friends had
better take care how they allow any more rebel vessels
round about their harbors or they may get punished
for their past impudence.”

The first few lines of the following letter refer to a
difficulty with which most of Agassiz’s correspondents
had to contend, for, unless well accustomed to his hand-
writing, it was no light matter to decipher one of his
letters. This task was not rendered easier from his habit
of running his words together till his pen ran dry, and
leaving most of the punctuation to the fancy of the reader.

38

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO J. J. KAUP

Cambridge, July 22, 1865.

Your kind note of June has safely come to hand, and
I can fully appreciate the difficulties of deciphering my
chirography. I am never very distinct and when I have
to scribble off so many letters as have been occasioned
by father’s departure, I can easily see that thin paper
and my great hurry have caused you much unnecessary
trouble. I hope you will not find this epistle quite so
bad. I look forward with great pleasure to your invoice,
and will now repeat some of my inquiries.

Do you wish for, 1, skins of some of our more com-
mon New England Mammalia? I think I could get to-
gether say ten or twelve species. 2. Any of our native
New England Birds ? I might send you perhaps some
twenty or thirty species.

Our Entomologist (Uhler) has returned from Hayti,
and I have this week set him to work to put aside for
you North American Insects.

I am sorry to say that owing to father’s absence, the
Museum has not as many funds as I should like, so
that I must use the greatest caution for the present in
incurring any debts. Father was always accustomed to
present to the Museum the result of his winter work in
the way of Lectures, and this year having gone to Rio
leaves us very poorly off, so that for the present I do not
dare accept your proposition about the Lion. I hope,
however, he will not remain on land too long and that
he may yet in more favorable times find his way to the
great Republic. We have very good news of father;
the reception he has received in Brazil seems to have
been a perfect ovation and facilities without number

39

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS

have been placed at his disposal by the different rail-
road companies, stage lines and steamboats. He finds
himself, therefore, so pleasantly placed near Rio, and
enjoying so many facilities for transportation, that he
has been tempted to remain much longer there than
he intended, and has already accumulated considerable
material. He has been quite successful in his investiga-
tions about Glaciers, and the geographical distribution
of Fishes, the two main points of interest to him, and the
prospects are at present that his absence will extend far
beyond the time originally intended for his return. Our
political affairs are little by little getting into shape and
I hope we shall yet show to Europe that if we have been
able to fight through a crisis which would have over-
turned any European Government, we shall pass through
in safety the greatest political crisis and solve the great
problem of universal liberty in a satisfactory manner.

TO J. J. KAUP

Cambridge, Sep. 12, 1865.

I have just received your letter of August 23d an-
nouncing departure of several boxes for us. As soon as
I get everything which has accumulated during this
vacation to rights, I shall make you an invoice of the
things I had offered you and which I hope you will
like. I wish I had received your note a few days earlier.
I should have had the chance of securing for you a
skin of a Bison. I shall, however, keep my eyes open and
the next chance I get I shall remember you as well as
the Bison. I hope before long to have duplicate skins
of both Bison and Elk, as we have now no less than
three parties at different places in the Rocky Moun-
tains who have promised to do what they could for us

40

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

in the way of obtaining the skins of these larger animals.
But you have no idea how hard it is to obtain them,
the difficulty first of shooting them and next of trans-
porting them such immense distances, no less than 1000
to 1500 miles often, through regions infested by Indians,
making it a very hazardous experiment.

You ask me about Lyman. Now that the war is
over he is back again at home, and as soon as he has
put his private affairs in order, which have suffered
from want of care during his absence, he will devote
himself again to the same branch of the Museum as he
has done before. We have still excellent news of father ;
he has just arrived at Para, and thus far his expedition
has been as profitable to the Museum as he had ex-
pected. His health, as far as I could make out, is very
much improved, and I hope on his return he will put
his shoulders to the wheel and give the Museum such a
start that we may come on the same level as the greatest
Institutions of Europe. In the meantime I am not idle
and do what I can. We have just published two num-
bers of our illustrated catalogue, one of the Ophiurans
by Lyman, and one of the North American Acalephs
by me, which I shall send you either by the next
invoice or by the Smithsonian during this winter. I
enclose also, as I had promised, a bill of exchange to
your order for <£3-5 shillings for the packing of the
casts, which I hope will arrive in good order, and all I
ask of you is to have patience with me if my invoices do
not come as fast as I promised them, as it is simply
incapability which will delay me and nothing more.

Agassiz had established relations with several hunters
in the West, but collecting specimens there was then

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 41

no mere holiday matter, as shown by the following ex-
tract from a letter to a colleague contemplating a little
trip to those regions : —

“ The Indians are not at peace, and it is death to any
small party in the present state of Indian warfare to
attempt such a thing. I will give you an example : Two
years ago an expedition was fitted out by the Govern-
ment (5000 men) to drive away the Indians from that
very region. The General in command offered me all
sorts of assistance to transport collections (six wagons
of four horses) if I would join him. Father’s ill health
made it impossible for me to leave Cambridge, but the
General said he would get all the fossils he could and
devote that amount of transportation to it. I of course
expected great things, and on the return of the expedi-
tion he wrote me that it was out of the question to allow
small parties of twenty or thirty men even to go away
from the main body, and that he had lost on one occa-
sion almost the whole of a collecting party, and that he
could not allow others to wander off again. So I got
nothing and probably would have left my own bones
there to be picked up by some future Geologist and
described as the ancient man of Nebraska. Several doc-
tors accompanying army trains while passing through
these regions have lost their lives ; and we must wait
patiently till the Indians are driven further West to
undertake such an expedition. This is going on at such
a rapid rate that I hope in the course of a few years to
go there and pass a summer and thus accomplish one
of my pet plans, which has been to do just what you
suggest.”

42

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO A. MILNE EDWARDS1

Nahant, July 27, 1865.

Cher Monsieur : 2 —

I have received your kind letter of July 6 and also
the diploma of the Philomatique Society ; kindly thank
the members of the society for the honor they have done
me in making me one of them. I also thank you for
your kind appreciation of my memoir on Echinoderms.
I hope some day to pay a visit to the old world and
make the acquaintance of all those that I know only by
correspondence.

Before the departure of the steamer from New York,
one of the birds, the Lophodytes cucullatus, was already
among the dead. The heat in June has been intense
and I much fear that the last invoice will not amount
to much. Among the animals which we intended for
you which have been sent us since, the mortality has
been very great, and they simply suffocated with the
heat. I lost in this way a young Caribou, two young
Lynx — several different kinds of our indigenous birds,
but I hope that by the steamer of the 28th of next
month I shall be able to send you something. A Lutra
Canadensis and a Mustela pen nan ti died on their way
from Maine, as well as some small mammals. I pass my
vacation at the sea-shore, and as soon as I get back to
Cambridge I will see if I can send you an invoice of
Crustacea from the West Coast of America. Stimpson,
who used to have charge of our Crustacea, is at present
in Chicago, where he has replaced a young man who is

1 Of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris ; on the death of his father he be-
came its director.

2 Agassiz’s letters to his Paris correspondents are written in French,
those to his German colleagues were usually in English.

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 43

at present traveling on the frontier for the Smithsonian,
and I don’t quite know when we shall get him back. It
seems to me that I remember that when he first began
to work here he sent you a small box with a few speci-
mens from California, and I will examine our books to
see if I can send you any new species. Unfortunately I
am only superficially acquainted with the Crustacea, and
I fear I shall make a mess of it, but I will do my best.
I have written to my father to send home alive what
animals he could, and as they are accustomed to being
broiled I trust they will be obliging enough not to turn
up their toes before they arrive.

Kindly present my regards to your father.

TO SIR JAMES HECTOR1

Cambridge, Oct. 19, 1865.

Professor Agassiz intended before his departure for
Brazil to have written you on the subject of entering
into correspondence with you for the sake of obtaining
fossils from New Zealand, which we are very desirous
of acquiring. We can offer you in return North Amer-
ican Palaeozoic things, or specimens of almost any other
nature which might be perhaps acceptable for your
studies. Our Museum is still in its infancy but we hope
that one of these days it will have a national importance
in this country and become the centre for the study of
Natural History. W e are particularly desirous of obtain-
ing authentic specimens from the hands of original in-
vestigators and hope in this way to transfer little by
little much of the scientific tradition of Europe and
other countries to North America. The want of such

1 Sir James Hector (1834-1907) did much to develop the fauna of New
Zealand.

44

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

traditional knowledge has been a great impediment in
the development of Natural Sciences in this country
and we hope to remedy this as far as lies in our power
by entering into correspondence with all special workers
over the wdiole surface of the globe. It is for this object
that we ask your cooperation and we shall be most happy
to hear of your wishes and satisfy them as far as it is in
the power of our Institution.

During the years 1860-66, although busy with the
affairs of the Museum, Agassiz contrived to find time
for an immense amount of original work, and laid the
foundation of all his purely zoological investigations.
Before his trip to the Pacific he had been interested in
entomology, and had devoted some time to the study of
Lepidoptera. It is curious that the first publication 1 of
one who was to spend his scientific life in the study
of marine organisms and the questions arising from the
examination of coral reefs, should have been on the
mechanical principles involved in the flight of certain
insects.

His summers, broken only by occasional scientific
.excursions to other portions of the New England coast,
were devoted to research at Nahant. Here Mr. Cary had
given a cottage to his daughters, Mrs. Felton and Mrs.
Louis Agassiz ; this they shared with Alexander Agassiz
and his young wife. On a cliff overlooking the sea, low
and vine-covered, with a rustic porch supported by un-
stripped fir logs, it was in the last degree picturesque, but
must have afforded scant elbow-room for three families.
In a rambling shed below the house, Agassiz and his

1 “ Mechanism of the flight of Lepidoptera,” Proc. Boston Soc. Nat.
Hist., vol. vi, 1859.

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 45

father fitted tables, shelves, and the necessary glassware
for a marine laboratory ; and here they set up their
microscopes. In a bight near by, Alexander kept a dory
which he used for collecting specimens. One of his step-
cousins, then a small boy, used in after years to tell how
he crept out to watch Agassiz skillfully launch his heavy
boat through the surf and admire the ease with which,
without apparent effort, he ran it up the steep beach.

The material for his studies wTas furnished by such
animals as he could pick up among the rocks at low tide
or catch with a scoop net from his dory, varied by an
occasional find brought in by some friendly fisherman.

Among his best known publications of this period
was a series of papers on the embryology of our com-
mon sea-urchins and starfishes (Echinoderms) which
are found everywhere along our New England coast
hidden in crevices of the rocks or among the seaweed.
Until Johannes Muller discovered where to find the
young of these animals, who would have thought of
looking for them among the minute transparent and
phosphorescent organisms that float near the surface of
the ocean, and transform the wake of one’s boat on a
still dark summer night into a path of fire, and turn
each dip of the oar blade into a swirl of molten gold?

Derbes and Krohn had studied the development of
eggs taken from adult animals and artificially fertilized.1
Muller had himself studied the later forms of the larvae
when they take on strange shapes with queer arm-like
appendages, utterly unlike the starfishes and sea-urchins
which they finally become. It remained for Agassiz to
make a complete study of the embryology of these ani-

1 This was a true fertilization, and should not be confused with recent
experiments in stimulating various eggs by means of different salts.

46

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

mals, partly by artificial fertilization and partly by col-
lecting the tiny animals with a dip net. Muller had
observed the young starfishes and sea-urchins forming at
the lower end of the larvae, but had supposed that they
were thrown off by a sort of budding process common
in some other Radiates, leaving the larvae to maintain a
separate existence. Agassiz was able to show that these
Echinoderms first started as two separate growths on
the surface of the tiny water tubes on each side of the
stomach, called by Muller the “ Problematical Bodies,”
and that these two growths finally enclosed the stomach
and absorbed the whole of the larva, none of which
was cast off. The eggs of such animals are excessively
minute, and the whole development is on so small a scale
that it can be watched only by the most skillful and
painstaking study with the microscope.

During the course of these investigations, Agassiz
noticed that at least one function of the curious little
growths, known as pedicellarise, lying between the spines
of sea-urchins, is to clean the animal from impurities,
which they pass along from one little arm to the next
till the refuse drops off on the under side of the body.
He was also able to declare that what had been consid-
ered several distinct species of starfishes were in reality
distinct stages in the development of our common star-
fish; and he called attention to the fact that the embry-
ology of Echinoderms is greatly modified in the so-called
viviparous species. The publication of the results of
these researches, illustrated by the most delicate draw-
ings from his own pencil, drew the attention of the
scientific world to the rising young naturalist.

It had been found by 0. F. Muller and others that
some of the higher forms of marine worms, which re-

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS

47

produced themselves by division, threw off sexual off-
spring; this was suspected to be a case of so-called
alternate generations. Agassiz was able to complete the
cycle by tracing the growth of the original unsexual
parent stock from the eggs of the second generation.
During these investigations he discovered that certain
species, which had hitherto been considered distinct,
were in reality the male and female of the second gener-
ation.

The first publication in the memoirs of the Museum
was a study of the Ophiurans by Theodore Lyman. The
second was a catalogue of North American Acalephae
by Agassiz, published in 1865. This volume was illus-
trated with three hundred and sixty figures drawn from
life by his own hand. It is one of the longest and most
important of his early publications, and contains many
descriptions of jelly-fish first discovered by him both on
the Atlantic and the Pacific. As a tribute to his zeal and
efficiency as a collector and investigator, it may be men-
tioned that many of the Medusae, which he collected on
the New England coast fifty years ago, have not been
recorded since.

Agassiz, among other things, showed at this period
that Cape Cod was the dividing line for many species of
the marine animals frequenting the coast of the North
Atlantic, and he also did much work on Echini, in
preparation of his “ Revision/’ published several years
later. Most of the work of these earlier years was so
fundamental in character that it is freely quoted, con-
sciously or unconsciously, in all modern text-books of
zoology.

It will be remembered that Darwin’s 66 Origin of
Species ” appeared in 1859. Although Agassiz never

48

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

joined in the turbulent discussion that followed its pub-
lication, his father entered the arena and remained a
firm opponent of Darwin to the end of his life. Of
Alexander Agassiz’s final attitude on evolution, some-
thing will be said in a later chapter. The two following
letters to a well-known German naturalist who, for
political reasons, was living in Brazil, are interesting
as showing what were his early opinions on the sub-
ject:—

TO FRITZ MULLER

Cambridge, Jan. 17, 1864.

Your very interesting letter of Sept. 9, 1863, has
been lying before me for nearly two months. I have
been obliged to delay answering so long because the
friend to whom I had given the books for you in charge
had not returned from an expedition to the western part
of the Continent.

Nothing will give me greater pleasure than to answer
your questions about the Coelenterata and Darwin. It is
only by discussing these broad questions in the most
unprejudiced manner that we may hope to arrive at the
truth, and mere dogmatic expressions of opinion ought
never to influence us in the least, no matter what the
source from which they come, and how great the author-
ity may be. I trust that henceforth in Natural History,
workers will not allow themselves to be biased by any
weight of authority, either on one side or the other,
but will examine the facts and carefully analyze them
to see what they mean. We should not have so many
wild theories in our science, did not every one who has
studied a subject somewhat give generally such dispro-
portionate importance to the particular part which they

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS

49

have examined. [Here follows a technical discussion of
Ccelenterata.]

With regard to the Darwinian theory, it seems to me
to be only bringing up the same arguments as those
used by Lamarck, only backed up by greater research
and greater knowledge. The same objections which
were fatal to the Lamarckian theory, and which ulti-
mately caused it to disappear from science, till it was
brought to life again by Darwin, will in due time cause
the death of his theories; but good his scrutiny has
undoubtedly done, as it is always a salutary thing for
science to have a skillful skeptic attack its most reli-
giously received dogmas. Far from having been drawn to
the Darwinian Theory, all my studies and all my experi-
ence thus far has led me in the opposite direction. Em-
bryology must be my support. Why should there not
be nowadays going on what Darwin urges has taken
place formerly ? Does a crab ever lay eggs from which
anything but something identical with it (the crab) does
come forth ? Does a starfish ever lay eggs from which
an Ophiuran is developed ? Darwin must show greater
changes to have taken place than those of domestication,
if he wishes us to hold to his theory with any sort of
adherence. The idea that a plan pervades the animal
kingdom must first be disproved and, what is by far
more important, he ought to be able to show in the
geological record the traces of all these changes. I only
ask for the traces of those changes. But far from this
he makes a sweeping assertion of the imperfection of
the geological record and expects us to take that for the
truth. Let him take any of the well-studied beds of
England, as the Jurassic Period, or of Switzerland as
the Molasse, or of this continent as the Silurian and

50

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Devonian, in all of which not a link is wanting, and let
him then see what he can say about the imperfection
of the record and the gradual transformation of one
species into another.

What will be the first damning point and the one which
will be the most readily seen and understood by people
will be that of the geographical distribution of the dif-
ferent species of animals of the surface of the earth. The
magnificent collection of Echinoderms of our Museum
has been arranged with reference to this geograph-
ical distribution, and it has brought out many striking
features totally unexpected. As soon as we have the
maps made out I shall take great pleasure in forwarding
them to you. If there is anything in geographical distri-
bution, there is nothing in Darwin, and vice versa. The
one flatly contradicts the other. But have we arrived
at a stage in our knowledge where we can thus theo-
rize about the origin of species ? We know so little of
the development, history, and geographical conditions
of our most common animals that it will be in vain for
us to philosophize without something to build upon.

The principle of the coincidence of geological suc-
cession and of embryonic development, as well as of
complication (of structure), is by far a more suggestive
one than Darwin’s theory, and when once on that track
will lead to more new views and ideas than was at first
expected. Let us wait patiently till we know something
more of the development and physical laws which affect
the animals now living before venturing on such a dark
subject. And as for me I am willing to be carried on
by the current of my investigations, whithersoever they
may lead, and to be satisfied with no theory, no wonder-
ful panaceas, until I can see something more substantial

THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 51

to uphold them than I can discern at present in the Dar-
winian Theory.

Agassiz in a later letter to Muller, continues the
subject : —

“ I see and grant fully the objections you may make
to mathematical demonstrations as applied to organisms,
and we must always remember that in one case we deal
with simple formulae, in the other with organic products,
and here will always be the gulf separating the two.
If the Darwinian theory is the correct interpretation
of nature, you will be led naturally to the producing of
organic out of the inorganic, working during an infinite
time and through infinite forms. I do not see any escape
from a logical sequence of Darwin’s principles, for if
you stop halfway and acknowledge a few primordial
forces, or one force, you are on no sounder or stronger
basis than the theorists who are always calling in the
interference of the Deity. Call it in once and you must
call it in always, and there is no more difficulty to imag-
ine a single interference than many.

u I grant also the great force of your objections about
the ‘ similarity of all eggs of all classes in their first
stages,’ but that has always seemed to me to be a very
strong argument against Darwin rather than for him.
If we can thus in a few weeks follow from eggs, laid by
animals of different classes , apparently identical, such
different results, hut always the same as far as our ex-
perience goes, why has it never been given us to notice
the converse, and see these eggs developing into differ-
ent classes from the animals which laid them; and are
we justified in taking the intermediate forms as the

52

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

remnants and mementos of such transformations, rather
than as independent creations ? If we can ever repre-
sent organic forms by formulae, I acknowledge that that
formula should be capable of such transformation as to
represent the organic in all its stages from the earliest
time in the egg to its mature condition, by the introduc-
tion of the proper variables

CHAPTER IV

1867-1868

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

Agassiz had not been long established at the Museum
before he realized that his salary would be entirely in-
sufficient for the support of a family, to say nothing of
his desire to possess the means to continue and publish
his original work. Looking about for some remunera-
tive employment, he obtained, through his friend Mr.
J. M. Forbes, the presidency of some coal mines in
Pennsylvania, a position for which his studies at the
Scientific School had especially fitted him. Little is
known of this episode ; for a time in the early sixties,
he appears to have managed the enterprise from Boston,
with occasional visits to Pennsylvania, but seems finally
to have realized that the occupation was not likely to
prove advantageous. It is not clear how, with his duties
at the Museum and his research, he managed to find
time for this additional work.

This experience, though little in itself, must have dis-
closed his ability to handle men, and given him confi-
dence. Without it, the owners of the Calumet and Hecla
Mines might never have given him his chance, by turn-
ing to him as a forlorn hope when that venture seemed
desperate.

The story of the discovery of the Calumet Mine,
though based on apparently sufficient evidence, reads
like a page of “ Monte Cristo,” rather than a forgotten

54

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

leaf from the early history of northern Michigan. The
Keweenaw Peninsula, a celebrated copper region, juts
out to the northeast from the south shore of Lake Supe-
rior. The copper-hearing strata run parallel to the coast
and dip sharply to the northwest. The district is one
of the very few places in the world where the metal
is found in its native state, scattered through the rock
in small particles, and less frequently in great tangled
masses.

This region, then an unknown primeval forest, was
ceded by the Chippeway Indians to the United States
in 1843. The short excitement, a year or two later, fol-
lowing the discovery of copper, left the district still a
wilderness, with here and there a small copper mine lost
in the forest, and dependent on the little settlements of
Hancock and Houghton at the base of the Peninsula.

Such was the condition in the early part of the second
half of the last century, when a man named E. J. Hul-
•bert was surveying a road in this wild country. One
day, while walking about in the woods, he stumbled
across a curious pit and, being an intelligent man, be-
came interested in examining the hole. It appeared to
be artificial ; a huge hemlock standing on the refuse
thrown up on the edge of the pit bore evidence of its
extreme age. Clearing away the rubbish at the bottom,
he found a very considerable quantity of verdigris.

This pit is now supposed to have been a prehistoric
cache. On Isle Royal, an island opposite Keweenaw
Peninsula, there are remains of ancient workings on
copper veins. It is thought that the Indians, after min-
ing there in the summer, would in the fall paddle to
the Peninsula and cross it on their way south. A party
of Indians, overtaken by an early winter, would have

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

55

chosen such a spot to cache their copper ; for the loca-
tion of the hole was such that the lay of the land would
enable any one who knew of it to find it easily. We
must imagine that any one of a hundred possible calami-
ties overtook these primitive miners, who never returned
for their treasure, which in the course of time weathered
into verdigris.

This explanation did not occur to Hulbert at the
time, who imagined he had discovered a spot where the
Indians had once dug out copper. Looking about in
the vicinity he found, a few hundred feet to the south-
west, a huge block of conglomerate rock cemented to-
gether with particles of copper. From the appearance
of this piece of rock, weighing many tons, he was con-
vinced it was near its original position. He knew some-
thing of the formation of the country, and concluded
he was close to a stratum of copper-bearing rock. After
removing several dozen barrels of verdigris from the pit,
he was surprised to find no further traces of copper. It
was not till he had blasted a few feet below its bed that
he uncovered a lode of copper-bearing red conglomer-
ate, similar to the great piece of rock to the south-
west. By the merest coincidence the pit happened to
be just over what later proved to be a great lode
of copper rock, afterwards known as the Calumet con-
glomerate. Improbable as this seems, Mr. Hulbert was
always very definite in his statements that he did not
discover the conglomerate until he had blasted below the
bottom of the hole.

Hulbert was unable to get possession of the land on
which the pit was situated, but he gained control of the
land to the north. Assuming that the boulder was near
the lode, and a line from it to the pit would give the

56

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

approximate position of the outcrop, he extended this
line to the nearest point on his own land, sank a shaft
there, and again ran into the copper-bearing conglom-
erate. Firmly convinced that he had discovered a large
deposit of copper, he went, toward the close of the Civil
W ar, to Boston, which was already the financial centre
for Lake Superior mines, where he met Agassiz’s brother-
in-law, Mr. Quincy A. Shaw, who was already interested
in mines in that region.

Hulbert persuaded Mr. Shaw and his friends to pur-
chase a controlling interest and further options in his
scheme, known as the Calumet Mine. Later, when it
became time to take up these options, Hulbert preferred
to exchange his Calumet holding for securities of the
Huron Mine.1 This afterwards went to pieces, nearly
taking Mr. Shaw with it, at a time when Calumet was
most in need of funds. A few years later, as Calumet
was becoming prosperous, Mr. Shaw made a new settle-
ment with Hulbert, practically giving him one thousand
shares of Calumet. This fortune Hulbert threw away in
wild-cat speculations. The remaining years of his life
were, however, passed in ease and comfort, thanks to an
unusual generosity; for Mr. Shaw, realizing that the
Fates had not been overkind to Hulbert, pensioned him
handsomely.

It was arranged that Messrs. Shaw and Hulbert should
take the mine on a lease, and the latter went back to
Calumet to develop the property. The rock that was first
found was exceedingly rich, and Hulbert, seeing such
great masses of copper tangled in their bed of conglom-
erate, appears to have lost his head. He proceeded to
quarry out the rock haphazardly, and buying a hun-

1 A mine to the south of Hancock, in which Mr. Shaw was interested.

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE 57

dred teams of horses began to haul it thirteen miles to
Hancock.

In the summer of 1866, after his father’s return from
Brazil, Agassiz took a vacation from the management of
the Museum, and went up to Michigan to see the new
mine. The so-called Calumet conglomerate, a stratum
of felsitic porphyry, about twelve to fourteen1 feet
wide, carrying native copper, dips to the northwest at
an angle of about thirty-seven degrees. The forma-
tion thereabout is singularly uniform, so that Agassiz
was able to obtain some idea of the possible extent
of the lode. He was so much impressed by its prob-
able richness that during his visit, Mr. Shaw and a party
of Boston gentlemen bought the land to the south of
the Calumet Mine, on which the old Indian pit was
situated, and organized the Hecla Mining Company. It
must have been about this time that Agassiz succeeded
in borrowing a comparatively small sum of money with
which he secured the interest in these properties that
formed the basis of his fortune.

On his return, he was made the treasurer of both
companies. Toward the end of the year matters did not
look so promising. Hecla was still in the first stages of
development, but it was evident that Hulbert was not
making Calumet pay. Consequently the company decided
to operate Calumet themselves, and close the lease under
which Hulbert had held practically complete control at
the mine. When the working of the mine was reorgan-
ized on this new basis, Agassiz again went to Michigan
late in December, 1866, stayed there about a month,
saw a new man, Davis, put in charge of Calumet, and
once more looked over the ground.

1 In the lowest levels it widens out to nearly thirty feet.

58

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Shortly after his return to Boston, he wrote the fol-
lowing letter to Major Henry L. Higginson, who, having
married x\gassiz’s sister Ida, had bought, at the termina-
tion of the Civil War, a plantation in the South, and was
trying to raise cotton under the chaotic conditions that
prevailed there at the time.

TO H. L. HIGGINSON

Cambridge, February 3, 1867.

[The first part of the letter deals with some plantation
matters.] Now about mining stocks, I really don’t know
what to say. I have perfect faith myself in the value of
both Calumet and Hecla, the adjacent piece of land to
Calumet which was purchased last year while I was at
Lake Superior, and the results thus far obtained are
beyond our most sanguine expectations. Calumet after
this month will earn about $400,000 at least calculation
till the end of this year, but we must out of this equip
the mine thoroughly, build a good many roads, so that
the expenses of this year together with the amount
which must be kept in Treasury for work during the
winter, when no copper can be sold, as it cannot be
brought to market, will not leave much more than
enough to pay from $5 to perhaps $10 a share in
January, but the prospects of the mine (Calumet), from
the amount of copper now exposed, are most magnifi-
cent and in the course of the second year, 1868, the
mine will pay at least $15 a share and may go as
high as from $30 to $40. Of course I will not con-
ceal that all this depends upon the management at
the Lake. The value of the mines, both Hecla and
Calumet, are beyond the wildest dreams of copper
men, but with the kind of management many of the

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

59

mines have had, then even if the pits were full of
gold, it would be of no use. This will of course ne-
cessitate careful looking after here, and I shall do all
I can and all I know to put things on a good basis.
In the present condition of Calumet, it is capable of
producing copper at exactly one-third the price at
which the most successful mines have ever been able
to work.

Hecla is also controlled by Quin and Shaw family ;
it was only commenced last October, being a wilderness
in September when I was at the Lake, and now it is
opened enough to be able to get out nearly as much
copper as any mine on Lake Superior, except Calumet,
at a very small cost. I am sorry to say, however, that
the price of the stock is pretty well up. Hecla is selling
for about $50 per share and Calumet for about $75.
The relative position of the two is about this ; during
1867 Calumet will produce 12-1500 tons of ingot
copper = $600,000-$ 750,000, at a cost of about
$200,000-$250,000, outside $300,000. While Hecla
will produce from 800-900 tons = $400, 000-$450, 000,
at a cost of $180,000- $200,000. Now all the figures
I give you are based upon the present state of the
mines , always supposing that there are no additional
facilities brought to bear during any part of the
coming year, which of course makes all my estimates
fall very far short of what we expect. One source
also which will increase our yield is that as we go
down in depth the bed increases in richness, and an
increase of from 1-5 per cent for our rock is enough
to make a difference of $500-$2500 a day, so you
see what a margin there is. All my calculations are
made also upon a yield of 10 per cent while thus far

60

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

nothing has been less than 15 per cent by our present
processes.1

I will see your father in the course of a day or two
and tell him all I can about this, but although I have
put every cent of mine into these two mines, and have
no temptation to sell out at the present prices, I hate to
advise anybody about such precarious things as mines.
One thing you may be sure of that when there is any
screw loose I will be sure to let you know in time. I do
not think I shall be able to build this year, first, because
I have not the heart to sell out enough stock to pay for
the house, second because I' think it probable that I
shall be at Lake Superior so often and so long that a
house would be only an incumbrance, while I know if I
have to postpone a year or more I shall not have to pay
so much. I have the land, a very nice piece, and it will
keep.

Modest as this prophecy was compared to the ulti-
mate success of the enterprise, it seems singular that
Agassiz should have been so optimistic at this time, for
only shortly afterwards the mines found themselves in
serious trouble. The hard, heavy, and tenacious con-
glomerate was a very different thing to mine and mill
from the comparatively soft and less finely subdivided
amygdaloid rock hitherto mined in these parts ; the best
mining men of the day declared that it could not be
done at a profit. It was discovered that Hulbert had
grossly misrepresented the true condition of affairs as
they actually stood at Calumet, and the venture threat-
ened to end disastrously for all concerned.

1 The original estimate of the average percentage of copper in the rock
was much exaggerated.

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

61

At this crisis, the management decided to send Agas-
siz to Michigan to take charge, for he felt convinced
that this rich deposit of copper could be worked at a
profit, and that he could do it. Just before he left for
Calumet, Charles W. Eliot, then an unknown young
professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
met him in the streets of Boston.

He said : “ Eliot, I am going to Michigan for some
years as superintendent of the Calumet and Hecla Mines.
I want to make money ; it is impossible to be a produc-
tive naturalist in this country without money. I am
going to get some money if I can and then I will be a
naturalist. If I succeed, I can then get my own papers
and drawings printed and help my father at the Mu-
seum.”

Seldom, indeed, have the aspirations of youth proved
in such harmony with the achievements of maturity.

Before entering into Agassiz’s life at Calumet, a few
words may not be out of place here, for the benefit of
those unfamiliar with copper mining. From the charac-
ter of the deposits on the Peninsula, the processes used
in extracting the metal from the rock are somewhat differ-
ent from those employed where the copper occurs in the
form of an ore, or chemical compound.

When the rock is brought to the surface, it first goes
to a rock house, where it passes through a series of
breakers, and is broken into small pieces. From here it
goes to a mill, where it is reduced to little particles,
after which the whole, flooded with water, passes over
a series of washing machines and other contrivances,
where the copper is drawn off, the refuse going out with
the water. The whole process depends on the principle
that by agitating the mass the copper will sink to the

62

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

bottom, and the lighter, non-copper-bearing particles
will stay on top. There are three principal methods by
which this pulverization at the mill may be accomplished ;
by a series of rollers, by batteries of small stamps, or by
great heavy stamp heads.

Agassiz reached Calumet early in March, and at once
found himself confronted with a multitude of difficul-
ties which taxed his strength and ability almost to the
breaking point. In order fully to appreciate the difficulty
of accomplishing what he succeeded in doing while at
Calumet, one must realize that the Keweenaw Peninsula
was then more inaccessible in summer than Alaska is to-
day, while during the long severe winters it was prac-
tically cut off from the rest of the world. For Green Bay
was the terminus of the railroad, from whence it was a
long and trying sleigh-ride of many days to Calumet.

Some extracts from an official report on the Calumet
Mine, written soon after his arrival, may give an idea of
the conditions there : —

“When it was decided to give the lessees notice that
their lease would terminate on January 1, 1867, an as-
sessment was levied to carry on a certain amount of
Company work, such as buildings and fitting up neces-
sary machinery to proceed at once with work on taking
possession and have no delays. It was understood at
that time that the lessees were to make an open quarry
above water level, at a point commencing about 1600
feet north of the south boundary of the property. This
plan was carried out unfortunately only just far enough
not to obtain any receipts from the quarry, and in such
a way as to compel very expensive running to protect
the mine and render it safe hereafter besides subjecting

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

63

the works to be flooded with water. The original plan
was entirely lost sight of and huge open pits were sunk
in the middle of the lode. No attempt was made to sup-
port the roof, timbering was entirely neglected, and the
mine was strained to its utmost capacity to produce rock
at any price and regardless of the consequence.

“ During the time this method of mining was progress-
ing the most flattering reports of progress made were
forwarded to Boston and the capacity of the quarry re-
presented as fully equal to 100 tons well selected rock,
while at the same time all provisions were making to
secure the mine and go on with the regular openings
independently of the quarry. The failure of the smelt-
ing works in reducing this selected rock and smelting
it directly, compelled a change of programme, but only
partial, as it has always been the intention to put on the
location a small mill in order to treat cheaply our second
quality of rock. For this purpose a small rolling mill
was purchased, on the representations of the Agent of
the full success of the Huron finishing mill, and his in-
structions were to put up this mill on its arrival on this
location so that by the first of January it might be in
running condition. Mr. Hulbert wrote over and over
again that the mill would be running by that time, and
only a few days previous to the visit of the Treasurer
of the mine in December, such a letter was received.

“ It was found on arrival at the mine that nothing had
as yet been done towards erecting the mill except perhaps
one week’s work on the timber, and what was still more
disastrous no preparation had been made for the con-
nections of the different parts of the mine. Nothing
was on hand to build a tramway for the mine and the
mill. No attempt was made to pound a sufficient supply

64

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of water, our dependence being placed entirely on a
small beaver dam entirely outside of the limits of the
Calumet property. A similar course was pursued with
reference to the other mining supplies ; almost nothing
was supplied with the exception of hay and oats, so that
during the whole winter up to the opening of naviga-
tion the mine will be dependent for its supplies upon
Hancock and Houghton. After the failure of the smelt-
ing works, stamp mills were hired at (Hancock), and ac-
cording to the figures sent by Mr. Hulbert to Boston,
the mine could not have been earning less than from
$25,000-$ 30,000 a month. These statements were,
however, utterly false and the expenses actually incurred
in December alone for producing ingot should have sat-
isfied any one of the folly of attempting to go on and
stamp our rock at mills 13 miles distant owing to the
great cost of teaming, the want of all supplies at mine,
and the uncertainties of the weather during winter.

“ This suicidal course was, however, carried on in Jan-
uary and February, Mr. Hulbert concealing the true
state of things and making estimates out of all propor-
tions with what he must have known the expenses to
be. This systematic deception was carried on not only
with reference to the expense and results of the mine
work, but in regard to everything else undertaken by
the Calumet & Hecla Mining Companies in the way of
general improvements. . . . The intention of the Com-
pany to make a tug channel through Torch River and
connect Torch Lake1 with Portage Lake was made use

1 Torch Lake, to the southeast of Calumet, is a small body of water
about six hundred and fifty feet lower than the location of the mines.
From it a shallow stream led to Portage Lake which connects with Lake
Superior.

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

65

of to make a cut for a deep channel, which would have
cost at least $75,000, the Company intending to spend
about $10,000. Mr. Hulbert made no attempt to alter
this contract in spite of numerous letters sent him to
that effect, the contract being signed by him individu-
ally. Mr. Hulbert also, without making a careful exam-
ination of the country between the mine and Torch
Lake, selected at the head of Torch Lake a site without
troubling himself as to the feasibility of reaching the
Lake by the shortest route.

u His strong recommendations of machinery were not
found successful, inducing the Directors to run risks
which, had the true state of things been represented,
would never have been taken. This course of duplicity
in Mr. Hulbert is the more inexcusable from the fact that
he was a large shareholder, had received in everything
the full support from the Directors, and it was with
great reluctance that little by little they felt compelled
to lose confidence and to question his actions. No Agent
at Lake Superior ever had a more cordial support, and
the value of the lode to be worked was such that a little
common sense would with the expenditures thus far made
have equipped this mine properly.”

The Hecla Mine, being less far advanced, was not in
so bad a condition, but the openings of the mine ap-
pear to have been made as stupidly as those on Calu-
met, and the property equally mismanaged. There are
in existence a couple of old books full of the letters
that Agassiz wrote to Mr. Shaw during this trying
period. The pages, copied half a century ago, are
faded, blurred, and often quite undecipherable; but from
them we can gather something of the gallant fight of

66

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

these two brothers-in-law as they struggled to keep this
desperate venture afloat. While Agassiz on his part was
endeavoring, with insufficient means, to start everything
afresh, surrounded by incompetent and dishonest super-
intendents who had been running the affairs of the
mine to their own advantage, Mr. Shaw in Boston was
confronted with equal, if not more trying, difficulties.
The mines had already consumed more money than had
been expected ; Mr. Shaw’s affairs were involved, he was
at the end of his financial resources, pressed by his
creditors, and loaded with law-suits. In the face of all
this, he was straining every nerve to get money to de-
velop the properties from a community that had lost
confidence in them. As Agassiz wrote long afterward,
“If Quin had ever known when he was beaten we
should never have pulled the thing off.”

One of the most difficult of the undertakings which
confronted Agassiz was the necessity of changing the
openings on both mines, so that in future the rock could
be extracted by legitimate mining methods. Work was
at once started to build a dam for the Calumet Mill.
But as the stream was barely sufficient for this, he pre-
pared to construct a small railroad to Torch Lake, which
would not only open a mill-site for Hecla, but also fur-
nish a convenient communication with the mines.

From the first, Agassiz mistrusted the advisability of
setting up the rolls which Hulbert had bought for the
Calumet Mill, as those at Huron were not working sat-
isfactorily. Finding that he could buy on the Peninsula
two heavy heads of Ball stamps, capable of turning out
seventy-five to ninety tons of rock a day, he planned
to set these up in the Calumet Mill. If later the rolls
were proving satisfactory at Huron, he then proposed

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

67

to use his in the future Hecla Mill. Unfortunately,
Hodge, the agent of the rolls, appeared upon the scene
just as Agassiz was about to put this idea into operation,
and persuaded him that with a few slight improvements
everything would work satisfactorily. So the installation
of the rolls in the Calumet Mill proceeded.

Shortly after his arrival, he found it necessary to dis-
charge Halbert’s brother John, who was in charge of
Hecla. Assuming the management himself, he kept
Davis as his assistant in charge of Calumet. Hulbert, who
was still a large stockholder, continued to give trouble.

TO Q. A. SHAW

April 19, 1867.

My dear Quin: —

E. J. Hulbert I find went to Boston fully determined,
as I hear from quotations of his, to show Mr. Shaw what
should be done ; he was not going to have anybody here
telling him what to do ; either he (E. J.) or Agassiz would
be master. That is the spirit and not the benefit of the
Company. If anybody wants my place and can do better,
let them have it; I am not anxious to stay here and be
in a perpetual stew about a state of things which I did
not inaugurate. One thing is perfectly clear : you cannot
run either Calumet or Hecla without equipment as has
been attempted, and if you attempt it and try any make-
shifts to get out copper except by regular mining , you
will swamp them both . The sum of the thing is, that
we cannot stop and put things into shape ; everything
is out of joint here and it will take a great deal of
money spent to apparently no purpose to get them on
the right track again. All the shovelling of snow done
here last winter could have opened the mine ; days were

68

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

passed in cutting ice to get at foundations, and the ex-
tra cost of securing the large pits is at least $10,000
per month simply to keep them from falling in. We
can only spend more money and get straight, and if we
stop we are swamped. I know it is a hard road to travel,
but I could see no other. We must raise money for
Calumet and make that get Hecla out right. It is pretty
hard to be in such a fix, but we must face the music,
though I must say I get fearfully blue up here at times
all by myself, and feel often like choking anybody who
crosses my path.

Daylight is, I trust, coming ; as soon as this old mill
gets going we shall be 0. K., moving ahead as fast as
possible, but when anything is wanted must go to
Houghton and now a trip is a thing of two days. Snow
is going fast and I shall be glad of opening of naviga-
tion to get letters a little more regularly and quickly. I
would give a great deal to have two days’ talk with you
about everything here.

Yours,

A. Ag.

A few days later he writes : —

“ I wish you could manage to run up here for a few
days. It would be worth a hundred pages of letters.
You might bring Annie and Chicks up, for if I have
to stay here till close of navigation without budging as
things look now, I must try and arrange matters at the
hotel to have them here till close of navigation. I think
I can do it and it will not cost any more to live here
than at home if they stay till November or end of Oc-
tober. I shall write Annie about it so that she may be
ready to move at a moment’s notice, but I don’t want

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

69

her to run any risks and be up here if any serious stop-
pages are meditated ; rather not see them till Xmas than
run any such chances. I do not see how I can manage
to get off even to go after them, and somebody must
manage to send them up. I dare say father would like
the trip and it might do him good. I can assure you it
is fearfully lonely up here — not a soul to talk over and
discuss matters with. I hate to saddle all on my back for
fear of making any mistakes, and it takes such a time
to write, and as time is too valuable to waste, we must
jump faster than I like to do.”

TO Q. A. SHAW

April 30, 1867.

It is frightful to have to spend so much money to get
in order again. It would not have cost one-half the
amount to have commenced properly ; and had I not
come when I did, Davis’s orders from E. J. would have
soon swelled cost sheets to 100,000 per month. March
has been the capping of E. J.’s folly ; all has seemed to
accumulate in it, and I don’t know what would have
become of us had he gone on a couple of months longer.
As it is, in Calumet we shall feel effects of it all sum-
mer, in [the] way of additional cost of timbering, filling
excavation, and general inconvenience of working. It is
enough to make anybody discouraged to see such waste,
and as it is I don’t see what we can do to save ourselves.
We must assess again and both $5, or else we are gone.
You will be out of funds after meeting April payments
for March Cost Sheets, and it cannot be expected that
Calumet mills can produce enough to meet all our liabil-
ities which fortunately come due only in end of May,
June, and July, but yet it will not give mills a sufficiently

70

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

long chance, and Hecla will certainly be left in lurch
unless Calumet can pay back something, which seems
improbable as she cannot save herself. You have now
in your possession all papers necessary, Cost Sheets to
April 1, Estimates of April and May, Product in Ingot
total, and I cannot figure out of it except another $5
assessment on both, and where money is to come from
God only knows.

I thought you had best be prepared for worst as soon
as possible ; we cannot escape out of this mess except to
pay out continually, and if this infernal roller business
don’t swamp Calumet also, you may thank your stars. I
feel perfectly frantic and so helpless, no tools to do any-
thing, no machinery on which any dependence can be
placed, nobody on ground or in country who has any
idea what can be done with rollers and what is best
way of running. The time, expense, fussing it takes to
get Hodge’s machinery in running order is fearful;
nothing fits, and when all has to be sent to Hancock
when anything is awry, it is an awful waste of time and
money which no gold mine could afford. You can see
yourself how it works. Nearly two months since I came,
and we are no nearer our aim for Hecla than at first.

It seems hard after all our hopes to be brought to
this pass ; it is no use to try to figure out of it and at-
tempt to whip the devil round the stump. We must have
funds to go ahead, and if that cannot be obtained by
assessments, why raise it on mortgage on Hecla and Cal-
umet, say five years’ time, and you are safe ; but it is
now a case of money or burst on both of them, and if
it is burst the sooner we know it the better. I get per-
fectly furious here all alone, to be here entirely left to
my wits and counsel, and at a distance of a month at

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71

least before any answer can come to letters is more than
I can stand. If it were a simple matter to go ahead, it
would be a different thing, but to feel that a false step
may swamp whole concern is not a pleasant predicament
to be left in, and I trust never to be in such a shape
again.

I do hope the mails will be a little more regular. I
have nothing from you since April 11, and shall get
nothing till the boats come up, of course just at the
critical moment. I suppose there are about two weeks’
letters lying in Houghton for you waiting for a boat.
It is all very well for E. J. to rant about slow coaches ;
they are at least economical and don’t throw money away
by thousands as he has done, and lay out a plan which
is carried out and means something, instead of this
spasmodic jerking of money right and left without
knowing the why or wherefore. I have never felt dis-
couraged till now, but if Calumet mill works well we
may yet get out of woods — otherwise the game is up,
and we had best be prepared for it, as you seem to think
it is impossible to assess in present state of feeling about
copper.

Meanwhile the installment of the machinery in the
Calumet Mill, on which all hopes of earning a little
money to keep the mine working were centred, was
nearly completed. But the tests were not satisfactory.

TO Q. A. SHAW

Calumet, June 1, 1867.

We tried to-day mill with five tons rock, somewhat
larger than what Rock House would give, so that our
results will be somewhat inside of what we may expect,

72

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

and I am sorry to say I am awfully disappointed. The
utmost capacity of mill is three tons per hour and what
is worse when running at that speed we make 20 per
cent raff and that raff we cannot finish (it runs about
40 per cent copper) ; the rollers are too unequal to crush
copper, inequalities in shells fully up to one fourth inch
occur so frequently, and power is required to flatten out
so much copper as is in raff so immense that rollers open
or choke, and either make raff or clog. The copper can-
not be got out before it gets to last roller, there is so
much small stuff just big enough to open rollers and
make raff, and when rollers do not open it falls through
the inequalities.

So that the best that you can do at mill is 60 tons a
day, and I doubt if that can be kept up day in and
day out, of say 5 per cent ingot, 3 tons a day, 25 days,
75 tons ingot. Now add to that whatever barrel work
will come out of Rock House, and what that will be no
man can tell now. I am afraid I am figuring mill high.
I think that Rock House will give us 50 tons barrel
work at 60 per cent — 30 tons more ingot, total, 100
tons ingot — $46, 000 at a cost of all included of
$36, 000, leaving not more than $10,000 a month. That
is the best I can figure it at. Now this is altogether too
small and will never do. Our mill is a hindrance to us.

Immediately after this distressing news, Mr. Shaw
made a flying trip to Calumet, and the following plan
was decided on. Two Ball stamp heads were ordered
for the Calumet Mill. The work on the railroad was to
be pushed ahead as fast as possible, a mill for Hecla,
equipped with two Ball heads, and with a capacity for
two more when needed, was to be built at Torch Lake.

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73

To meet these expenses assessments were levied on both
Calumet and Hecla, which Mr. Shaw, on his return,
managed to negotiate successfully.1 In this he was
much assisted by Mr. John Simpkins, of New York,
who held a heavy interest in the mines and furnished
very large funds for the enterprise at the time of its
greatest financial depression.

In July, Mrs. Agassiz with her two children, one a
very small boy and the other a baby barely a year old,
joined her husband at Calumet. It was a rough primi-
tive community with little to offer in the way of com-
fort beyond the bare necessities of life. The “ hotel ”
was scarcely more than a log cabin on the edge of a
primeval forest rising directly behind it. The cracks in
the walls let in such a draft that the baby usually had
to be kept in his crib ; and whenever Mrs. Agassiz went
out for a walk with her little boy she wore a revolver
strapped to her waist.

In August Agassiz writes : —

“ I have no time for any writing just now. I am driven
to death starting mill at Lake and no place to put men
on account of want of shelter. Shall get straightened
out in a few days and will have a good man there to
look after things. Railroad progressing and I feel very
hopeful about it, though some days it seems as if all
went awry. I have to be much of time trotting between
Torch Lake and mine along railroad, which is not con-
ducive to pleasant feeling in evening, and lately I have
been pretty well used up, but am putting things through,
and will give you account of progress of work at end of
week.”

1 Mrs. Agassiz’s brother, H. S. Russell, carried Agassiz’s assessments.

74

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Although a definite plan of action had at length been
decided on, yet the work to be done exacted more
ceaseless effort than ever. This included the supervision
of both mines themselves, the perfecting of the Calumet
Rock House, the changes in the Calumet Mill, the
building of the Hecla Rock House, the erection of a
mill at Torch Lake, and the construction, through a
dense forest, of four and three-fifths miles of railroad
with its connections to the various parts of the mines.
It was, besides, necessary to do everything with the
most rigid economy, while at the same time attempting
to get a little product somehow to help construction
expenses. All this was to be accomplished in a wilder-
ness, utterly inaccessible to the outside world, so far as
supplies were concerned, for at least half the year. In
addition, Agassiz had no assistants on whom he placed
any reliance, and was obliged to contend against the op-
position of an entire community who regarded him as an
interloper and outsider. His letters are full of these last
difficulties.

“ Keep up courage and never give up : we shall be all
right yet. I get perfectly frantic with the men here :
nobody who seems to take any interest in what is doing,
all simply here to live on you, and when any attempt is
made to prevent chances of slighting work, seem deter-
mined to put all possible obstacles in your way, and
instead of attempting to help you, seem bound to see if
they cannot compel you to yield and do as they want.”

“ The thing I drive and look after is the only thing
that goes; and just as fast as I pass from one thing to
another, just so fast do things move. I ought to have

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75

had three good men, energetic and interested, at mine
at head of incline, and at mill, instead of being com-
pelled to do all I have to do myself. There is not a
thing, down to seeing that cars get unloaded when they
come here with materials, which I don’t have to look
after myself, and some days I am in utter despair. I
don’t wonder mines don’t pay, for the people up here
care very little whether they do or not as long as they
keep going.”

By the end of September the two Ball stamps were
set up in the Calumet Mill, and a successful trial shed a
ray of sunshine on the situation.

TO Q. A. SHAW

Sept. 25, 1867.

At last ! Trial made this afternoon of one head suc-
cessfully. Everything seems to be working well and I
really believe we have made more copper in that time,
we have run about one hour, than whole mill if running
by rollers will. It is pleasant to see machinery go off
from the start — no hitches, nothing out of the way,
and by October 1 this head will be hammering away
day and night and not stop again. About half the
stockholders up here were out to see the machine start
and mill was quite well filled. I am sure if they all
felt as much relieved as your humble servant over its
working well, they must have felt well. Now it remains
to be seen what can be done by incline : I say 60-70
tons ; all others say 75-85. We will say 65; that would
give us at 5 per cent for 24 days per month, 144 tons
ingot, say 150 tons ingot per month. I think we should
live up to that. If we do, by January 1 we ought to

76

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

be out of the woods at Calumet and start the new year
with a clean sheet. What a blessing it will be all round!

Railroad in Hecla is not progressing as well as it
should. Emerson has rather let it slip and I have had to
drum him up. We have had a most magnificent week
thus far and nothing has been done except a little tin-
kering, while they ought to have been laying track
these two days, and days now are precious. It is almost
impossible to keep my eyes on all things. Railroad has
not done as well since I paid attention to the stamp
mill, but I trust now to give it a good start after fault-
finding all round. At last the mill is moving at Lake.
The first car of timbers for the foundation of the heads
is in to-day and I trust to keep at it steady and get it
done in about three weeks ready for the machinery.
But then we shall have an interruption by raining, when
nothing can be done till the stamp house frame is up
and covered in. Indications up this way seem to point
to an early winter. It looks now like November at home,
and things still to be done before snow are appalling.

I shall do all I can, but one man is not enough. I
ought to be at mill, on railroad, and at mine, and it is
utterly out of the question to drive things together at
same speed. Work at mine has progressed much better
than anything else, with the exception of machine
shop which has been waiting for shafting since Sep-
tember 1; and although it has been on way since 5th of
September has not yet turned up. I expected to have
done a good deal of work for stamp mill and rock house
on it, and if it does not turn up, shall get some tempo-
rary shafting at end of week. If man who has contract
for laying track does not come up to mark, I shall take
things out of his hands. While laying track we shall be

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77

at an expense of seventy-five men and four teams, or
about $5000 per month, in addition to expenses of
merely laying, $5000 being for furnishing wood for
ties, handling iron and bringing up to tracklayers. It
will take six weeks to lay track and get it in running
order, I think (at least), from day we commence, under
existing weather ; this will make it November 15 before
we have done. Late, very late, but cannot get through
earlier.

TO Q. A. SHAW

Calumet, Nov. 5, 1867.

I have just received an awful rap over the knuckles.
The locomotive and track are not of one gauge ; loco-
motive is one inch too narrow . This is perfectly infer-
nal. First comes snow ; and now, just as we had man-
aged by dint of sweeping to lay a temporary track
around the trestle of head of incline, to get locomotive
up and push road to mine, we are brought to a dead
standstill by this mistake and shall have to relay one
rail whole distance from Lake and alter the axles of all
our cars (which fit track admirably) to the new gauge.
This is no fool’s job and will, I am afraid, delay us
greatly. I shall get, if possible, these changes made at
Franklin or Pewabic shop ; but I am afraid with all this
work that it will fall on our machine shop and delay
everything at least three weeks.

The fine weather is coming on again (at least I hope
so as it has stopped snowing). Before we change the
track I shall get forward all that is necessary to finish
track as far as mine ; and then, while they are laying
that last 4500 feet, change the gauge of other part of
railroad and bring up locomotive. I don’t see that

78

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

W eston is to blame : there are two ways of ordering, and
from the method used here he had made a mistake in
taking for the distance between his flanges the width of
the track inside instead of outside the flanges, which
makes a difference of just one inch. It is too exaspera-
ting to be blocked by such a blunder, and just at the
last moment. All these things are never found out till
everything is ready, and I am afraid we shall now be
delayed in consequence. I go to Torch Lake early to-
morrow and shall look at thing again after a night’s
sleep and see what can be done ; and shall then at once
go to Houghton and let you know what can be done
there. Locomotive, I am afraid, cannot possibly be al-
tered ; and then the only remedy and cheapest thing is
to relay one rail and change axles for all our cars. This
letter is worse written than usual, but I am in such a
raofe that I cannot write better.

o

The long cold winter of the Upper Peninsula now set
in with a suddenness and fierceness characteristic of that
region. On December 7, Agassiz writes : —

“ Have had no chance for writing : the bad weather
has taken up all my time and could do nothing except
attend to what little was going on. I was in hopes that
my hard work was over ; but I am just beginning to
perceive that if this kind of weather continues, it has
only commenced. In past eleven days hardly anything
has been done and the fearful weather has brought every-
thing to a standstill except what little could be done inside
the stamp mills. The railroad is blocked entirely by snow
and we cannot use locomotive till snow-plow is finished.
All attempts to raise trestle work are useless, and men

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

79

cannot work outdoors in such a gale as has been blow-
ing. Thermometer five below zero and regular hurricane
most of the time, and about fifteen inches of snow and
drifting badly.

“ The winter has come upon us in good earnest and
worse than any winter at Lake Superior ever commenced
at this season. I trust it is not a forerunner of what
one may expect for rest of winter ; if so, we shall be
fearfully behindhand with all new work, and I can
hardly say anything as to the time when we may expect
to commence operations on Hecla. We were getting on
finely when tripped up in this fearful style ; and I was
calculating to have December at least to get some of the
loose ends connected, and not have the regular winter
snows and winds set in upon us before the new year, as
is usually the case.”

Two weeks later he writes : —

“We had hard rain yesterday which has played mis-
chief with railroad and done more harm than two feet
of snow. It froze hard after it and now whole track
is covered with crust of about six inches of ice and we
have by working all day only succeeded in going about
one mile from mine. This was one thing that I had not
figured on till spring and have been caught and snow-
plow is not properly rigged for it.

“I am getting so fearfully riled that I am afraid I
shall do something foolish yet, if I am too much pro-
voked. But I am bound to see this out and by next fall
everything should be in such shape that I can leave ; at
least I hope so, for another winter here would be more
than I bargained for and I hope by next October all
will be running satisfactorily enough to let me pack up

80

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

my duds and simply make frequent visits, — but no use
to look so far ahead. This is going to be a fearful
winter for snow ; there seems no end of it and no pros-
pect of any alleviation till end of June. I get feeling
pretty blue some days and should like to turn out whole
lot of officers from beginning to end for their infernal
shiftlessness and want of interest in anything except
their own comfort. I hope to-morrow to manage and get
through to incline with locomotive and finish bringing
up freight which has accumulated there.

“ It is impossible for me to keep on the way I have
done. It is fortunate I am tough, for were I not I should
have broken down ; but I begin to feel the effect of this
infernal work and drive ; I get fearfully tired, a thing
I have never known before, and I have had one or two
pulls which warn me to be very careful. Neither you nor
I anticipated what we have had to pass through wdien I
left, but if we want to get any good out of it, the proper
men to be trained by me now while I am here ought to
be on the spot and the rough corners smoothed between
different bosses and whole thing left in smooth running
order by next fall. As far as I can see up here, I can
only find two men, Buzzo and Hardie: the first, if he
finds a thing equipped and a definite plan laid out, will
work it out cheaply and implicitly follow instructions;
Hardie has judgment and experience enough to make
new work and carry it out and would be better man for
Calumet and might act as adviser to Buzzo on Hecla.”

Work on the HeclaMill was progressing rapidly, and
on February 7, 1868, he writes to Mr. Shaw : —

“ Mill is now ready except connecting one head and
belts of washing machines ; and "were drum at head of

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

81

incline ready, I could commence stamping in twenty-
four hours. The wood work is all out for that now and
carpenters commence to put it together to-morrow, and
to-day will, I trust, finish everything at head of incline
and take rock down. But this infernal weather beats all
my calculations — shovelling snow, shovelling snow —
so that forenoon is spent in shovelling what snow fell
during night and you get afternoon to work if the snow
does not drive too hard.,,

The early tests of the mill did not come up to expec-
tations, and in the middle of March he was utterly dis-
couraged, and almost ready to abandon the enterprise.

“ I am afraid we must consider Hecla a failure as far
as equipment is concerned ; it is not adequate for pur-
pose and has just missed being what was needed by a
little, which little will increase materially the cost of
running and increase cost sheet considerably and thus
lessen greatly the small profit we expected to make with
two heads. I have done the best I could, but I am satis-
fied from the result that I have made many blunders
and that much money has been spent which will not
affect the purpose for which it was intended simply
from my want of experience of the ways of men up here.
I had been used before, when asking a man about things
which he made his specialty, to get some reliable inform-
ation and have based many of my blunders as it turns
out on just such information, which is perfectly worth-
less, and all you can take here which is good for any-
thing is actual working practice, which I have had no
time from our peculiar position to study.

“We must look at things just as they are and not

82

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

attempt to gloss them over; and I must say, if they
don’t improve materially, my advice would be to sell out
the whole thing in a block, if it can be done, and let
somebody else try their hand at it. I have attempted, I
think, to do the work with too small tools on account of
expense, and am afraid we are attempting to dig a ditch
with toothpicks.”

However, when the mill got going smoothly, he found
that it would stamp nearly two hundred tons a day, and
his letters take a more cheerful tone ; on April 13 he
writes : —

“ I will acknowledge that my letters of March 18-25
were very much of weathercock style ; yet it was natural.
I had worked like a horse and had taken all precautions
I knew of to have things go off well from start ; and to
find on first handling how far below my expectations
everything seemed to be was pretty hard and I knew
everybody in district must have been only too glad to
see me fail. I did not make sufficient allowance for
things being new, railroad being a new thing up here,
and I had expected everything to start off first pop as
I had been accustomed to in coal mines where you do
as well first day as afterwards ; but then style of mine
accounts for difference. They are now commencing to
know their parts and everything is going along better,
and capacity of different parts of equipment is not so
far below my estimate. I also can see how to remedy
and improve what we have.”

But a few days later came a most discouraging ac-
cident : —

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

83

“ We are having our share and more than our share
of misfortunes, and this time we are stopped at Hecla
for a fortnight at least. Knowing that you would ex-
pect me to get as much copper in April as I got in
month ending a couple of days ago, I thought it safest
to telegraph you of accident and tell you we should be
idle the rest of the month at least. I telegraphed :
‘ Walls surrounding pit for additional heads at Hecla
mill have settled from jarring. Shall be idle rest of
month at least.’ ”

After the Hecla Mill was repaired, both mills at last
ran smoothly. As the prospects brightened, Agassiz’s
letters become less frequent. He now had a man on
whom he could rely as assistant, Mr. George Hardie,
who had been persuaded to leave the Quincy Mine and
work into the position of superintendent.

The Hulberts and other incompetent and dishonest
individuals had been kindling jealousy and antagonism
in a certain element in the community. The back waters
from the Calumet dam flooded some land outside the
companies’ property ; this the Hulberts took advantage
of to make trouble, and the affair culminated in the
cutting of the dam on the night of June 12.

“ I telegraphed you to-day that Calumet dam had been
cut and pond was empty. Ever since E, J. served his
notice of a nuisance on us, we have had a watchman
by day and night; but I am afraid they caught him
napping. Last night was a very dark night and, being
Saturday besides, a very good day, no one being busy
at mill after 12 p.m. Towards 4 o’clock in the morning
the watchman must either have been scared off or got

84

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

asleep, I don’t know which yet; he ran up to mine at
about 5, seeming out of his head, flung down his re-
volver and said the Irish had torn down the dam, and
rushed off into town ; so that no one knows how the
thing took place. Hardie has sent for him and I hope
we shall know more. We have had all men we could
get on dam repairing damage and hope we can get the
gap filled up again before 12 p.m., when they will un-
doubtedly serve an injunction on us to stop us from re-
pairing the damage. If we can get it up, we are all right;
if not, we shall have water enough, should it raise by
rain, to run one head again by to-morrow night. John
Hulbert is out of the way, having left about three days
ago and confided his dirty work to a man by name of
Burcher, who was his great man at election time.

“ This is the worst pill we have had yet and I am
afraid it is a case of assessment now for Calumet, un-
less we have plenty of rain at once, which is only thing
that will save us. I wish I could just get my hands on
John H. or E. J. I should shoot either of them with
perfect satisfaction.”

Fortunately the damage was temporarily repaired be-
fore an injunction could be served ; the supply of water
proved greater than was expected, and soon there was
sufficient to run the mill regularly.

This appears to have been the last serious set-back
that Agassiz had to contend with during his life at
Calumet. The rest of the summer and early fall he
spent in improving the organizations at the mines,
strengthening the weak spots, and getting the whole
to run smoothly. In August, Hecla produced about
one hundred and eighty-five tons of ingot and Calumet

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

85

about one hundred and forty tons, each mill stamping
over four thousand tons of rock during the month. Late
in September conditions were such that Agassiz felt sat-
isfied to leave Mr. Hardie in charge. The long strain was
over and the fight successful, but at the cost, as it after-
ward proved, of the loss of his health.

It must have been with unutterable feelings of relief
and satisfaction that he left the field of so many single-
handed contests against what must have often appeared
hopeless odds, and returned once again to the more con-
genial labors of the scholar, awaiting him at home. He
reached Cambridge early in October, 1868, but always
afterwards paid a visit to the mines in the spring and
another in the fall, except on the rare occasions when
he was prevented by illness or absence from the coun-
try. His travels and scientific expeditions were usually
so timed as not to interfere with these semi-annual vis-
its, and more than one voyage of exploration was post-
poned or abandoned owing to an unsatisfactory condi-
tion at the mine that required his personal attention.

On December 15, 1869, Hecla paid its first dividend
of five dollars, and Calumet followed suit with a like
amount on August 5, 1870, and after that neither com-
pany, nor the company into which they were consolidated,
ever passed a dividend ; or, with one exception, borrowed
any money until in 1909 notes were issued in purchase
of the stock of various other companies in this Lake
Superior district.

In May, 1871, the Hecla Mine, the Calumet Mine,
and the Portland and the Scott Mining Companies were
consolidated into the Calumet and Hecla Mining Com-
pany, with a capital stock of one hundred thousand
shares, Mr. Shaw serving as its first president. A few

86

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

months later he retired to the board of directors, and
Agassiz was made president, a position which he held to
the end of his life.

A detailed account of the development of the mine,
from such comparatively modest beginningsto the gigan-
tic enterprise that it afterward became, would swell
the present volume beyond all reasonable proportions.
Until a few years before Mr. Shaw’s death in 1908, he
and Agassiz directed the policy of the company, but as
the former had no training as an engineer, the work of
developing the mine itself fell to Agassiz. It was always
his policy to keep the mine opened up well ahead of the
work, — fifteen or twenty years ahead in later years, —
and when it became certain that the lode contained
a vast amount of profitable rock, he had the ability to
see what the conditions would be years later, and make
ready for them far in advance.

Such a policy naturally incurred great expense, for,
to use his own words, he always spent a dollar and a
half if he could see three dollars in the future. Most
people, however, were not far-sighted enough to be able
to seethe three dollars, and there was no little criticism
of the extravagant management of the mine, much of
which came from the very men who had formerly de-
clared that the lode could not be mined at a profit. For
example, the installation in 1883 of the five thousand
horse-power u Superior,” a huge engine for those days,
was thought at the time by many people a foolish pro-
ceeding. It was designed to hoist six skips, each with a
capacity of four tons of rock, from a depth of four
thousand feet, and also to run four Rand compressors.
This was greatly in excess of the needs of the mine then,
which was hoisting two and a half ton skips from an

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

87

average depth of about fifteen hundred feet. In 1911
this engine was hoisting seven and a half ton skips from
a depth of six thousand feet ! On one occasion he threw
away, unused, without the slightest hesitation, some ex-
tremely expensive machinery, because w7hile it was being
made he had discovered a cheaper method, and realized
that this action would prove far wiser in the end.

It was always his aim, wherever possible, to duplicate
the machinery, “to guard stockholders against disasters
incident to a mining company’s work.” The quotation
from an annual report characteristically continues :
“Nothing else could have insured our employees the
steady work they have enjoyed since the opening of the
mine. A more parsimonious policy would have entailed
many delays.”

Contrary to the general practice of the day, but
backed by Mr. E. D. Leavitt, his mechanical engineer,
he installed the most expensive hoisting engines in order
to save fuel. At the time this was not generally thought
the most economical method, on account of the irregu-
larity of the work required of the engines. Only in very
recent years have the best experts in mining machinery
conceded that such engines justify their expense. This
is but one of many examples where in economy and effi-
ciency the methods employed have been in advance of
the times.

In 1901, Mr. James MacNaughton, a product of the
younger generation which had grown up at Calumet,
was made general manager. This proved a most for-
tunate appointment, his executive ability, and power to
handle men, enabling him to assume much that had
formerly fallen on Agassiz’s shoulders. A new gener-
ation also was growing up in the Boston office, where

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

another Quincy A. Shaw and Agassiz’s youngest son,
Rodolphe, were working into the management and re-
lieving the president of many details.

By 1909 the mine had reached vast proportions ; its
lowest point was eight thousand feet on the lode, and
the area of the territory that had been mined and
opened up on the conglomerate lode could be measured
in square miles, whose shafts and drifts must amount
to fully two hundred miles of passages, from which
about thirty-seven million tons of rock have been mined.
While on an underlying amygdaloid lode, opened in later
years, are many more miles of openings in what is prac-
tically a new mine which promises to rival in magnitude
the old conglomerate lode. At the time of Agassiz’s
death, the company (exclusive of the subsidiary com-
panies) employed an army of fifty-six hundred men, and
was mining the vast amount of about ninety-three hun-
dred tons a day! This is believed to be the largest
amount of rock mined and treated by any mine up to
that time. The product of refined copper for that year
was 82,816,230 pounds. The scale of the equipment
may be judged from the fact that one of the pumps at
the mills 1 had a greater capacity than any in existence,
until its designer, Mr. E. D. Leavitt, built a larger one
for the pumping station of the Boston Sewerage Depart-
ment. Since Hecla paid its first dividend in 1869, the
company had paid to its stockholders, up to December
31, 1909, the huge sum of $110,550,000.

It is conceivable that a less far-sighted policy might
possibly have enabled the company to have made even
greater returns in the past. But Agassiz was building
not only for future years, but for a future generation,

1 The Calumet Mill was moved to Torch Lake in 1871.

THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE

89

and less enlightened methods would never have enabled
the company to handle so economically to-day such vast
quantities of lower grade rock as it is hoisting from the
deeper levels of the mine.

The spirit of broad humanity with which Agassiz
cared for the welfare of some fifty thousand souls clus-
tered about the mine deserves special notice. Ever
mindful of the comfort and well-being of his employees,
his genuine interest in the community and the intelli-
gent measures he adopted for its prosperity resulted in
a model settlement. The cordial relations he established
between employer and employee might well serve as an
object lesson, in these troubled times, of what may be
accomplished when the workman is treated with under-
standing, sympathy, justice, and intelligent consider-
ation.

Agassiz made it his personal interest to see that the
men were well paid, well housed, and provided with the
best of schools, libraries, hospitals, bath-houses, and
churches. Above all, he established especial provision
for a prompt and fair attention to all complaints.

Some years ago the Governor of Michigan, in speak-
ing of the labor conditions in the state, said that there
was one man who had done more than all others for
humane and reasonable conditions of life among its
working-people, — Alexander Agassiz.

We are accustomed to think of the man who devotes
himself to pure science as aloof from the world, with
but little interest or ability in the practical concerns of
our complex modern civilization. Such is perhaps espe-
cially true of the biologist, whom we imagine immersed
in his studies, surrounded by his specimens, and letting
this globe spin on as it will. Agassiz is a striking excep-

90

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

tion to whatever truth there may be in such a belief,
for while engrossed in his scientific life, he at the same
time produced a wonderful practical achievement.

Called as a last resort to prop up a falling enterprise,
he transformed it into one of the most prosperous and
extensive mines known in the history of industry. By
the successful development of this property, he brought
wealth to many people, and prosperity and happiness
to thousands of workmen ; while he himself was thus
enabled to lead a series of scientific expeditions to the
ends of the earth, any one of which would have more
than fulfilled the fondest dreams of many a poor natur-
alist patiently bending over his microscope.

In the Calumet and Hecla Mine, he has left a remark-
able proof of his very extraordinary executive ability
and business foresight. That mine is a monument such
as few men can show as the result of a life’s work ;
when we consider that it was the by-product of the
brain of a man whose life’s interest was abstract science,
the monument becomes unique.

CHAPTER V

1869-1873

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

Not long after his return from Calumet, Agassiz and
his small family settled for the first time in a home
of their own, a little house on a side street in North
Cambridge near Porter’s Station, which combined the
advantages of being cheap and not too far from the
Museum. His first care was to reestablish his scientific
correspondence. As an example of the eagerness with
which he threw himself into his former intellectual life,
it may be mentioned that on November 8 he wrote
seventeen scientific letters, all plainly attesting his hun-
ger for science during the past two years of exile. One
of the events that most excited his interest on his return,
was the result of a dredging expedition the previous
year of the little Coast Survey Steamer Corwin off the
Florida coast. This opened up a new world to the marine
zoologist, and fired the imagination of the returning
wanderer from the wilds of Michigan.

TO FRITZ MULLER

Cambridge, Nov. 8, 1868.

Your letter of March, 1867, father sent up to me to
Lake Superior, where I was compelled by family affairs
to go and spend nearly two years in order to extricate
them from some unfortunate mining enterprises into
which they had become involved. Thank Heaven I am

92

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

now done with copper mines, and have returned with all
my heart to my studies, which I hope nothing will again
interrupt. You can easily imagine my satisfaction at
returning to my intellectual mode of life when I tell
you that for the last one and one-half years I have not
opened a single book on Natural History, and though
the accumulation of books seems rather formidable just
now, I shall hope soon to get through with the more
special and important parts and find myself where I
started from. I left some work unfinished for the
Museum, my “ Revision of the Echini/’ which I shall
do as my share of Museum work, and hope to complete
next year ; and my own studies I shall go on with, the
embryological work I left off, which seems to me to
promise more satisfactory results than anything else.
Since I have studied Annelids and especially the young,
I begin to have very serious doubts concerning the
existence of types. Radiates always seemed to me so
well and naturally circumscribed, but the embryology
of Echinoderms and of some of the Annelids certainly
is pointing out coincidences and affinities which the
study of the mature animals was far from showing. The
larva, which you figure in your letter, is just one of
those forms and like the forms of the Planariaeof Muller
are probably all Nematoid larvae, and seem to show a
closer affinity between Echini and Annelids than we

suspected. had indeed pointed this out, but

simply theoretically. He, like many English, is very
fond of generalizing other people’s observations and
passing them off as his own the moment he has written
a Review of the subject, which is the curse of English
science and scientific men.

I hope next summer to be again on the seashore

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

93

somewhere and gather the broken threads of my draw-
ings. In meanwhile, if you have anything interesting
in way of Echini, I wish you would send it to me. The
Museum will soon publish a most valuable Palaeonto-
geological contribution in the next Illustrated Number
of the catalogue, viz. : “ The Deep Sea Fauna of the
Gulf Stream between Florida and Cuba.” Professor
Peirce, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, deputed
last year one of his assistants, Pourtales, to make dredg-
ings there. His first results, of wrhich you have un-
doubtedly received a copy, No. 6 Bull., M. C. Z., were
so important that it was decided to send Pourtales again
this winter, and he goes again in a couple of weeks bet-
ter equipped, and with the experience he has gained
last year we may hope to obtain grand results. The
Fauna living to a depth of 500 fathoms — 3000 feet —
100 atmospheres ! is wonderfully rich in every-
thing — Echinoderms, Corals, Ophiurans, Starfishes,
Annelids, Crustacea, Mollusca, etc. ; and as soon as he
returns we will all set to work to work up his material,
which cannot fail to be of the greatest importance.
There is, among other things, a new family of Pen -
tacrinoida ! a most charming thing, and which, with
the embryology of Antedon by Carpenter, will teach us
much about Crinoids.

Since my return, the Museum has had a large acces-
sion to its means, given partly by the State and partly
by private persons, of a sum no less than 150,000 dollars,
which will enable us to double our room by building,
and give us a chance to make our collections available
for study. As far as I am concerned personally, the
Museum is of very little use to me, as I believe in study
ex natura, and have but little fancy for closet invest!

94

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

gations where you get long Memoirs about animals
which have never been seen living or in state of nature
by the author.

In writing to Professor von Siebold, his old teacher
of natural history in Freiburg, Agassiz says of the wind-
fall to the Museum : —

“ The whole of this is to be spent in three years, so
that with our present means we shall be enabled to do
a great deal towards arranging our large accumulated
material. Our energies will be particularly concentrated
on our Fish collection which, since the Brazilian acces-
sion, must now be the largest in existence, to judge at
least from GiintheFs catalogues. I should say we had
at least twice as many species on the average as the
British Museum. We are increasing fast and, as far as
Radiates and Mollusca are concerned, we must not be
far behind any one. Our great deficiencies are in Birds
and Mammals, which are things however more easily ob-
tained than the rest.”

While at Calumet, Agassiz’s attention had been called
to the habits of the beaver, and even in the midst of
his arduous work there he managed to find time to study
these interesting animals. But just as he was preparing
an article on the subject he found himself forestalled.

TO LEWIS H. MORGAN

Cambridge, Dec. 14, 1868.

Having been a resident nearly two years of Calumet,
on Keweenaw Peninsula, Lake Superior, I have had from
the explorations I was making repeated opportunities to

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

95

examine a great many beaver dams, both deserted and
still occupied. I collected a good many cuttings, chips,
etc., made as many observations of habits, measurements
of dams, canals, as my time would allow — just as I was
preparing to get my notes together I found in the “ Na-
tion ” a Review of vour book on the beaver, and since
my return to civilized regions it was one of the first
things I read. As I wrote father, it had taken the wind
out of my sails completely and there was no necessity of
my doing anything further at present, as your experi-
ence and opportunities had been more ample than mine,
and had evidently left, as far as I can judge from first
examinations, but little and that of trifling importance,
to add to the natural history of the beaver.

I have some observations as to the time which beavers
have inhabited the regions which may be accurate enough
to determine the length of life of this species in the dis-
trict, but my data are not yet in shape. Having passed
two winters up there, I find that the beavers are more
active during that time than you give them credit for.
This is not confined to periods of thawing, but during
the regular winter weather. I find also that they migrate
in large numbers during that time, and while walking
on snowshoes through the woods have come upon their
tracks in all directions at considerable distances from
their dams . In two cases I have followed their trails
and have come upon a pair of young beavers starting
their dam in a fresh locality. The beavers I observed
seemed much more shy than yours and the effect of
interfering with their dams, even in a small degree,
almost invariably resulted, if repeated two or three times,
in driving them off. I was very desirous of obtaining
photographs of some of their workings, but all my

96

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

attempts, with the best local talent, failed lamentably.
Father tells me that he saw some of your original photo-
graphs of dams. Is it possible to obtain a copy of the
Grass Lake Dam? I should like very much to possess
some remembrance of them more tangible than my notes
and collections. If you can help me in procuring a copy
from your negatives, if still in your possession, I shall
appreciate it greatly.

Not long after this, he published a short article cor-
roborating Mr. Morgan’s view, that the beaver did not
live in nearly such large communities as was popularly
supposed, and that the very considerable results of their
labors should be attributed to time, rather than the
number of individuals at work. From the depth of the
deposits of peat above the beaver dams about Calumet,
he estimated that several of these colonies must be at
least nine hundred years old. Some of the beaver ponds
there covered an area of forty acres, with beaver mead-
ows about them of two hundred or three hundred acres
cleared from the virgin forests. Where there were dams
one behind another, these meadows sometimes covered
a large portion of several sections of land.1 In convers-
ing with intelligent trappers of the Hudson’s Bay Com-
pany he learned of places in Canada where the beaver
had changed the character of very considerable portions
of the country.

Besides his studies on the Pourtales collections, he
made, during the winter of 1868-69, considerable pro-
gress on his “ Revision of the Echini ; ” but the pressure
of overwork, anxiety, and hardships at Calumet had
undermined his health, and his work was forced to be

1 Six hundred and forty acres.

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

97

intermittent. His lack of condition culminated in the
spring in a very severe illness, from the effects of which
he never in after life completely recovered. One day,
when he was able to crawl about again, he chanced to
meet his friend, Mr. James Lawrence, of Boston. Law-
rence told Agassiz that he did not think he was looking
at all well, and the latter replied that he thought he was
dying.

“ Nonsense,” said Lawrence, “ what you need is rest
and a change of scene. Why don’t you go to Europe? ”

“ I cannot afford it,” answered Agassiz.

“Oh, yes! you can,” said Lawrence; “I’ll be your
banker.”

Agassiz always felt that he owed his life to this gen-
erosity of Mr. Lawrence, and never spoke of the event
without emotion. Thus he was unexpectedly enabled
to visit the museums of Europe, a long wished-for op-
portunity, necessary to complete his “ Revision of the
Echini.” Examples of doubtful species were shipped
abroad, in order to compare them directly with the
original specimens in the various European museums.
He sailed with his family in company with the Lawrences
from Boston for Liverpool on the Liberia in September,
1869. Among the letters that he carried to the scientific
friends of his father was one to Darwin, in which the
elder Agassiz declared, “ You will find Alex more ready
to accept your views than I shall ever be.”

During this first visit to Europe, Agassiz made the
acquaintance of nearly every working naturalist in Great
Britain, Scandinavia, Italy, Germany, and France. Every-
where he was received as the son of an old friend; thus
it happened that his scientific friendships were mostly
formed with men older than himself, and but few of

98

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

them survived him. After leaving the children at Mal-
vern, he took a short trip with his wife through Scotland,
and then crossed to Belfast to visit Wyville Thomson,
who had just returned from a dredging expedition on
the Porcupine. Agassiz was naturally much interested
in examining the collections brought back, and to learn
that some specimens had been dredged from twenty-five
hundred fathoms, an unheard-of depth in those days.

In writing to his father on October 19, he says:
“Je suis ici chez Thomson qui est de premiere force
et un individu qu’il faut soigner.” Two pleasant visits
to Lord Enniskillen and Sir Philip Egerton, old friends
of his father’s, closed the visit to Ireland.

He was in London from November 11 to December
3, living with his family in lodgings on Jermyn Street.
While there he made the acquaintance of most of the
scientific men of the day, including Ly ell, Owen, Hooker,
Lubbock, Huxley, Wallace, and Darwin. The class dis-
criminations in Great Britain seem to have much annoyed
him; in one of his letters home he writes: “What a
state of things for the 19th Century ! If it strikes me
here, what will it be on the continent! I cannot imagine
how people with any common sense will submit to such
caste distinctions and so much nonsense.”

His days were spent in working at the British Museum,
and sight-seeing with Mrs. Agassiz. In the evening,
when he was not dining at one of the scientific societies,
they would go to dinner with one of his new friends.
From Mrs. Agassiz’s journal we learn that one evening,
after dining at the Philosophical Society, he went to
the Royal Society, where he gave a short speech on the
deep-sea dredging of Pourtales, and then slipped off to
McMillan’s to have a chat with Tom Hughes over the

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI 99

recent defeat of the Harvard crew by Oxford on the
Thames.

Early in 1870 he was busily at work in the Paris
museums, comparing Echini and arranging for exchanges
with Cambridge. In one of his letters to his stepmother
he writes : —

“ It has been such hard work to do the little I wanted
to do, for I have spent most of my time in palavers,
etc., etc., and it took me sometimes three days to do a
thing a couple of hours would have finished had not
all the facilities been surrounded by so many keys and
had I not been forced to wait for so many appointments
of other people, which give them half an hour only, as
they watch you the whole time like so many cats while
you are working and don’t trust you a moment out of
their sight, which I should judge was absolutely neces-
sary from the habits of some of the people who come
to examine collections.

“ The casts are the most difficult things to obtain here ;
they will not sell them, and will only exchange them
on a principle I do not like, that is, you must pick out
yourself all you want, pack it yourself and then at the
other end of line do the same thing again. I had really
to be almost impolite and tell them I could not receive
things on those terms ; otherwise my whole stay in Paris
would simply have been a transfer of my Museum work
from Cambridge to Paris, which I had no idea of doing ;
as it was I spent nearly three weeks going to the Jardin
and Ecole de Mines to do what would under ordinary
circumstances have taken me at the outside four or five
days, and which has made me swear I would have no-
thing more to do with any Museum during my stay here

100

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

if it had to be purchased at cost of spending all one’s
time there and doing all the work at both ends. I dare
say if I had come here perfectly well and willing to
work all the time I could have got a great many things
which would be very valuable, but I must now refuse
everything which is offered, as it all implies so much
work that I cannot stand it.

“ So you see that all I can do and all I intend to do,
is simply to see what there is, what they can give, and
get out exchanges when I get hack ; we may lose much,
I dare say, which could be had on the spur of the mo-
ment, but the price for which it can be had I am not
capable of offering, and I intend to have a good time
and not work myself to death as I have done here in
Paris.”

The end of March found Agassiz and his family on
their way to Switzerland ; as they swung over the Jura
he watched eagerly for the first glimpse of his native
Alps, and his wondering little son saw his staid father
transformed into a joyous boy as he excitedly pointed
out the faint outline of the mountains climbing up in
the southern sky. After a short visit to their Swiss
relations, Mr. and Mrs. Agassiz started on an extended
trip through Europe, leaving the children in charge of
a great-aunt in Lausanne.

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Florence, Apl. 30, 1870.

My dear Ma: —

Annie and I both found a letter from you at Florence,
where we have had a most pleasant time ; we met here
most unexpectedly her Aunt Rose and Amelia and Mr.

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

101

and Mrs. Upton, as well as Mr. Jonathan Russell who
had joined them in Rome. We expect to go along with
the Milton aunts as far as Vienna and perhaps to Mun-
ich, as they are traveling now quite rapidly, intending
to get to Paris the last part of May. I have had a very
interesting time in Northern Italy and am glad I have
seen so much of it, and was very pleasantly surprised at
the energy and intelligence displayed in the scientific
establishments which seem to me far superior (not in
means of course, but in spirit) to the French schools of
similar character. At Bologna I missed Capellini. They
are to have a Congress for Anthropology there in
Bologna some time in October, on which occasion he is
to play Grand Mogul.

At Florence, Mr. C showed me all there was to

be seen, and we talked over what they could send us and
what they wanted. He has already quite a lot of things
almost ready which a Mr. de Ancona, a very pleasant
assistant here, is putting up for us little by little. They
have fine fossils from the Val d’Arno, mostly verte-
brates, but unfortunately they are not in good enough
condition to be cast, and they have mostly unique pieces
collected a long while ago. They have a few casts which
they will send us by and by, and plenty of Tertiary fos-
sils, also some fine fishes and Tufa Lias and Cretaceous
fossils specially, which are most wonderful as a fauna,
resembling more our primary American Faunae ! Medina
Sandstone, than anything else I know. This fauna is not
yet worked up, but will be in course of time ; a Marquis
Strozzi is at work upon them now. There are some of
the most puzzling marine foot-prints and impressions
which I wonder what he will make out of them. I wish
I had had time to go to Pisa and Leghorn, where since

102

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

the work of enlarging the harbor they have accumulated
a good many fine things in the way of fossils, but I can-
not do all this time and must leave it for another time.
We may do something by letter with Meneghini when
we are ready.

We went to dine at Mr. Marsh’s, the American Min-
ister here, who is a very bright and pleasant man and
wishes to be remembered to father. They live very pleas-
antly in a villa out of town, some old palace built before
the flood, but where they have introduced a furnace.
We met some Americans there, a sister of Mrs. Strong
of New York, Mrs. Goddard, and Miss Fearing, a still
younger sister. The few days we have passed here have
almost taken Annie’s feet off ; she has seen so much and
read so much that I expect she will have to be carried
to the cars when we leave. Sight-seeing with limited
time is not worth much — it is too much like hard work
and the fun is all in the recollection, when you have not
seen too much to become perfectly idiotic at end of your
day’s work. I envy the Museums their old palaces ; it
gives them plenty of room, and there are so many Jesuit
Palaces^ ready to be confiscated, that with a little exer-
tion any amount of room would be available. I wish we
could transplant some of them to Cambridge; besides
the good looks of the outside we might have plenty of
room. The only Museums thus far I have seen which
are not crowded are those of N. Italy ; they seem to
spread as much as they like and be sure of an ample
supply. Thirty-seven rooms in Florence ! ! Forty in Bo-
logna ! only for Natural History! We were so glad to
get such continued good accounts from father.

With love to all,

Yours, A. Ag.

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

103

Wherever he went, the Museum was never out of his
mind ; a little later he writes : “ What part of the Mu-
seum is going up ? Nobody has said a word about it. I
am very sorry I am not there to superintend the putting
up. I think what I have seen might have been useful,
but I hope it will not be too late as far as internal ar-
rangements are concerned, and that we may still profit
by what has been done.”

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Hamburg, June 6, 1870.

Your first letter from Deerfield came to Berlin the
day we were leaving. We made but a flying visit there,
still managed in the week we stayed to see a good deal.
I spent most of my mornings at the Museum with Dr.
Martens looking at the Sea-urchins he had described
from Japan. I liked him extremely; he is a capital type
of an Assistant, has no specialty and is interested in
whatever turns up ; and he manages to keep things in
capital order. He knows a great deal too, and he is one
of the few men I have seen thus far who have a general
knowledge of Zodlogy. Peters also was very polite to
me and I thought him very pleasant. I passed an even-
ing at his home where we found Dove, who is an origi-
nal, and a type of a German such as I had not seen before.
He sent many kind messages to father, as does Peters
and Ehrenberg, whom I saw for an hour at his house.

The Zoological collections of Berlin are excellent and
in good order, and the Invertebrates as a whole, spe-
cially when taken in connection with those in the An-
atomical Department, the best I have seen thus far.
Reichert, who has charge of Muller’s collection, is not
very careful, and I am sorry to say that many of Muller’s

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

things are going to the dogs. I did not see either
Bey rich, Virchow, Dnprey, or Reymond; they are all
absent, it being holidays for the first week in June. The
Palaeontological collection is all in drawers and I had
no time to examine it more carefully. Muller’s type of
Starfishes I would have examined, but it would have
taken too long to do anything of use for the fifth Vol-
ume, and it will be much simpler to send them over and
have them compared than to spend the time now. Dr.
Hagen was daily expected but we left before he arrived.

(I saw his friend in charge of the Entomological

collection, who struck me exceedingly unpleasantly and
looks just as he writes his yearly reports, as if he had a
special grudge against everybody who did not agree with
him.) I saw also by chance at Peters’s, the writer of
Decken’s “ Journey in Africa,” who abused the Museum
for not sending him all our collections from Zanzibar ;
I was quite amused at the awkwardness he felt while I
was round.

I don’t remember if I wrote you that I had succeeded
at Munich in getting something you wish ; we can get
photographs printed like lithographs, so that when I
return I shall make out the Plates for the “ Revision of
the Echini ” from the photographs Sonrel is now mak-
ing for me, and I think the whole can be done at very
little above the price of printing with us. I am gather-
ing material for this everywhere, and at Vienna, Breslau
and Berlin have got quite considerable accessions to our
stock of original specimens. When I have seen Copen-
hagen and Stockholm and London again I shall have
seen almost every original specimen described in Europe
and America, and ought to be able to do something
good, not from books but from the things themselves.

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

105

I am cutting up dreadfully all the new species, etc.,
made by all recent workers, myself included in the list,
but this work could never have been done so completely
except by personal examination. Uncle Alex and all
send much love. Mathilde [his cousin] is to be married
next month ; if I am anywhere near I shall come to see
the family again.

At Kiel, Agassiz and his wife spent three delightful
days with Dr. Meyer, the zoologist, who had a beautiful
place surrounded by magnificent beech trees, in the most
picturesque spot of the harbor, a short distance out of
town looking down on Kiel Bay. From here he went to
Copenhagen and Stockholm, where he spent most of his
time examining collections of Echini.

On their way back to Switzerland they stopped for
the day at Freiburg, of which incident Agassiz writes :
u I took Annie to all the old haunts in the town, showed
her where we lived, took her behind the town on the
Schlossberg to see the view, and we also made an ex-
cursion to the Hollenthal, so that she got a very good
idea of the Black Forest; we had magnificent weather
for it. Little did I think when I left Freiburg twenty-
two years ago, jumping on my violin as a farewell
salute, that I should return next time as I have, a com-
parative nabob, if the mines hold out till I can pay my
debts;’

Leaving Mrs. Agassiz, who had become somewhat
tired with rapid traveling, at Lausanne, Agassiz con-
tinued his scientific pilgrimage alone, only to be shortly
turned back by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
War.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Wurzburg, July 8, 1870.

I was not very lucky in Heidelberg, found no one
at home. Helmholtz was attending a funeral and had
left for the day, and Pagensteeher was also absent for
a couple of days, so I got nothing here except a very
pleasant excursion to the Castle and the Hills (all by
myself, however), and in the evening started for Wurz-
burg, where I found Professor Semper waiting for me,
who insisted on my going to his house. You know he
spent seven years collecting at the Philippine Islands
and spent there most of his property, and is now satis-
fied to pass the rest of his life as Professor in a German
University and to work up what he has collected, which
is certainly magnificent. If Mr. Lowell is in want of
somebody for a really good course of lectures of travels,
he could not do better than to invite him to come and
give a course; he speaks English well enough to read
his lectures, which his wife would brush up; she speaks
very nicely, and I think he would be a success.

I dined to-day at Kolliker’s. I must say I liked him
very much ; he strikes me as a most thorough and able
man. He looks quite comical; his hair is perfectly white
with a thick black moustache ; you would hardly give
him 40 from his face. I saw also at the Knipe last
night, Professor Sachs, the Professor of Botany, and
one of the smartest chaps I have seen yet. This morn-
ing I have been to see Professor Sandberger, who has
some very fine fossils from the Trias ; he has a good
many duplicates and he will make us an invoice shortly.
Here I see the true German way of living perhaps as
well as I have yet seen it. The few evenings thus far

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

107

have been spent at the Knipe, but there is an improve-
ment, I fancy, since father’s days ; in fact ladies go there
now with their husbands, they having found that their
husbands would go and spend their evenings they have
determined not to leave them to their own devices, but
to lend them the charm of their presence and beer at
the same time.

From Leipzig he writes a few days later : —

“From Wurzburg I went to Leipzig, stopping between
two trains at Erlangen, a rather round about way, to pay
a visit to Ehlers. He came to meet me at the railroad
station and, as frequently before, I recognized him at
once from his photograph. He took me to his house
where we supped and had a pleasant chat of a few hours.

“ I found also there that Ehlers had in his Museum all
the original Echini described by Klein, but as it would
be naturally a most critical kind of work to identify
them all, and would take more time than I can possibly
afford, he will send me the whole collection over for
examination in the fall. This is for the ‘ Revision of
the Echini ’ a most remarkable catch, as it will settle the
history of many of the old things of the time of Linne.”

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Mannheim, July 17, 1870.

Annie sent me at Jena a letter from you from Jamaica
Plain. How pleasant to have father and Pauline both
so well again, and it really looks as if care would set
him up again completely. I have been travelling like a
steam engine. The rumors of war kept growing thicker
and I did not want to get caught, as I had left the Rhine

108

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

parts for last moment, for which I am now very sorry,
as I come too late for my mining excursion. I was to
have left this morning for Saarbriicken on the French
and Prussian frontier, where there are some excellently
managed mines with capital machinery, and last night
railroad was taken possession of by the military, so there
is no passing at present, and I shall wend my way back
to my family a couple of days earlier.

From Leipzig I went to Jena, saw Haeckel, but not
Gegenbaur, who was very sick with a malarious fever.
Haeckel I liked extremely ; he is, however, of a most
enthusiastic disposition, and in the Okenistic1 direction
he has taken he is doing himself a great deal of harm.
He has left the positive for the speculative, and indulges
in fancies which are more like the dreams of Swedenborg
than Natural History. We got along very well, though
he fought rather shy of entering into any discussion.
They have quite a nice Zoological Laboratory there, with
just enough collections to teach, and the anatomical part
is really good, with a collection of skeletons which would
do honour to a large Museum.

From Jena I went to Marburg, passed an evening with
Claus at the Knipe, and found him much less of a man
than I had expected from his work ; he goes to Got-
tingen in place of Refer stein.

At Geissen I saw Schneider ; he is a real worker
and the collections here are quite remarkable. Bischoff
(of Munich) has left here a very large collection of
Embryos and fine anatomical preparations and skeletons
of higher animals, while Leuckart, who was the zoolo-
gist for more than nineteen years, has left an equally
valuable collection of preparations for the invertebrates;
i Lorenz Oken, 1779-1851.

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109

as a collection for instruction it stands unrivaled in its
preparations and the quality of material. Of course it is
not pretty to look at.

I then went to Bonn, paid a visit to Max Schultze and
Troschel, who both want to be remembered to father;
met there Ehrenberg on a visit to his son-in-law, Pro-
fessor Hanstein, the botanist. At Frankfort the Museum
of the Zoological Society is really good and very large
and exceedingly well arranged in some points. I was
very glad to see it, though I found nothing specially
new there, except RuppeFs things from Red Sea. The
Zoological Garden is very pretty ; it is small, but being
old, the trees are large and the effect very good, the
animals being well taken care of. I shall wait here to-
day for further news, and if I cannot go to the scene
of mines, will paddle back to Switzerland and join my
family, who will be disconsolate at my early return. This
has been to me the most interesting of all my trips.

Agassiz at this time bore a striking resemblance to
Bismarck, and this led to an amusing incident at the
hotel in Mannheim. Here he was conscious of being
treated with very unusual consideration, but not until
his departure for the mines at Saarbriicken, when the
landlord refused to give him his bill, did he discover
that he was mistaken for the Chancellor. In vain he ex-
postulated and produced his passport ; he was met with
the smiling rejoinder that it was easy to understand why
His Excellency should wish at such a time to inspect the
frontier incognito, and he finally was forced to leave the
landlord unconvinced and unpaid.

Shortly after the train left Mannheim, he found that
the Prussians were occupying the main line between

110

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Paris and Frankfort. The passengers were informed that
any one who wished to come back could go no further,
hut that there was a train ready to return to Mannheim.
Agassiz was almost the only one to turn back. On his
arrival at the station, the hotel porter beheld him de-
scending from what seemed his private train. Thus, on
his reappearance at the inn, he was received with more
reverence than ever.

The train to Switzerland was jammed with people
leaving Germany; at the junctions were travelers wait-
ing by thousands to get back to France, while mountains
of neglected trunks lay piled up on the platforms. To
add to the confusion, the bridge across the Rhine, lead-
ing to Strassburg, was cut, and the unfortunate exodus
was compelled to proceed to Basle. Here confusion
reigned supreme; after spending the night on the floor
of a hotel, Agassiz in some way got out of the town,
and joined his wife at Lausanne.

The family spent the rest of the summer in wander-
ing about in the Alps, among other things visiting the
elder Agassiz’s haunts on the glacier of the Aar, and
hunting up the relatives of his guides at Meiringen. A
few extracts from a letter to Mrs. Louis Agassiz in
September tell something of the exciting events of the
day: —

“ You hear nothing but war, of course, and the excite-
ment runs very high ; in the French cantons the feeling
is rather for the French, and the German cantons the
opposite, as is natural. It is really melancholy to see
how low the French have fallen and what abominable
results their government has brought about, a system of
lying from the highest officials to the lowest, corruption

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

111

of which I hope we may never have any idea, and a
want of patriotism which must make the few who
want to save France boil with rage. Imagine a country
of forty millions of inhabitants and you cannot raise
more than 250,000 men for the defense of Paris! It is
something incomprehensible. A large city like Lyon rais-
ing 1500 francs ! ! ! ! for the defense of the city. Every-
body who had the means running away, as we can see
here. Switzerland is flooded with French refugees in
good circumstances abiding their time ; it is really sicken-
ing and a disgrace to France. . . .

“ The French need this terrible lesson to waken them
up, and if there is anything left in the French, they
will come out a great nation ; but I am afraid it is all
over with them and they are not to be hereafter any-
thing greater than a third-rate power. It is to me per-
fectly astonishing that a man like Napoleon, who cer-
tainly was no fool, could have been such an idiot as
to measure himself with the Germans. Why, the first
Colonel in the German army knows more about France,
their organizations, their armies, than their greatest
Marshals. I should feel safer behind an ordinary German
General than behind the lot of thieving Marshals like
Bazaine, Failly, Yaillant, who have made their fortunes,
like Palikao, plundering either in China, Algeria or
Mexico, and whose notions of international rights and
usages seem to have been borrowed from these very
highly civilized people to judge from their actions, who
all deserted the sinking ship of the Emperor at the first
signal and have behaved like cowards, only caring to
save themselves, and ready, as Bazaine now is, to betray
for a round sum, which he has named (two millions
francs), Metz. . . .

112

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

“ The French, we hear to-day, have refused the terms
of armistice offered by Prussia with their usual insolence,
imagining’ they can change the face of things by a
few high-sounding words, and have forthwith made a
proclamation telling Prussia to come on and do their
worst, so that next time they come to terms they will be
much more ill-treated, and it really seems as if it would
be their fate to suffer what Prussia had to bear in 1806
and be occupied by a German army till they come to
terms. As for the Germans, they are I think making
use of Prussia to become a great nation, and the ele-
ment which will be added by Wurttemberg, Baden, Ba-
varia will, with the opposition in Prussia, counterbal-
ance much of the power of the Prussian nobility. But
of course there is great danger of their becoming
overrun by military rule, instead of tending to a central
German Diet, a German army, navy and customs, as
they all hope now. The German papers are now begin-
ning to get worked up ; they were calm enough at first,
but now, after their successes and the inability of the
French in understanding their situation, they are begin-
ning to smart under their losses, and will make France
pay the full penalty of all the suffering they have had.
If Napoleon could only be made to pay his share. In
Switzerland they have behaved very well, and have really
done more in assisting the French and German wounded
and the regulars, than has been done in the whole of
France to save their country.”

The end of October saw the Agassizs again in Lon-
don, which they had reached by way of Germany and
Ostende.

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

113

TO DARWIN

London, Oct. 22, 1870.

My dear Mr. Darwin: —

Hearing you are in town, I write to ask you if you
will allow me to come and bid you good-bye before we
sail. I go to Ireland on Thursday next, in the evening,
to see the plunder of the last Porcupine Expedition, but
any time you can receive me before that it would be a
great pleasure for me to see you again before I leave
this side of the Atlantic, where I have had such a charm-
ing reception and have I trust learned a good deal which
will not come amiss in America. With the kindest remem-
brances of Mrs. Agassiz and myself to Mrs. Darwin and
your family, believe me always

Yours very truly,

Alex Agassiz.

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Belfast, Oct. 30, 1870.

Here I am again up at the poles, having left Annie
and children in London, while I took a run here to see
the collections brought home by the last expedition of
the English dredging ; they have not found much com-
pared to what they did in 1869, and in the Mediter-
ranean their work really amounted to very little. The
Mediterranean seems to be a deep sea of some 1500
fathoms deep, in which very little is found below a
certain depth, which really accounts for Forbes’s former
view that below 300 fathoms nothing lived. Such is
actually the case in the Mediterranean, but this seems
likely to be the case with all inland seas where there is
no circulation of water, for the shallow water at open-
ing of Straits of Gibraltar is as much a barrier to the

114

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

circulation of fresh cold sea water in the Mediterranean
as a stone wall would be. On the coast of Portugal they
were more successful, and carried their former geogra-
phical work well along, showing the same animals very
much as further North. The main thing of the Expe-
dition is a magnificent new Pentacrinus, almost as large
as the West India form, and some very magnificent
sponges (vitreous). I have picked out while here a fine
series of the Echini they have collected, as I could work
them up as fast as we looked at them, and have made all
arrangements necessary that we shall get duplicates
(the first series) of all they have in way of Corals, Crus-
tacea, and Mollusca, and Echinoderms, as fast as they
are worked up and ready to be distributed. One of the
fine Pentacrinus and young sponges I have taken along
as trophies of my expedition here.

I was greatly astonished the other day in London to
find Professor Peirce in same hotel with us. I have had
a good deal of talk with him about the deep-sea dredg-
ings, and hope he will be able to go on and do some-
thing also on the Pacific Coast. I should like to take a
trip out there again. I look upon California as my cradle
in Natural History, and now that I know a little more
should like to go back there. I had a very good look in
British Museum at their collection of Fishes ; it is in ad -
mirable, order . Gunther has certainly everything very
accessible, well named, and, what is far more important,
very well preserved, and their collection of Reptiles and
Fishes is wonderful. The osteological collection I was
greatly disappointed in. The Palaeontology is marvelous.

The end of November found him once more at his
post at the Museum, busy with his “ Revision of the

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

115

Echini.” Although the robust vigor of his early youth
was shattered, he returned much improved in health,
and the next three years were quiet and happy ones, the
last he ever knew. At first he settled again in the little
house in North Cambridge, but as the dividends from
the mines at Calumet began to pour in, the condition
of his finances changed very materially. In the spring
of 1871 he hired “ Shady Hill ” of Professor Charles
Eliot Norton, who was then abroad. Since those days,
the estate, which lies close to the Museum, has been
divided, but at that time the pleasant, roomy, old-fash-
ioned house, resting on a low hill, looked over gently
sloping pastures to a miniature forest.

In this charming setting the family remained until
the fall of 1873. Then, on Professor Norton’s return,
Agassiz went back to his father’s house, for a few
months as he supposed, while looking about for suitable
quarters. His summers were spent at some convenient
place on the New England coast, one of them in a little
farmhouse near Newport, Rhode Island, not far from the
spot that afterward became his home. At these seasons
he was constantly busy at his marine work, for which
he improvised a temporary laboratory wherever he hap-
pened to be.

Among his other investigations at that time, his study
of Tornaria led to some interesting results. These small
animals, so called from their active habits, are found
among the many little creatures which float near the
surface of the sea. They bear a striking resemblance to
the larvae of the ordinary starfish of the New England
coast, and it was supposed that they were the young stage
of some genus of starfish. Acting on a hint from Met-
schnikoff, Agassiz was able to show that these animals

116

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

were in reality the young state of certain marine worms
known as Balanoglossus.

He was also much occupied in the study of the em-
bryology of various jelly-fish. The following quotation
from his publication on this subject is interesting as
showing his attitude toward evolution at this period.
Speaking of Haeckel’s Gastraea theory, he says : “ If we
need an ancestor for our phylum why not at once go
back to the cell? There we have a definite starting
point, a typical element which underlies the whole of
the animal kingdom and which forms the walls of
Haeckel’s gastrula. Then we shall all be agreed and
when we frankly state that all organisms are derived
from a primitive cell and from its subsequent increase,
we come within the range of positive knowledge, but
we are unfortunately as far as ever from having for
that reason been able to trace a mechanical cause for
the genetic connection of the various branches of the
animal kingdom.” 1

TO A. MILNE EDWARDS

Cambridge, Mar. 17, 1871.

We have just heard that communication has been
reestablished, and I seize the first opportunity to write
you a few lines and to ask for news of yourself, your
father, and of all the gentlemen of the Jardin des
Plantes, who were so kind to me during my stay in
Paris. I much regretted not being able to pass through
Paris to say good-bye before my departure. In Switzer-
land I hoped up to the last moment that peace would
be declared, and that I should not be forced to leave

1 “Embryology of the Ctenophorae,” Mem. Am. Ac., vol. x, no. 3,
p. 382.

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

117

Europe without being able to revisit the Jardin. But
I hope that, now I have found the way, it will not be
the last time. Everything that you will kindly tell me
about the condition of the Jardin will be most interest-
ing, for no one here can form an idea of what you must
have suffered during that abominable siege. Every one
rejoices that peace is at length declared, and I am sure
that no one can sympathize more than the Americans
with all that you must have undergone during that hor-
rible war, which seems to recall the dark ages rather
than the nineteenth century. Everywhere in the United
States people are busy collecting funds for the unfor-
tunates that the war has left without resources — and
I hope that the money may arrive in time to do the
good that is hoped for.

I trust that all this will not lead to a military epoch
in Europe, and that peace will at length teach the na-
tives of Europe that all progress is impossible without
the advancement and cultivation of science. Our war
had the effect here of rousing our best sentiments and
developing in the highest degree all that leads to cul-
ture ; and I hope that it will be the same thing in
France. I do not write you more at length of what is
happening here, as I have just got back from the West
where I went immediately on my arrival here. My father
is practically entirely recovered, and I hope that soon
he will be able to take up his work as usual. Do you
intend to finish your work on the Limulus ? Send me a
word and it will give me the greatest pleasure to send
you some. As soon as communication is thoroughly
established I will send you some memoirs of the
Museum.

My wife wishes to be most kindly remembered to

118

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Mrs. Edwards. Will you kindly also remember me to
your father.

The following is in answer to a letter that cannot be
found : —

FROM DARWIN

Down, Beckenham, Kent,
June 1, 1871.

My dear Mr. Agassiz : —

Very many thanks for your kind letter and curious
facts about the fishes. What an extraordinary number
of complex and wonderful structures have been devel-
oped in relation to sex!

I am also particularly glad to hear about the pedicel-
larise of the Echinodermata, the homologies of which I
did not in the least know. I must now find out the
homologies of the “ Birds-beaks ” and serrated bristles of
the Bryozoa, which I remember watching in old days
with astonishment.

I am thinking of bringing out a new and cheap edi-
tion of the “ Origin ; ” and if so I should give a chapter
to answering, as far as I can and space permits, Mivart’s
very clever book. I have no doubt the book will pro-
duce a great effect on many ; and you will think it blind
prejudice when I say it has had none on me. There is
not one new point in it, though many are admirably
illustrated. Mivart never racks his brains to see what
can be fairly said on [the] opposite side, and he argues
as if I had said nothing about the effect of use or
the direct action of external conditions : though in an-
other part of his book on these points, almost every
illustration is taken from my writings and observations.

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

119

But I will not bother you with more remarks on this
head.

Pray give my most sincere respects to your father.
What a wonderful man he is to think of going round
Cape Horn; if he does go, I wish he could go through
the Strait of Magellan.

With very kind remembrances from all of us to Mrs.
Agassiz, and with many thanks from myself,

Pray believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

Ch. Darwin.

Professor Agassiz sailed in the Hassler for a dredging
expedition around South America in December, 1871.
This time during his absence the work of the Museum
management did not all fall on Agassiz’s shoulders, for
Mr. Thomas G. Cary, the brother-in-law of the elder
Agassiz, had charge of the finances.

TO DARWIN

Cambridge, March 4, 1872.

Many thanks for the copy of the new edition of the
“ Origin of Species,” which I have just received from
you. There are several points, especially in Embryology,
which I shall take some other occasion to write you
about, which may be of general interest. I am getting
on toward the end of the Report on Echini from the
deep sea of Florida, and hope to be able to send
you a copy before long. The number of young I have
been compelled to examine has led me to modify my
views of the nature of genera, species, and in fact of
all subdivisions. I cannot find anything that is stable ,
the greater the material in space and number (age) the

120

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

more one is adrift to get a correct diagnosis of a genus
or a species, and the gradual passage in Echini of the
most widely separated groups leaves in my mind but
little doubt that our classification is nothing but the
most arbitrary convenient tool, depending upon the ma-
terial at our command at a special time. The generali-
zations to which I am led from the careful study of such
a small group as the Echini I shall publish at the end
of my “ Revision of the Echini” and as the Plates for the
descriptive part are far advanced, I hope I shall not be
long delayed. We have excellent news from the Hassler
Expedition from Rio. Not much was expected from
the dredging on this side of Cape Horn owing to the
lateness of the season, but the single haul made off the
Barbados must have been a wonderful catch of which
I trust we shall hear and see more by and by.

TO DARWIN

Cambridge, Dec. 9, 1872.

I have to thank you for the trouble you have taken
in sending me a copy of your “ Expression of the Emo-
tions,” which has duly come to hand. I have not had
a moment to look into it, in part on account of the work
of distributing some collections which have lately ar-
rived, and in part owing to the great fire which has
devastated Boston, and which has affected us all more
or less seriously. I have been hit pretty hard, not in a
money way, but what is worse infinitely, I have lost a
year’s work by the destruction of six Plates of anatomy
with the original drawings, of which I have not even
a sketch. They had been sent to Boston the morning
of the fire to be lettered preparatory to printing. In
addition I lost all the stones of the first parts of the

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

121

“ Revision of the Echini ; ” fortunately about three fifths
of the edition of the Plates had been struck off and was
safely housed at the Museum. This leaves us with rather
a short supply, but the remainder of the book, which I
hoped to get out before spring, must be delayed a long
time, as I feel neither heart nor have I the time to start
fresh and do all this again just as it was completed. I
have sent to the Zoological Society a package for you,
which please claim from Mr. Sclater. I presume it should
arrive a few days after this letter. I have made pretty
extensive use of the new processes of photographic print-
ing in my book, and from what I have succeeded in
obtaining trust it will hereafter be possible to supersede
the old lithographic processes, which are wasteful in
time and money, and not half as accurate.

The famous Challenger Expedition left England, with
Wyville Thomson as the naturalist in charge, in Decem-
ber, 1872, and by April, 1873, the ship was in Bermuda.
Wyville Thomson wrote Agassiz from there, asking him
if he could not pay them a visit in May, when they
touched at Halifax.

Agassiz eagerly accepted this invitation, and ran up
to Halifax, where he was a guest of the Challenger for
a few days. The younger naturalists of the expedition
were all pronounced evolutionists, and as the name of
Agassiz conjured up to them opposition to these views,
there was much curiosity among them as to what sort
of a man Alexander Agassiz was. Sir John Murray,
one of the staff, in his address in memory of Agassiz,
speaks of the excellent impression which the young
naturalist made on every one, and how different they
found his opinions from those of his father. “ He was

122 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

cheerful, confident, and possessed a fund of dry humor.”
Most enthusiastic about their collections, he was able to
tell them many things that they did not know, especially
about Echinoderm and Annelid larvae, and showed how
he had proved that Tornaria was the larva of Balano-
glossus. In short, he created such a favorable impres-
sion that it was freely prophesied he would have a very
brilliant scientific future.

By the end of the year the “ Revision of the Echini”
was completed. It represented an immense amount of
work, and its author was at once recognized as the
leading authority on the subject. The text consists of
770 quarto pages, and is illustrated by 87 plates, be-
sides numerous wood-cuts in the text, and seven maps
showing geographical distribution. Part I treats of the
literature, nomenclature, synonymy, and geographical
distribution. Part II takes up the Echini of the East
Coast of the United States, including the Pourtales col-
lections. Part III deals with the description of the spe-
cies of recent Echini, and Part IV contains the structure
and embryology of these animals. In his short autobio-
graphy, Agassiz says of this work : “ Nothing pleased
me more than to have been able to present the cost of
these volumes to the Museum ; and on the other side
the recognition it received from scientific men, and the
position it took as the standard work on the subject
was no less satisfactory to me.”

A few words from the last pages of the “ Revision ”
may not be out of place here : —

u It is astonishing that so little use has been made of
the positive data furnished by embryology in support of
the evolution hypothesis, and that so many of the sup-

THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI

123

porters of the Darwinian theory have been satisfied to
build castles in the air, which they have been obliged
to pull down in rapid succession. ... It is only in a
few orders of the animal kingdom that we have even
the first beginnings of the needed paleontological and
embryological material to serve as the basis for the
comparisons which might lead to some definite results.
Yet these comparisons are generally instituted on such
a grand scale, and with such utter disregard of the ex-
ceptions, that their authors can hardly expect us to
follow them in the paths they tread, where theory
takes the place of observation. No one appreciates more
than I do that the explanation of the theory of evolu-
tion, as given by Darwin, has opened up new fields of
observation in many departments of biology, the im-
portance of which can hardly be overestimated. . . .
But his disciples cannot ask us to take as proved beyond
question all the vagaries regarding this and that ances-
tor of the great animal kingdom, about which they talk
with such sublime confidence. And when I am intro-
duced to an archetype in a group where we have neither
paleontological nor embryological evidence, or when I
am asked to believe in a genealogical tree of which
neither the roots nor the branches have ever existed, as
far as we now know, I am no longer dealing simply
with an hypothesis, but with the wildest speculation.”

CHAPTER VI

1873-1875
LAKE TITICACA

Louis Agassiz, whose health had caused more than
usual anxiety for some months, died on December 14,
1873. Eight days later, Alexander Agassiz’s young wife
succumbed to an attack of pneumonia, the result of a cold
contracted on the distressing night of her father-in-law’s
death. The innermost chamber of a strong man’s nature
is sacred ground. This lifelong sorrow increased the nat-
ural reserve of his character, which afterwards seldom
melted except in the most intimate and congenial sur-
roundings ; while far below, behind an almost impene-
trable wall, where few indeed ever glimpsed, lay a wealth
of affection, a delicacy of feeling, a power of self-sac-
rifice, and a capacity for suffering, such as have been
given to but few men.

Two or three extracts from his letters should make it
clear that he now faced life as a permanently saddened
man. In writing to Huxley some months later he says :
“ Few young men have reached my age and have at-
tained, as it were, all their ambition might desire, and
yet the one thing which I crave for, and which I want
to keep me interested in what is going on, is wanting.
How gladly I would exchange all that I have for what
I have lost. But I will not burden you with my sorrows.”

On the first anniversary of his wife’s death his re-
serve broke down in a beautiful and pathetic letter which

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125

cannot be published here, written from a remote corner
of South America to Mrs. Louis Agassiz. It was the cry
of a broken-hearted man who, under a restless energy,
was struggling with the burden of a grief that was al-
most more than he could bear. — “I feel as if I were
acting a constant lie, but it is a harmless one which I must
make up my mind to keep up for many a weary year.”

In writing of a visit that Agassiz made to Sir Wy-
ville Thomson in the fall of 1876, Sir John Murray says:
“ When he arrived in Edinburgh I referred to the death
of his wife, but he held up his hands and said, 6 1 can-
not bear it.’ His expression was such that the subject
was never again mentioned, although he frequently
spoke of his boys.” After this visit Agassiz writes, “ I
can’t tell you what a pleasant time I have had in Edin-
burgh, thanks to you and Lady Thomson. It is really
the first time since the death of father and my wife that
I have felt in the least as if there were anything to live
for, and I hope you have put me on the track to get
into harness again and do my share of the work I have
to do — if not with pleasure at least cheerfully.”

Although he was never again the same man, he took
up the burden of life so bravely that few realized the
depth of the shadows under which he worked. But his
intellectual activities were undimmed, and in the un-
failing interest with which he pursued the secrets of
nature, in the steadfast endeavor to increase the sum of
human knowledge, he found his “ Everlasting Yea.”

A few words of his show the beacons that guided him
henceforth : “ To live our lives as they have been made
for us, and live in hope, do the best we can, work hard,
and have as many interests as we can in what is going
on around us.”

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Mrs. Louis Agassiz took up the shattered remnants
of the broken home, and presided over the Quincy
Street house for the rest of her long life, always ten-
derly guarded by her stepson from the outside world
and fondly cared for in her declining years. The family
consisted of three little boys, “ none of whom inherited
from his father or grandfather any scientific tastes.,,
These children Mrs. Agassiz brought up with the lov-
ing hand of a true mother ; not always an easy task, for
during the long absences of their father these healthy
young savages were sometimes a troublesome charge,
and must have caused their beloved grandmother many
an anxious hour.

Under the shock of his terrible double blow, Agassiz
suffered a relapse of an old malady. The exact nature
of this disease was never understood, but the symptoms
were distressing and alarming ; and for many years, with
few intermissions, he lived in the constant expectation
of dropping dead at any moment.

When he was again able to work, his first occupation
was to help his stepmother collect the material for the
Life of his father. As he became stronger, his former
studies, combined with his desire to continue his father’s
interests, left him but little time. Thus the work on the
Life fell to Mrs. Agassiz, and his share in the book was
limited to advice and criticism.

TO ERNST HAECKEL

Cambridge, Jan. 28, 1874.

Your kind note written soon after father’s death
finds me overwhelmed by a still greater sorrow which
has fallen upon me like a thunder-clap out of a clear
sky. I had the misfortune a few days after father’s

THE CAMBRIDGE HOUSE

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127

death to lose my wife, who died very suddenly from a
violent attack of pneumonia. I had made, previous to
father’s illness, all my arrangements to pass the winter
at Nassau on the Bahamas, and I anticipated much
profit and good work from a prolonged visit there. But
alas, now all seems of very little consequence, and I am
utterly unable to get reconciled to an existence which
is well-nigh intolerable, and from which all the main-
springs which usually act upon men of our age, are
taken away ; at present I can find no incentive for any-
thing and I can only hope that in the course of time
my interest in my children and in my work may ulti-
mately reconcile me to a sort of passive life. I shall try
and carry out, to the best of my abilities, the many
plans regarding Penikese and the Museum which were
started by my father, and I shall at least have the mel-
ancholy satisfaction of knowing that in his case at least
his views, whether right or wrong, and his dearest
wishes, will be faithfully executed, and that I may raise
a monument to him expressing what he hoped to be able
to show, better perhaps than he himself would have
done, because I shall not be constantly drawn aside by
new plans and shall not have the incessant temptation
of remodelling as I go along.

In some way, men who have made their mark in
the history of science disappear from the very history
of the centres where they have been most active, be-
cause their successors are always in such a hurry to show
how much wiser and more learned they are than their
predecessors. To prevent this I will consent to saddle
myself with a great deal of executive work which must
of necessity curtail my own plans of work ; but that
which before seemed to me of so great importance mat-

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

ters now but little, and I am ready for anything. I duly
received your two pamphlets, but have had no heart for
anything and am not in mood for appreciating anything
either, and will wait till I am more myself again. I have
just sent off to you Part III of the Echini and the
Plates of the whole. The work was finished just a few
days before father was taken ill, and of course has been
delayed since that time. Part IV is in hands of the
binders. Let me know what you have not of our publi-
cations in the University Library and I will complete
your set. I think I have sent your University some-
thing?— but I cannot tell now, and the simplest way
is to ascertain directly from you.

This letter gives an excellent insight of his attitude
toward the Museum. His own researches were always
the dearest of his intellectual children, and he never
would have persisted, in the face, as he thought, of the
indifference of the public and the lack of sympathetic
support from the University authorities, in devoting the
thought, time, and money which finally converted the
dream of his father into a solid reality, had he not been
impelled by a sense of duty and filial obligation.

At the time of the death of Professor Agassiz, four
fifths of the north wing of the Museum had been com-
pleted. The original section of the building was crowded
to the utmost, and the Museum had an income of about
$10,000. Its prospects were not encouraging, and it was
feared that it might share the fate of the many enter-
prises that have perished with their founders. But Agas-
siz thought otherwise, and in a little over a year a
memorial fund of over $300,000 was collected. Of
this fund, $125,000 was given by Quincy A. Shaw,

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129

$55,000 by Agassiz, and $50,000 by the State. The
remainder was collected by popular subscription. The
hold which Agassiz had on the affections of his miners
at Calumet is shown by a subscription of $1215 from
1233 employees at a time when the Calumet & Hecla
Mining Company was not employing more than 1400 men.

Thanks to Agassiz’s care and his lavish financial as-
sistance, the growth of the Museum proceeded steadily ;
not only the building and the popular exhibition rooms,
but also the scientific materials and the resources that
made them available to students who were competent to
use them. By 1882, the northwest corner piece was
completed. This left the rest of the main structure for
the future extensions to be devoted to natural science,
the south wing having been allotted to the Peabody
Museum of Archaeology.

The latest interest of Louis Agassiz suffered a differ-
ent fate. Mr. John Anderson, of New York, had given
the Island of Penikese and a fund of $50,000 to the
elder Agassiz for the purpose of founding a summer
school of marine zoology. This school, opened in the
summer of 1873, was the first of its kind in America,
the pioneer of all the marine laboratories and zoological
stations since founded along our shores.

Penikese is a little island of about one hundred acres,
situated at the extreme entrance of Buzzard’s Bay, on
the south shore of Massachusetts. From the first, Alex-
ander Agassiz had been opposed to establishing the
school on this spot, since he foresaw the practical diffi-
culties of managing it in such an inaccessible locality.
Nevertheless, on his father’s death he undertook as a
sacred duty the uncongenial task of directing the school.
With some misgiving he started to organize the in-

130

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

struction for the following summer, for he feared that
his influence would not be sufficient to secure the sup-
port that had been so readily accorded his father. The
latter’s friends, however, rallied to his aid, and he soon
filled his teaching force, largely from those who had
helped the preceding year. There were more applica-
tions from students than could possibly be filled, the
great majority of the pupils being scholars of the for-
mer year. As soon as the school was opened, it became
evident that Agassiz had undertaken more than his
health would allow ; the doctors ordered him to leave
the island and take as complete a rest as possible. In
his absence Dr. A. S. Packard and Mr. F. W. Putnam
took charge of the school, and brought the season to a
successful close.

TO WOLCOTT GIBBS

Nahant, Aug. 8, 1874.

I was obliged to drop Penikese. It broke me down
completely, and as that is the last of the Institutes started
by Father I shall have to do in the future what seems
to have done so well this summer, merely get the people
to go there for a few weeks, and direct from a distance.
Putnam and Packard who have had charge have done
admirably and worked most faithfully. Everything has
run to the satisfaction of all the pupils and there has
not been a word of grumbling from anybody. On the
contrary, they all have expressed the utmost gratitude
and satisfaction, and when I remember what chances I
had for work when I began, I don’t wonder at it. I
hope to go there a few days yet, but shall not do much
— as long as I am idle I flourish, but the least work
unnerves me completely so that I seem to have no con-

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131

trol over myself. If matters do not mend I must pack
up my traps and go off for a few months for an entire
change of scene.

The following winter, Mr. Anderson withdrew his
expected support. As the school was heavily in debt,
permission was obtained from the Massachusetts Legis-
lature to sell the island and dissolve the corporation.
Later, Penikese became a small-pox hospital, and finally
a leper settlement of the State of Massachusetts.

In the fall of 1874, Agassiz planned a trip to Chile
and Peru for the purpose of visiting their copper mines,
exploring Lake Titicaca, and collecting antiquities for
the Peabody Museum. Accompanied by Mr. S. W.
Garman, of the Museum staff, he left New York in
November, taking with him a large outfit of ropes,
dredges, sounding lines, thermometers for deep-water
temperatures, and all the necessary materials for pre-
serving whatever collections they might make in the
lake.

From Panama he took a steamer down the west coast
that stopped three days at Callao. This enabled Agassiz
to run up to Lima and get in touch with the govern-
ment officials and Mr. Henry Meiggs, of the Mollendo-
Puno Railroad. Continuing south, he left Mr. Garman
at Mollendo to take the baggage some three hundred
miles to Lake Titicaca, over the astonishing railroad
that scrambles through passes in the Andes only a few
hundred feet lower than Mont Blanc. He himself con-
tinued to Valparaiso. A few days there enabled him to
make the acquaintance of various people in the world
of copper, pick up what information he wanted, and
arrange for seeing some of the mines.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Pisagua, Jan. 19, 1875.

My dear Mother : —

I left Valparaiso as 1 intended by the Columbia and
arrived the following day at my first stopping place,
Coquimbo. I went there to see the great smelting estab-
lishment of our principal rival in copper, and it certainly
is admirably arranged and carried on, on the most ex-
tensive scale. One of the partners is the owner of the
largest copper mines of Chile ; the other owns immense
coal mines near Lebu. So that between the two they
make an excellent combination, bringing the coal up
here in their own steamers and taking down copper ore
for other people from the mines of the district. The
head man of the establishment at Guayacan is a Scotch-
man, extremely well educated and a great friend of the
United States, so we got along very well ; he is also an
excellent botanist and quite an amateur of fossils. He
showed me some very extensive beds of fossils, and I
hope that on my return from the mines I shall, while
waiting for the steamer, be able to do something. I wish
the Hassler had put in at some of these Chile ports;
the geology is most interesting, and I have no doubt
father would have enjoyed his study of them very much,
and then there were so many hands to collect that very
fine collections of fossils could have been sent home ; of
course with me, having no means of transport at hand
and being alone, I should waste too much time did I at-
tempt to make extensive collections. I am obliged to be
satisfied with notes and looking at things, for one man
cannot do everything.

The railroad from Coquimbo to Ovalle, which is about

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twenty miles from the great mining centre, is a remark-
able piece of engineering ; you climb up round spurs of
mountains and over mountains at an inclination which
is fearful. But like many things done by our English
friends, the whole thing is spoiled by the absurdly broad
gauge they have adopted, as broad as that of the Erie
Railroad, to do a little two-penny business of one train
a day, which a diminutive railroad like some of the
mountain railroads of the United States would do at
half the cost. What a pretty country this coast range
would be were it only green, but you see only here and
there a few green bushes ; to be sure they say that in
spring it is covered with wild flowers, but as in Cali-
fornia it lasts but a very short time. Some of the trans-
verse valleys, where a little water still winds its way
among the pebbles, are masses of green, and give you
an idea of what this country might be with irrigation.
There must have been water here in plenty in olden
times, for the town of Ovalle and the terminus of the
railroad from Coquimbo are placed in the broad bed of
an ancient river, and high above the town rise the old
terraces over two hundred feet high, through which the
former river once cut its way and has now left the huge
masses of pebbles and cobble stone which compose the
surrounding hills. You do not see, even in the Con-
necticut Valley, better river terraces than found here,
only here they are due to the gradual rising of the whole
of the Chile coast, so plainly seen by this sort of forma-
tion, and by the old beaches high above the present
level which you find all along the coast.

I am now beginning to experience some of the pleas-
ures of travelling in out of the way places, and that in
Spanish places which beat the worse phases of the French

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

all hollow, — four in a room: to he sure it is large and
each man has a bed, but it is not pleasant, with the
filthy habits of the Spaniards, to be any length of time
in the same place with one of them. They look better
dressed up to kill, and they never stop smoking ; even
in bed they indulge in a couple of night-caps and com-
mence the day with a cigarette instead of a bath. From
Ovalle it is about twenty miles to Tamaya, a hill which
produces about one-third of all the copper produced in
Chile. I wish we had the advantages for mining which
they have had and thrown away. The richness of this place
is something stupendous, and the bulk of it owned by
one man who was shrewd enough to see a little further
ahead than his neighbors. The drive from Ovalle to
Tamaya is over an old sea bottom cut into a deep valley
by a former river which is now a mere rivulet. You go
the twenty miles in about two hours, in a light open
carriage, with four horses abreast, and going full gallop
up hill and down. I got to Tamaya just at breakfast
time, and after that the Engineer took me in charge,
showed me what there was to be seen on the surface
and then passed me over to the Mining Captain, a very
intelligent German, who, thinking I was a greenhorn,
amused himself, as many Captains have done before, in
running me up and down the ladders. I very soon tired
him out at that game and he after that looked upon
me with great respect and I got from him all I wanted.

It is melancholy to see workmen in such a condition
as you find them here, living in huts the walls of which
are made of cobble stones and a few bunches of grass
thrown across the top at an angle form the roof, and in
this solitary room men, women, children, goats, and
donkeys all live. It is fortunate the climate is so fine,

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135

yet they are cheerful, carry immense loads on their heads
up frightful ways under-ground, get but $15 to $18 a
month and never see any better food than black bread,
figs and a few beans, and occasionally a little fat for
cooking; add to this that they have little or no water,
and that fuel is worth its weight in gold, and you have
a dim idea of the condition of the miners here. I don’t
wonder the owners make money, yet they would make
infinitely more had they machinery; but I presume that
as long as they can get such willing hands they will
keep up their old ways.

The mines here at Tamaya are most picturesquely sit-
uated, perched along the steep slope of a high hill about
3000 feet high, above the surrounding plain, and so
steep that the houses, shops, etc., are placed one above
the other in regular terraces, which look as if they would
all scale off ; and as for the paths connecting them, ex-
cept the main road which has been built with great care,
they are worse than the worst Swiss passes, and they
think nothing of them, travelling over them by day or
night, as I experienced to my horror on the expedition
I made round the mountain. We got belated, and it
was pitch dark while we were up in the clouds trying
to get down, which we however did safely, much to my
astonishment. This place was a mine of wealth, but is
now nearly worked out and cannot last much longer ;
like many other mines in Chile, their future is bad for
many of them till better times come again. The view
you have of the mountains (of the main Cordilleras)
from the top of Tamaya is fine indeed, and if the hill-
sides could only be covered with verdure, it would be
a magnificent panorama, but as you get it, its aridity
and barrenness is not pleasant and spoils the whole effect.

136

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

The shape of some of the hills and valleys resembles
very much that of the hills at the foot of the Alps, with
the difference that one is radiant with verdure and the
other very much the reverse.

All the way from Ovalle to Coquimbo you see no-
thing but mines way up in the air, where the poor natives
dig away till they have managed to get together a little
ore which they then sell to the smelters. On my return
to Coquimbo I went off in the other direction to the end
of this mining district to see a few mines near Serena
which are worked by an Englishman, a Mr. Lambert,
who manages to make an excellent business from a not
very rich mine by combining farming, irrigation, smelt-
ing, and a good many other things. The way from Se-
rena to Coquimbo leads along the beach, and the tide
being high, with a heavy sea running, it was a fine sight
to see the huge phosphorescent rollers come in, but also
unpleasant as it was so dark that you could not tell if
it might not wash the carriage and horses back with it ;
for half the time you run inside the breakers; however,
we had good horses and got through at last to my sat-
isfaction safely to Coquimbo. I had about six hours the
following day before the steamer from the North came
in, which gave me a chance to collect a few fossils from
the ancient Sea Beaches which abound there. I wish I
could have time to remain here to study the uprising of
the land ; there is a good deal to do and quite interest-
ing work it could be if you had time to do it with a
surveying instrument and take careful sections of what
is exposed. I believe however Darwin has already done
something in this line.

We had a very pleasant trip to the next place, Chan-
aral, which is the only other copper district I shall

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137

explore. I made the acquaintance there of an intelligent
Norwegian, a Mr. Schjolberg, who manages one of the
mines of the district and with whom I stayed for about
eight days while running about the province. He was
most polite and attentive to me and took endless pains
to have me see all there was of interest. His wife is quite
a pleasant English woman, and they have a charming
home in this arid place, which anywhere else would be
a gem. The house is built directly upon the rocks of the
coast, so close that the spray often covers the immense
balcony which runs in front of the place and which is a
magnificent play-ground for their children. Behind the
house rises a high hill which looks as if it might slide
down and crush the village clustered at the very slopes.
But the reverse of the medal is, that there is not a blade
of grass ; all the water they use is distilled sea water
which they carry about sixty miles inland on carts to
supply some of the mines. This is of course a fearful
drawback to all work and when they have to feed large
troops of mules, as some of the mines do, it becomes a
most expensive luxury.

I made with Mr. Schjolberg an expedition of five
days to see the principal mines, and we went a little out
of the way to cut across a small spur of the great At-
acama Desert ; the ride through the Desert was one of
the most interesting trips I have ever made, and I learned
a great deal of geology and of the agency of various
forces of which few people have any idea. You must
have been in this country to see what a powerful agent
heat is and wind in modifying the landscape of a coun-
try and in producing effects which in the northern
hemisphere are due to frost, heat, and cold and hot
water. But the bleakness of the scene, the utter desola-

138

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

tion and waste of the prospect, I cannot describe. Im-
agine as far as the eye can see a sea of hills, hillocks,
mounds, plains and hills without a particle of vegetation,
not a drop of water, the whole covered with stones as
large as your fist, with here and there a little efflores-
cence covering everything with a white crust, and you
have an indistinct idea of the great Chile desert. You
may form an idea of the waste I passed through during
these five days, that all the water we had during our
trip, extending over about 120 miles of country, is all
brought from one place on the seashore ; not a living
thing did I see, not a bird, not even a lizard or an
insect, and the only living thing was here and there
a sickly cactus growing on some hillside. Yet the whole
country shows signs of the existence of large rivers
which have cut deep canons between some of the hills,
and the whole desert is probably an old lake bottom
which has left its trace by the extent of salt and soda
to be found in all directions.

Kiss the boys and love to all. Good-bye,

Yours, A. Ag.

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Mollendo, Jan. 28, 1875.

I go on shore here in a couple of hours and make a
start for the Lake at last by rail all the way, but as there
is only one train a week I may have to kick my heels
for some time. Still I shall not be very sorry for a little
delay. I have been rushing so fast ever since I left Val-
paraiso, and as I spent most of last week on horseback,
riding from thirty-five to forty miles a day, and not
faring remarkably well either for food or shelter, it was
quite a comfort to be back again on board ship. But

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139

though my last trip to the Niter District was rather hard,
it was most interesting, and I have I think now as con-
nected and quite plainly visible to my mind’s eye the
whole process of elevation of the Chile and part of Peru
coasts. The nitrate beds give a most peculiar aspect to
the landscape. It is exactly like riding over a dried-up
caldron bottom filled with salt, which is left in huge
cakes a couple of feet thick, with horns of salt in all
possible shapes sticking out in all directions, through
which you wind your way.

In some parts where the going is somewhat better,
the surface reminds one of a cement pavement in very
poor condition. I think our former cellar floor, before
it underwent repairs, would give you a capital idea of
the surface of the pampa. Immediately below the salt
beds, on the edges of the ancient lagoons, the nitrate is
found ; it is simply blasted out, and the whole extent of
territory on which it occurs looks like so many earth
works half begun, or as they would look after a heavy
cannonading. So that you can readily trace the course
of the beds on the hillsides by the hills of refuse neatly
piled or heaped up all round.

Under these nitrate beds are found beds of gypsum
and of fine clay, which are useful in their way, the one
to hold water, more or less brackish of course, which
finds its way from the mountains and is the salvation of
the district ; the other makes an amount of dust of which
I had no conception, and as you ride along you are
nearly suffocated with this salt dust getting into your
eyes and ears and mouth, making you feel as if you
wished to be soaked in any fluid available. The result
is that all the employees up here drink like so many
sponges and keep up a continual soaking, for which

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

there is some excuse if they soaked in a milder liquid
than brandy.

The Nitrate Desert is an immense plain about seventy-
five miles wide and extending from Pisagua, the north-
ern limit, to the northern part of Chile. It is connected
to the coast by one of their breakneck railroads, which
is so steep that they hardly manage to do any business,
the locomotive being fully occupied in taking itself up
and down again. As the Pampa is already some 3700
feet above the level of the sea, it is quite cool in the
evening, but very hot and dry during the day while the
sun is out. From one of the small hills, which we as-
cended on horseback, you have a very fine panorama of
the Cordilleras, with its deep gorges extending into the
Pampas and forming innumerable canons, old river-beds
now completely dry, or through which a mere apology
of a creek shows itself here and there and in which you
find their so-called farms, where they raise a little clover
and, by irrigating, a few vegetables, as long as the water
lasts.

I picked up quite a lot of fossils in one of the valleys
at what must once have been the beach. For to my great
astonishment I found several species of recent corals
attached to the rocks , at a height of more than 2900
feet above the level of the sea. What a rise of the land
there must have been, and that in a comparatively recent
period, for this to be possible. The more I see of South
America, the more I feel inclined to look upon natural
causes acting slowly as fully capable of producing all
the changes necessary for any necessary combination on
the earth’s surface ; and when you see the constant strug-
gle of animals and plants to maintain themselves, and
the remarkable manner in which they often adapt them-

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141

selves to circumstances, I don’t wonder that Darwin has
taken the bent toward natural selection.

On my way back from the nitrate beds to Pisagua, I
rode on horseback through the whole ground once oc-
cupied by the sea, and was able to follow it step by step
as it receded or as the land rose. At Pisagua I had a
couple of days which I spent in packing my collections
and in digging up a few Indian graves, from which I
collected a very fair sample of the contents of these
graves of this part of Peru for the Archseological Mu-
seum. As they are identical in time with those of Arica,
I spent my time at Pisagua, where I was comfortably
established at the house of a Mr. Jones, the manager of
one of the large companies of Nitrate. I must say the
hospitality of the people on this coast is something over-
powering. Since I left Valparaiso I have only spent three
or four nights in a hotel ; you go as a matter of course
to people to whom you have letters of introduction ; they
would think it very strange if you did otherwise ; and
then not only do they take you in, but they literally
devote themselves to you and make out your itinerary,
pass you on to their friends, who in their turn do the
same; and so it goes from one friend to another. Were
this not the custom you would have the pleasure of spend-
ing your nights in the open air or in the huts of work-
men, sleeping on the bare floor and living on bread and
water.

The revolution in Peru is now completely ended so I
shall have no delays on that score. We took in at Ilo
the greater part of the soldiers who had been left to
watch the revolution, such a looking set of wild Indians
I never saw. I should think the Government would want
a second army to watch the first. They must be glad

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

to be indispensable, and as for the luxuries, even the
smallest which are found everywhere in all the decent
homes, there is no trace of them. As to their manners
and customs, they will not bear description, and as long
as the present style continues there is but little hope of
being able to introduce anything like reform. Imagine
at a dinner party eating your pie with a knife (in a
crack house of Puno), and at the same time, although
there were napkins, the majority of the people present,
all high functionaries, wiped their mouths and hands on
the edge of the tablecloth, including the lady of the
house! The women, I must say, all stand on a very
much lower level than the men. They know absolutely
nothing and are dirty, slovenly, in fact seem to be a sort
of head servant in their husbands’ houses.

I found when I got to Puno that I must give up my
proposed visit to Cuzco ; it is too early in the season and
the roads, to judge from a few which I have passed
over, are bad even for Peru, which is saying a good deal.
I am very sorry for this, as my trip on Lake Titicaca
has excited my appetite very much regarding antiquities.
In fact this trip seems to have opened my eyes in a great
many directions, and I have learned a great deal of special-
ties which formerly interested me but little.

I commenced this letter at Puno, but I am now writ-
ing from a place called Juli, about sixty miles south of
Puno on the Lake Shore; here I met Garman and his
schooner quietly at anchor. He has done very well in
way of collections, and if I can only get all this safely
home I shall have plenty to occupy me in writing up
this trip. I am on board the Yavari, a small steamer of
about eighty tons, which goes entirely round the Lake
and arms and I have the steamer literally at my disposal,

LAKE TITICACA

145

to stop her on her journey whenever I wish to sound
and make deep water observations. I shall devote my-
self specially to this, and hope with what Garman has
done to have a good idea of the physical geography of
the Lake.

The Captain could not be more devoted; he was edu-
cated in England, speaks English well, and is a striking
contrast to Peruvians, active, prompt, intelligent, and
devoted to his business. He also gave up to me his
cabin and turned out the purser; otherwise I should
have had a pretty uncomfortable time, but as it is I am
very well off. The food is pretty bad, but I manage
when coming in very hungry to make an excellent meal.
I hope to be able, if the weather allows me, to go to
Tiaguanaco, where there are some magnificent ruins,
for what I have seen at Titicaca does not impress me
greatly thus far in favor of Inca architecture. I fear
Squier and others have drawn a very long bow, or had
taken a little too much of the native “Italia.”

A part of my present trip goes over the same ground
as the last one I made, but it could not be helped, and
as I have now from Garman all the sounding apparatus,
I shall not be sorry to go over the whole ground again.
Juli, where I met Garman, is a very prettily situated
place, in fact all the little towns on the Lake Shore
could not be in more advantageous positions, a little
ways above the Lake with a sloping green to the shore,
and generally on each side quite high hills flanking a
lower hill in the rear.

Near the southern end of the lake is the Cathedral
of Copacabana, with its famous image of the Virgin.
This shrine is the resort of pilgrims from almost every

144

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

to be indispensable, and as for the luxuries, even the
smallest which are found everywhere in all the decent
homes, there is no trace of them. As to their manners
and customs, they will not bear description, and as long
as the present style continues there is but little hope of
being able to introduce anything like reform. Imagine
at a dinner party eating your pie with a knife (in a
crack house of Puno), and at the same time, although
there were napkins, the majority of the people present,
all high functionaries, wiped their mouths and hands on
the edge of the tablecloth, including the lady of the
house! The women, I must say, all stand on a very
much lower level than the men. They know absolutely
nothing and are dirty, slovenly, in fact seem to be a sort
of head servant in their husbands’ houses.

I found when I got to Puno that I must give up my
proposed visit to Cuzco ; it is too early in the season and
the roads, to judge from a few which I have passed
over, are bad even for Peru, which is saying a good deal.
I am very sorry for this, as my trip on Lake Titicaca
has excited my appetite very much regarding antiquities.
In fact this trip seems to have opened my eyes in a great
many directions, and I have learned a great deal of special-
ties which formerly interested me but little.

I commenced this letter at Puno, but I am now writ-
ing from a place called Juli, about sixty miles south of
Puno on the Lake Shore; here I met Garman and his
schooner quietly at anchor. He has done very well in
way of collections, and if I can only get all this safely
home I shall have plenty to occupy me in writing up
this trip. I am on board the Yavari, a small steamer of
about eighty tons, which goes entirely round the Lake
and arms and I have the steamer literally at my disposal,

LAKE TITICACA

145

to stop her on her journey whenever I wish to sound
and make deep water observations. I shall devote my-
self specially to this, and hope with what Garman has
done to have a good idea of the physical geography of
the Lake.

The Captain could not be more devoted ; he was edu-
cated in England, speaks English well, and is a striking
contrast to Peruvians, active, prompt, intelligent, and
devoted to his business. He also gave up to me his
cabin and turned out the purser; otherwise I should
have had a pretty uncomfortable time, but as it is I am
very well off. The food is pretty bad, but I manage
when coming in very hungry to make an excellent meal.
I hope to be able, if the weather allows me, to go to
Tiaguanaco, where there are some magnificent ruins,
for what I have seen at Titicaca does not impress me
greatly thus far in favor of Inca architecture. I fear
Squier and others have drawn a very long bow, or had
taken a little too much of the native “Italia.”

A part of my present trip goes over the same ground
as the last one I made, but it could not be helped, and
as I have now from Garman all the sounding apparatus,
I shall not be sorry to go over the whole ground again.
Juli, where I met Garman, is a very prettily situated
place, in fact all the little towns on the Lake Shore
could not be in more advantageous positions, a little
ways above the Lake with a sloping green to the shore,
and generally on each side quite high hills flanking a
lower hill in the rear.

Near the southern end of the lake is the Cathedral
of Copacabana, with its famous image of the Virgin.
This shrine is the resort of pilgrims from almost every

146

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

part of South America. In order to obtain a good view
of the image, weighed down with a king’s ransom of
jewels, Agassiz paid for a high mass, and he and the
captain, both holding a huge lighted candle in each
hand, were allowed to crawl up to the figure on their
knees !

At the northern extremity of the peninsula of Copa-
cabana, lies the sacred island of Titicaca, the Mecca of
the ancient Incas. A narrow strait separates the island
from the mainland, across which the Incas were com-
pelled to pass on their pilgrimage to the sacred shrine.
Here Agassiz used his dredging apparatus for the novel
purpose of trying to scrape up any antiquities which
might have been dropped overboard. Quantities of mud,
however, soon clogged the dredge and rendered further
exploration useless.

TO WOLCOTT GIBBS

Arequipa, March 3, 1875.

I have just returned from a three weeks trip to Lake
Titicaca and have been quite successful. I chartered
a small schooner of about thirty tons and sent my as-
sistant, Garman, round the Lake to stop at all ports
and dredge and sound wherever practicable. He was
gone about five weeks and succeeded in getting together
an excellent collection of the Birds of the department
found along the Lake shores. He made some thirty
soundings at different points and dredged up quite a
collection of Crustacea, Mollusca, etc., from the deep
water of the Lake, making at the same time a collection
of the Fishes found in the Lake. Only three species
were known thus far. I think from the Lake Mr. Gar-
man added three more and this number (six) represents

LAKE TITICACA

147

the total number of species, which is remarkably small
for such a large body of water. He also made an ex-
cellent collection of Reptiles, found a gigantic Frog,
dredged from the shores. Frogs and Toads are most
abundant in the region of the Lake.

I myself made two trips on the Lake in the small
steamers which are run by the Peruvian Government
between Peru and Bolivia. During the trips I devoted
myself mainly to sounding and to collecting what few
antiquities I could pick up at the different ports. The
Lake is found extremely deep ; the northeastern shore
end is in some places no less than 151 fathoms deep;
and in a section from Vilquechico to Puno the depth
of the Lake passed gradually from 135 fathoms to about
111 fathoms within a short distance of the entrance to
Puno Bay; the lake bottom seems made up of a series
of long flat plains nearly horizontal and run parallel
running northwesterly, separated by the anticlinals which
form the ranges of plains found in the lake.

But a very remarkable feature of the Lake is the
temperature of the water; the surface water has an
average temperature of about 57°, while the bottom has
an invariable temperature at this season of no less than
55° to 58° ; even at 151 fathoms the deep-sea thermome-
ter stood at 55° ! which for the greater part of the time
was greater than the temperature of the air. This con-
dition of things is very readily explained from the power-
ful action of the nearly vertical sun at this season. The
water of course absorbing the heat, retaining it, and
becoming an immense caldron of warm water in spite
of the large amount of cold water which at this season
of the year (the rainy season) pours down from the
rivers at the northern end of the Lake. As in their

148

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

winter season the sun retains a great altitude, the lati-
tude being 16° S., it is probable that even in winter
the temperature of the water remains quite high. I
left with the Captain of one of the steamers my deep-
sea thermometer and sounding line, so that he will be
able to carry on the observations at all months of the
year.

Nearly the whole bottom of the Lake is covered by
a thick bed of fine black silt like an impalpable powder,
which of course kills all vegetation, and this in addition
to the high temperature of the water are the causes,
undoubtedly, of the small number of Fishes found in
the Lake and the scarcity of animal life on its bottom,
there being but few spots where the bottom was rocky
or sandy or gravelly and fitted to support animal life.
Of course there are extensive shoals varying from one
to three fathoms in depths where the Lake bottom is
covered with tall reeds and with weeds, but the latter
never reach a greater depth than seventeen fathoms,
eight to ten fathoms being the usual limit of the aquatic
plants.

The temperature of the air is most variable at this
height (12,560 feet) ; the sun is extremely powerful,
but a passing cloud is sufficient to chill tlffi atmosphere,
and in a few minutes the thermometer drops from say
68° in the sun to 50°, or even 45° in the shade when
raining, as it almost always is in the morning and even-
ing. At this time, the temperature remains much below
50° (all my figures are Fahrenheit). It will be very in-
teresting in the winter months to have a series of ob-
servations made, as during that time the sun shines
very brightly all day (the dry season) and from middle
of April to December there are but few cloudy days.

LAKE TITICACA

149

The Lake never freezes, although plenty of ice is formed
along the shores, which invariably disappears before the
sun gets high. It is then hot in the day, while the sun
shines, but quite cold at night as soon as the sun has
set, cold enough to freeze hard. I expect to leave for
home by the steamer of March 14 for Callao and to
reach New York about the tenth of April.

The foregoing letter explains only in part why Agassiz
brought back from Lake Titicaca more alcohol than
specimens. For the exploration of this elevated sheet
of water disclosed a condition of things similar to the
marine life of the Arctic regions — a great abundance
of specimens, with a comparatively small number of
species. As in the case of many other isolated sheets of
water, its few species were peculiar to the lake. The
collections brought out the curious fact that, whereas
the Mollusca were species of fresh-water genera, the
Crustacea, on the other hand, belonged, with the excep-
tion of one species, to the Orchestiidse, forms which
hitherto had not been reported from strictly fresh
water. But his work in another field, to which he now
first turned his attention, yielded a rich harvest of
Peruvian mummies, Inca relics, and implements of
the modern Indians. These he gave to the Peabody
Museum.1

Twenty years later, when visiting the zoological sta-
tions of Europe, and looking up his scientific friends,
he was amused to find at the Ethnographical Museum,
in Berlin, collections that had been offered him at Lake
Titicaca at a fabulous price, and had been purchased lately
for a song, owing to the death of the owners. He dis-

1 The south wing of the University Museum.

150

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

covered that the curator knew all about the antiquities
he had gathered in South America, and afterward in
Yucatan and the Hawaiian Islands, and had used this
as a means to force the German government to send
out collectors, lest a private individual should carry all
such objects to Cambridge.

CHAPTER VII

THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

From personal knowledge of the Atlantic coast be-
tween Eastport and the Tortugas, Agassiz had reached
the conclusion that no place offered better facilities for
the summer study of marine animals than the vicinity
of Newport. This led him, in the fall of 1874, to join
Mr. Shaw in buying the southwest extremity of the
Island of Rhode Island a little peninsula of about thirty
acres, known, from the remains of some old earthworks,
as “ Castle Hill.,, The place marks the eastern entrance
to Narragansett Bay, and commands a beautiful view
of the ocean and sound. Here during the winter of
1874-75, the brothers-in-law each built a house. Agassiz
moved into his in 1875, and it became his summer home
for the rest of his life. As Mrs. Louis Agassiz continued
to pass her summers at Nahant, Mrs. Russell, Agassiz’s
mother-in-law, presided over his Newport establishment
until her death in 1888. Mr. Shaw never lived in his
house, which Agassiz bought some years later, when it
promptly burnt down.

The moving to Newport in the spring and back to
Cambridge in the fall was accomplished, during his
visits to Calumet, by his servants, who worshiped him,
and never thought of leaving. Since he never would
discharge an old employee, an unusual number were
pensioned at his death. To everybody about him of the
humbler sort he was exceptionally considerate, often

152

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

shutting his eyes to petty impositions that he would not
have tolerated from his associates.

Although “ Castle Hill ” was often filled with his
sons’ friends, he lived very quietly there for many sum-
mers, mingling little with the Newport life. He, how-
ever, saw something of Professor Cooke and Professor
Gibbs, who were settled at Newport, and occasionally
entertained some distinguished man of science from the
Old World. But as a rule he allowed nothing to inter-
fere with his work, and limited his recreation to a row
in the bay with one of his boys, or an afternoon’s ride
on horseback. In later years the automobiles sadly in-
terfered with his riding, and this probably had some
bearing on his great dislike of them. Not long after the
introduction of those conveyances, the beau monde of
Newport arranged for a great race around the ocean
drive, the only access to his place. Notwithstanding the
objections of Agassiz and other abutters, after an un-
civil war, the city of Newport consented to close the
road for the afternoon, to the delight of the promoters
and the apparent discomfort of their opponents. At the
last moment, however, Agassiz completely turned the
tables by getting an injunction and preventing the race.
This led a waggish friend to insert a notice in the papers
denying the report that Mr. Agassiz contemplated mak-
ing his next trip to Calumet in an automobile.

His dislike of these machines he retained to the end
of his life ; only a few years before his death he came
into his house in Cambridge, delighted with an occur-
rence he had just seen in Boston. It appeared that on
a corner where people were accustomed to wait for the
electric cars, an automobile, with its owner lolling in
the back seat, had pushed through the crowd and

THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

153

knocked down a woman. Her escort jumped on to the
front seat, and Agassiz said it had given him the great-
est delight to see what a thorough pummeling he gave
the chauffeur.

“ But why,” asked his listener, “ did n’t the owner
come to his chauffeur’s assistance ? ”

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed Agassiz, “ I was holding him.”

Nothing would induce him to get into an automobile
in the East, but after Calumet acquired her subsidiary
companies, the ground to be covered became so great
that he found it convenient to employ one during his
inspections, a fact that found its way only gradually to
his friends in the East. One day, shortly after his first
use of them, the newly appointed manager was driving
him about. As he knew Agassiz’s opinion of automobiles,
the younger man felt extremely nervous ; but as they
were pressed for time he was obliged to run fast ; and
somehow he managed to run over a dog. “Now,”
thought he, “ that settles me.” But to his intense sur-
prise, Agassiz looked back and remarked sharply, “ Why
did n’t that d dog keep out of the way ! ”

In Newport one room of the house was fitted as a
laboratory. In 1877, Agassiz replaced this by a very com-
plete little research laboratory, overhanging the creek on
his place. The vine-covered building suggests the chalets
of his native land. It was about twenty-five by forty-five
feet, to which a wing was afterward added for Agassiz’s
private use. The main structure was fitted for some dozen
advanced students. The north side and east end were
studded with windows. At each of these stood a table for
a microscope, which rested on an independent brick pier ;
thus allowing any one to walk about without jarring the
instruments. On the south side were shelves crowded

154

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

with reference books, cupboards for glassware, and a
large blackboard ; while the other end was occupied by
a huge open fireplace. Down the centre of the room
ran a double row of tiled tables. Clear salt water,
pumped from a windmill on the point, was piped to
each table. To this a system of slightly compressed air
was afterward added. For Agassiz soon found that the
best and most convenient way of keeping specimens
alive was to keep the water aerated, by allowing a small
jet of air to bubble up through the glass jars containing
them. By this method it was only necessary to renew
the water occasionally.

A few students were made welcome here for over
twenty years. These were supposed to be capable of
laying out and pursuing their own course of study.
They were placed in nominal charge of one of the older
men, and Agassiz’s instruction was limited to an occa-
sional remark, or bit of advice. Many biologists, since
famous, have ridden in the omnibus which used to ply
each morning from Newport to the laboratory with a
party of eager young naturalists. In the creek near by
lay a launch, much in request for collecting specimens.
The students often wondered why the boat always
disappeared from her moorings during the latter part
of June, — an absence which the following incident
explains.

While passing through San Francisco, to join one of
his Pacific explorations, Agassiz was given a dinner by
the Harvard Club. When called on to say a few words,
he dwelt on the undue importance given to athletics at
Harvard, and the responsibility of her graduates for such
a misfortune. As he finished, a crack oar of a famous
crew, some twenty years after Agassiz’s day, rose from

THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

155

the other end of the table and asked to add a postscript.
Steam launches, he said, were uncommon in the late
seventies, and Mr. Agassiz was one of the few graduates
who had one, which he used in connection with his
scientific work. This launch was regularly placed at the
disposal of the crew when it went to New London for a
final preparation for the Yale race. Its absence from
Newport must have sadly interfered with the work there,
especially as, when the boat went out to follow the shell,
the figure in the bow of the launch, coaching the crew,
often bore a strange resemblance to the guest of the
evening.

The laboratory was closed to students in 1898, for
Agassiz then found himself forced to devote most of his
time during the summer to the preparation of the re-
ports of his various expeditions, to the publication of the
reports of the specialists who were working on his col-
lections, and his correspondence with them. But press
of work was not the only reason that kept the labora-
tory closed ; the lukewarm interest that the University
authorities showed toward a proposed project of enlarg-
ing it, undoubtedly influenced him. In writing of the
incident some years later, he says : —

“ On unfolding my plans they were received with such
cold water that I then and there abandoned the whole
scheme.

“ I closed the Laboratory at Newport, which I planned
to be a substitute for the Anderson School of Natural
History, with less regret, as since the opening of that
Laboratory the Fish Commission had established itself
at Wood’s Hole, where the Marine Biological Associa-
tion had also built a Laboratory, and many of the larger

156

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Universities had also erected their own Laboratories at
the seashore. There were thus more than sufficient facili-
ties to replace the loss at Newport.

“ This is one of the examples of the indifferent sup-
port I received from the highest officials of Harvard Col-
lege. I know of no University which would not have
met half-way the offers I made.”

Before settling at Newport, Agassiz had again taken
up his studies in the embryology of Echinoderms. Some
experiments in artificial fertilization resulted in his suc-
ceeding in crossing two of the more common species of
starfish found on the northern coast of Massachusetts.
This led him to believe that the well-known difficulty in
distinguishing the species of Asteracanthion might be a
question of hybridism.

At first much of his work at Newport was devoted to
the study of the embryology and early development of
some of the fishes of the New England coast. His in-
vestigations of young flounders have a special general
interest. In its first stages the young of the flounder is
symmetrical and swims about in the manner of other
fish, but at an early age it lies down on its side, and the
lower eye travels over to the upper side, through the
head in some species, and in others by a sort of sliding
around the head. There are right-sided and left-sided
species, and it is curious to note that nature does not
furnish the individual with an unfailing instinct as to
which side it is fitting to lie down on. In one case, out
of fifteen individuals, no less than eight lay down on
the wrong side, and perished of what appeared to be a
sort of brain trouble. He also noticed the extraordinary
power of protective mimicry in these animals. Provided

IN THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

157

with black, yellow, and red pigment cells, which they
expand at will, they are able, in about ten minutes, to
assume the appearance of the bottom on which they
find themselves. From his experiments, Agassiz was in-
clined to believe that these fish have the power to dis-
tinguish certain colors from others. This question of the
development of a sense of color so early in the Verte-
brate series leads him to consider the development of
this sense in man : —

“ It certainly seems,” he writes, “ from a physiological
point of view, very hazardous to infer, as has been fre-
quently done on philological grounds, the gradual devel-
opment of the sense of color in early races of mankind,
from the color descriptions of Homer and early Greek
writers. Certainly, the facility for painting and coloring
noticeable in the pottery of the uncivilized races of the
world seems unfavorable to this theory.”

Wyville Thomson, writing from the Straits of Magel-
lan, had asked Agassiz to come over to Edinburgh in
August, 1876, and help him sort the collections of the
Challenger, and distribute them to the different special-
ists selected to work them up. Agassiz was of course
eager to accept the opportunity of studying such an
unrivalled collection. This visit was delayed, owing to
the illness of his sister, but late in the year, and dur-
ing the first weeks of 1877, he spent two months with
Thomson at Edinburgh. Of this visit Sir John Murray
says : —

“ He would not at that time attend any social func-
tions. Every day from early morning till as long as day-

158

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

light lasted, he assisted me in opening boxes and bottles
and in separating out the various groups of marine organ-
isms, especially selecting the Echini which he was to take
to America, having consented to describe this group of
organisms for the Report on the Scientific Results of
the Expedition. While this work was going on we had
abundant opportunity for discussing the work and re-
sults of the expedition and every aspect of the new
science of the sea. I was relatively young, and often
recounted to him the comic and other incidents of the
voyage, and he would smile and seem amused. His atti-
tude was, however, in striking contrast to the boister-
ous merriment of Haeckel when engaged with me in the
same place and in similar occupations.”

Agassiz’s influence was no small factor in determining
Thomson to distribute the work on the Challenger col-
lections among the best specialists, irrespective of their
nationality. This not unnaturally created a storm at the
British Museum. Agassiz’s own work on the Challenger
Echini was much delayed owing to his expeditions on
the Blake, which will be spoken of later.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY1

Newport, July 1, 1879.

I was extremely sorry to hear of Sir Wyville’s illness
from your letter of June 16th just received. I had not
heard anything about it. I trust most sincerely he will
recover completely with the rest in prospect. He had

1 He was one of the naturalists on the Challenger, and after the death
of Thomson completed the publication of the reports of the expedition.
In March, 1911, at the request of the Corporation of Harvard, he deliv-
ered a memorial address to Agassiz in Sanders Theatre at Cambridge.

THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

159

written me some time ago saying he needed rest and
proposing to come over here and take it. If he still feels
inclined to do so, I am at his disposal here until Sep-
tember 1, and he can be as quiet at Newport where I
am, as if he were fifty miles from any one, and I will
keep everything and everybody away from him. Sep-
tember 1, 1 expect to go to Europe to put my eldest boy
in a German family in Berlin, to remain there some
time. I shall simply take a flyer over and return at
once, and if I don’t see Sir Wyville over here shall hope
to see him, if only for a moment, before I sail back for
United States.

I sent to you a week ago a lot of proofs of plates of
my work on Echini. I have never heard that my first
invoice of plates, 3 boxes (28 plates, 750 copies) reached
you safely.

I am greatly in hopes of finishing my plates of Echini
this year, and to get the text so far advanced as to leave
me but little to do when I return from my winter’s ab-
sence. I hope you will get off to Indian Ocean. You
ought to get some good things there. I feel somewhat
overwhelmed with work and material from the West
Indies and look forward with pleasure to completing
the Challenger Echini. My preliminary report is in
hands of binder, and I ought to send some copies to
Edinburgh next week.

Shortly after his return from Europe, he was able to
send the manuscript of his Challenger Echini to Thom-
son ; this seems to have been a great relief to him ; in-
deed, he appears to have regarded sea-urchins at this
time, much as Darwin did barnacles, for he writes : “ I
felt when I got through that I never wanted to see

160

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

another sea-urchin, and hoped they would gradually be-
come extinct. Let me know of the safe arrival of the
manuscript, for if anything happens to that I shall lose
the little hair I have left.”

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 14, 1880.

I am very glad to hear that all the Challenger plunder
came safely to hand and that I am no longer responsible

for it. I see my friend continues to hammer at the

Echini and to twist things to suit himself. I have had
the only say I mean to indulge in, but it is very evident
he will continue to lie, to put it in a mild form, till
doomsday. I notice also he has launched out in mal-
formations, and evidently thinks I am a d f

for not having made use of the Echini to write a paper
on that. There will be many points I have not touched
which he will gloat over. Let him growl if he likes it.

You will see by last Museum Report that we are
making considerable progress, and if copper holds out I
will, in the course of a few years, have a model Museum
to show you when you come. Dawkins has been lectur-
ing here for some time and has been, I should judge
from what I hear, quite successful and well received.
Remember me to Thomson.

TO SIR WYVILLE THOMSON

Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 25, 1881.

I have your note of January 10. I write to tell you
that the proof you speak of (the Introduction which you
wish me to read over again) has not yet arrived. I have
the other proof to pp. 200, which I am now reading. I

THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

161

shall of course read the Introduction over very gladly
again, as I had already discovered a few changes which
had escaped me. I am ever so much obliged to you for
all your trouble in this matter of proof. The Introduc-
tion I suppose I ought to have spun out at greater
length, but it contains the essence of all I wanted to say,
which makes it pretty hard reading for any one who has
not a very extended knowledge of Echini. I hope before
this [reaches you] the proofs will turn up, with your cor-
rections and changes, and that there will not be any
delay on that score. I shall be compelled to go off during
March for a little while. The Doctor will not let me stay.
I am here against his express orders, but I can’t get off,
as my sister is ill and mother is with her, so I have no
one to leave with my boys, and must grin and bear it.

Although deep in the distribution of his Blake col-
lections, and in the work on the Challenger Echini,
Agassiz was, as usual, active in increasing from all
sources the collections of the Museum.

TO WILLIAM SILLERN

Cambridge, April 9, 1879.

There is no set of chaps so unblushing as naturalists ;
they are always wanting something that the other party
don’t care a straw about. Nevertheless I am going to
ask you to put yourself out for me and get me one of
the large Cuttle Fish which used to be so common in
San Francisco market when I was there. The room in
the Museum devoted to that beast and its nearest allies
is nearly ready, and I am greatly in want of a large
Cuttle Fish to scare small boys and frighten women. I
don’t want him too big, say not more than five feet

162

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

when fully expanded. The Chinamen used to get them
very often, of all sizes, in their nets and then cut them
up and sell them to unsuspecting Frenchmen who mis-
took the species for frogs’ legs. Now if Ralston has left
any Chinamen in San Francisco, can you speak to a
promising specimen of Mongolian and ask him to cling
to a good specimen, if the species does not freeze to
him. Then by a judicious cutting open of his lower side,
so as to let alcohol into his insides, put him into a keg
of alcohol and ship him, via Panama, to your humble
servant, who will receive him with open arms.

Should you be in want of any beast from this side,
call on me. I hope one of these days to get over to San
Francisco and renew my pleasant associations of old
days.

In August, 1880, Agassiz delivered an address before
the American Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence, using his knowledge of the Echini to show the
extreme difficulty, if not impossibility, of ever obtaining
a complete record of the development of even a single
group. In acknowledging the receipt of a reprint,
Darwin writes : —

“ I read your address with much interest. However
true your remarks on the genealogies of the several
groups may be, I hope and believe that you have over-
estimated the difficulties to be encountered in the future.
A few days after reading your address I interpreted to
myself your remarks on one point (I hope in some
degree correctly) in the following fashion : —

“ 6 Any character of an ancient generation or inter-
mediate form may, and often does reappear in its de-

THE NEWPORT LABORATORY

163

scendants after countless generations, and this explains
the extraordinary complicated affinities of existing
groups/

“ This idea seems to me to throw a flood of light on
the lines, sometimes used to represent affinities, which
radiate in all directions often to very distant sub-groups
— a difficulty which has haunted me for half a century.
A strong case could be made out in favor of believing
in such reversion or atavism after immense intervals of
time. I wish the idea had been put into my head in old
days, for I shall never again write on difficult subjects.”

Agassiz’s attitude about this time toward evolution is
perhaps best shown in the following extracts from a
letter to his uncle Alex Braun : —

“ I must frankly acknowledge that my leaning is to-
wards evolution with general sense, but as to swallow-
ing all that the Darwinists and extreme Haeckelists wish
us to take down, I have not the least idea of doing
that. I don’t know that my position is of any particular
value, but I am claimed equally by the extreme evolution-
ist and the most ardent Cuvierian, so that I must have
expressed myself much like the Delphian oracles to suic
all parties so well.”

And again in speaking of Karl von Baer : —

“ The account he gives and the estimate he makes of
his own work is capital, and I hope the whole article
will have a wide circulation. It will do much to kill the
present mania for extremes, and will I hope lead the
younger men who are indulging in such high flights to

164

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

put their noses down to the grindstone again and do a
little hard work before they finish unravelling the mys-
tery of creation. It is hard work I know to fight against
the crowd, and the mania which seems to have seized
all the younger workers makes me often doubt the wis-
dom of saying anything, it all falls so flat ; still I know
our time will come, and those who have kept cool, and
continued to work quietly during this time of transi-
tion, will find themselves some day just so much ahead
of their metaphysical opponents, and for that time I am
quietly waiting.”

CHAPTER VIII

1877-1880

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

Agassiz’s interest in oceanographic exploration, which
in its broadest aspects was to form the chief interest of
his later life, dates from a short voyage, soon after his
arrival in the United States, made with his father in a
little coast survey vessel. This came near being his last
as well as his first probing of the ocean, for after fall-
ing down a hatchway he was laid out apparently dead
on the sofa in the saloon.

Two Italians, Marsili and Donati, appear to have
been the first men to employ a dredge for collecting
scientific specimens. About 1750, they used a common
oyster dredge in shallow water. In 1779, 0. F. Muller,
the Danish naturalist, invented a special dredge for
scientific work with which he studied the bottom of the
sea to a depth of thirty fathoms. Among the pioneers
in oceanography may be mentioned Forbes, Torell, the
elder and younger Sars, Alphonse Milne Edwards, and
in America, Pourtales.

As a result of deep-sea work in the iEgean in 1841,
the brilliant naturalist, Edward Forbes, had propounded
the theory that animal life at the bottom of the sea was
limited to a depth of three hundred fathoms. This was
the generally accepted belief up to the late sixties,
though a few naturalists, mindful of certain half-for-
gotten facts, attempted in vain to question the authority

166

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of the English savant. As early as 1818, for example,
Sir John Ross, who was the first person to make satis-
factory soundings at considerable depths, had in Baffin’s
Bay brought up samples of the bottom containing
worms from a depth of ten hundred and fifty fathoms,
and had found starfish entangled in his line from a
depth of eight hundred fathoms. In 1860, the Bulldog
had found starfish on its sounding-lines at a depth of
twelve hundred and sixty fathoms ; and in 1860 and
1861, in repairing old telegraph cables, living animals
were found growing on them at a depth of twelve
hundred and sixty fathoms and two thousand fathoms,
respectively.

Furthermore, while naturalists were discussing the
absence of animal life on the floor of the ocean below
three hundred fathoms, deep-sea sharks were continu-
ally taken at a depth of five hundred fathoms by Portu-
guese fishermen, and the fact that, on both sides of the
Atlantic, fish, which could only subsist on animal life,
were caught in deep water, seemed to produce no im-
pression on most scientific men, while the extensive col-
lections of Torell, from depths of over one thousand
fathoms, appear to have been completely lost sight of.

In 1867-69 the expeditions of the Corwin and the
Bibb under Pourtales who had followed to America in
the wake of the elder Agassiz, disclosed off the Florida
coast an abundance of life on the bed of the ocean
down to nearly eight hundred fathoms, thus clearly
showing that the range of animal life was at all events
much deeper than the supporters of Forbes had sup-
posed.

The work of Pourtales was followed by a series of
English expeditions in the Lightning, Porcupine, Yal-

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

167

orous, and Shearwater, in joint charge of Thomson,
Carpenter, and Jeffreys, and culminated in the famous
voyage of the Challenger around the world, with wdiich
the name of Sir Wyville Thomson will always be asso-
ciated.

At this point, when the study of oceanography was
still in its infancy, Agassiz took up his active field work
in the science. It is natural that he should have been
eager to undertake such explorations. For we have
seen, in the preceding chapters, with what interest he
followed the explorations of Pourtales and Thomson,
assisting in the distribution of their collections, and
working up the Echini himself.

His native abilities and his training combined to make
him an ideal leader of oceanographic expeditions.
Rarely do we find the savant and the man of action com-
bined. Besides his wide knowledge of marine zoology,
he possessed a natural aptitude, educated in the devel-
opment of a great mining industry, for managing enter-
prises and men ; while his training as an engineer was
invaluable in equipping, handling, and improving the
apparatus used on a vessel engaged in the study of the
deep sea.

Agassiz shared with several other noted men, who
made a business of going down to the sea in ships, the
misfortune of being easily seasick. Any one afflicted
with the malady can easily imagine what fortitude and
enthusiasm it must have required to crawl on deck from
a bunk of despondency and pain and lose one’s self in
the eager examination of the treasures which the dredge
had just brought to the surface.

Amidst all the detail that inevitably envelops a scien-
tific voyage, he never lost sight of the broader aspects

168

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of his work. The goal for which he was constantly headed
is revealed in his own words : —

“ The field of work opened to naturalists by thalasso-
graphic 1 surveys is of the greatest importance. The
materials collected throw a flood of light on our know-
ledge of the conditions of animal life in deep water, and
promise the most important general conclusions on ter-
restrial physics and on geology. Fascinating as has al-
ways been the study of marine life, this interest has
greatly increased since we have found the means of
reaching the abyssal fauna. Light has suddenly been
shed on many vexed problems concerning the geograph-
ical distribution of animals and plants and their suc-
cession in time from former geological periods to the
present day. New notions of geological horizons and
periods loom up before us, and the problems concern-
ing the formation of continents and oceanic basins now
present themselves from a very different standpoint.
Our ideas regarding the formation of many marine de-
posits have been greatly modified, and we are now
able to look back into the past history of the world
with more confidence than heretofore.”

As an example of the broad results of such work, it
may be mentioned, for instance, that oceanographers
have discovered that the ocean depths are covered with
certain deposits ; such as the abyssal red clays, formed
from the decomposition of matter thrown out by vol-

1 Agassiz coined and always used the word “ thalassography ” to de-
note the study of the ocean. But it never came into general use, partly,
perhaps, because of a mistaken impression that 6d\a<rcra referred only to
the Mediterranean, and partly because, for once, scientific men seem to
have preferred the simpler word “ oceanography.”

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

169

canoes, which has fallen on the surface of the oceans
and sunk ; and the pteropod and the Globigerina oozes,
composed of the accumulation of the shells of small
animals living near the surface which have died and
fallen to the bottom. Geologists have been unable to
point to any rocks anywhere on the earth’s surface that
could have been formed from such deposits. Hence we
seem led to the inevitable conclusion that the beds of
the oceans have been such for a considerable period of
geological time. So that geologists who have kept in
touch with the advances of oceanography are inclined
to be conservative in their estimates of the amount of
disturbance in the earth’s crust under the sea in recent
geological times.

In 1877, Agassiz eagerly accepted an invitation from
Carlile P. Patterson, superintendent of the United
States Coast Survey, to take charge of a series of dredg-
ing cruises in the steamer Blake. She was a small
schooner-rigged vessel of 350 tons, 140 feet on the
water-line, with a beam of 2 6| feet and a draught of 11
feet ; commanded by Lieutenant-Commander (now Re-
tired Rear-Admiral) C. D. Sigsbee, afterward captain
of the ill-fated Maine.

In equipping the Blake, Agassiz found his experience
as a mining engineer of the greatest assistance in mak-
ing many improvements in the apparatus used by his
predecessors. In this he was ably assisted by the ingen-
uity and mechanical skill of Captain Sigsbee. The most
important improvement Agassiz introduced was the sub-
stitution of wire rope for dredging in place of the hemp
rope used in all previous deep-sea expeditions. He also
changed the arrangement of the drums and other appa-
ratus used in hoisting*.

O

170

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

The chief appliances used by the oceanographer in
collecting specimens are the dredge, the trawl, the tan-
gles, and the tow net. Up to that time the dredge used
by the Danish naturalist 0. F. Muller, in the eighteenth
century, a modification of the old oyster dredge, had
undergone but slight modifications. The naturalist’s

Dredge

dredge consists of a framework of what would be the
edges of a broad shallow box. To one end of the frame,
which is considerably heavier, a bag of netting is at-
tached and a heavy canvas is stretched over the frame,
leaving the towing end of the dredge open, to which
the mouth of the bag is attached. Dredges as then made
had beveled edges at the open ends of the frame. Such
dredges, when drawn over muddy bottoms, brought up a
great amount of mud. To obviate this defect, Agassiz
bound stout rope about the forward framework so that
the lips should not cut into the mud, and subse-
quently his dredges were made with flat frames, which
completely obviated the defects in the old-fashioned
models.

The trawl is by far the most useful instrument in
deeper water, where the bottom generally consists of
ooze or fine mud. Before Agassiz’s day, the form used
in deep water was the ordinary beam trawl of fisher-
men. This consists of a beam on runners, to which is
fastened a long V-shaped net. In shallow water this
trawl can be so weighted as to fall on the runners, but

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

171

in deeper water it was impossible to prevent its falling
on the wrong side, causing much delay and vexation.
Agassiz devised a modification of this trawl that worked
equally well on whichever side it
fell. In order to bring up less mud
the length of the net was reduced
to fifteen feet and the meshes of
the outer net made coarse, while
only a small part of the bag was
fine enough to allow the mud to
accumulate.

In writing of the equipment of
the Blake, Agassiz says in 1907 :

“We built what is known as the
Blake trawl; all subsequent French,

German, Italian, and Danish expe-
ditions have adopted it, as well as
the wire dredging rope and the
arrangement of the drums, first in
use by the Blake.”

Tangles consist of a number of
rope tails fastened to an iron bar,
which is attached to the end of the
dredge frame. This, under certain
conditions, is a most effective ap-
paratus for collecting, and often brings up a great
quantity of specimens tangled in its swabs. The tow net
is something like a huge butterfly net, which may be
towed at any given depth to collect specimens suspended
in the water.

Not the least important piece of apparatus is the
sounding machine. It would seem at first glance to be
a very simple process to find out the depth of the ocean.

Blake Trawl

172

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Sounding in a few fathoms with a common lead line is
an easy matter; and even down to one hundred fathoms
fairly accurate results may be obtained with a hand lead
line. Below this, the matter is quite a different question,
and when it comes to sounding in depths of several
miles the problem is exceedingly difficult.1 Even at com-
paratively moderate depths the weight of the rope is so
great in relation to the sinker that it becomes impossible
to determine when the bottom is reached. Professor
John M. Brooke, when a passed-midshipman, devised
the first considerable improvement on these antiquated
methods. He contrived an apparatus consisting of a
cannon ball on a very light line, so constructed that
on striking the bottom the weight was disconnected and
the line drawn up with only the collecting cup, contain-
ing a sample of the bottom. Lord Kelvin, in 1872, in-
vented a sounding machine in which he used a piano-
wire line. An improvement on Lord Kelvin’s sounding
machine, devised by Captain Sigsbee, had already been
in use on the Blake for three years.

Agassiz joined the Blake at Havana on December 17,
1877, where he found his assistant, Mr. Garman, who
had come down on the boat from New York. A glance
at Chart l,2 in the pocket in the front cover, will show
the lines run on this cruise. It embraced the region to
the north and west of the western end of Cuba, the Yu-
catan Bank, and the districts about Key West and the

1 The deepest known spot in the ocean, near the Island of Guam, is
5269 fathoms — sixty-six feet less than six miles. If Mount Everest were
sunk in this spot its summit would be over two thousand feet under
water.

2 The tracks of the voyages of the Blake are taken from a chart in
Three Cruises of the Blake , and include some lines of soundings made
when Agassiz was not on board.

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

173

Tortugas. The expedition terminated in a trip from
Tortugas to the mouth of the Mississippi, Agassiz and
Mr. Garman leaving the ship at New Orleans about the
middle of March, 1878.

In writing from shipboard to Lord Kelvin concerning
the working of the new apparatus, Agassiz says : —

“ I know you will be interested to hear of the results
of the working of the wire for sounding and of the steel
rope for dredging. . . . Captain Sigsbee’s machine, a
modification of yours, worked to a charm; and the time
occupied in taking a deep sounding is so small that I
hope to see the day when all large passenger steamers
will have a wire sounding machine, and we shall hear
nothing more of running ashore because no observations
could be had a few days before reaching the coast. But
of course our deep-sea hydrography must all be done
over with wire, for with the rope soundings no accuracy
can be obtained ; of this we have had several examples
during the present cruise while crossing old lines of
soundings run in the antiquated method. I could not
help contrasting our soundings — losing a fifty-pound
shot by the detacher and bringing up samples of the bot-
tom in so short a time as sometimes twenty seconds for
a hundred fathoms ! with those of Challenger expending
three to four hundred pounds at each cast, and occupy-
ing at least six to eight times the length of time in
bringing up their cup and thermometers. We could al-
ways detect instantly the moment the shot struck the
ground, which is more, as you well know, than can be
done by the rope and weights in deep water. . . .

“ The steel rope we used in dredging has also proved
a great success ; in fact I do not see how with a small

174

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

vessel like the Blake (350 tons), I could have under-
taken deep-sea work continuously, and been able to
stow away the length of 2| and 3 inch rope needed for
my work. In place of having decks entirely choked with
rope, we had only two reels of steel rope 1| inches in
circumference, each of 3000 fathoms, the whole space
occupied being less than 5x5x4 feet for cast reel;
the reels themselves were used by means of friction
brake to lower the dredge and trawls with, and we
hoisted up by an intermediate donkey engine. Now in
dredging, we gained immensely again in time, the speed
of lowering the dredge and trawls and bringing them
up again being fully as great as that attained in hoist-
ing from stopes in mines. In fact it was my experience
with mining and use of steel ropes which first suggested
to me the idea of using it for dredging. We have thus
far made no less than over 50 casts of dredge and trawl
from 300 fathoms to 1920 fathoms, and have expe-
rienced no trouble of any kind and thus far have lost
only 200 fathoms1 of steel rope ! although we have lost
plenty of dredges and trawls. The strength of this steel
rope was 8600 pounds breaking strain. The greater
weight gave us the great advantage of not being obliged
to send weights down to act as fulcrums2 — a great sav-
ing of time. Now in Challenger in deep water the best
part of a day was usually occupied in making one haul
in over 1500 fathoms.

1 This was done at the first cast, and was the only rope lost on this
cruise. The amount of rope lost on the other cruises was trifling, and at
the end of three years most of the rope was still perfectly serviceable.
On the cruise of the Challenger over fifty-eight miles of hemp rope was
lost or worn out.

2 With hemp rope, in order to sink the dredge, not only did it have to
be weighted, but it was also necessary to attach heavy weights on the rope
some distance ahead of the dredge.

TIIE DECK OF THE BLAKE

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

175

“ With steel rope, one haul in 804 fathoms, the dredge
being down at bottom 25 minutes, occupied exactly 1
hour 23 minutes from time it left the ship’s side till it
was on deck again. This speed does not appear to have
injured contents of dredge in any way, specimens com-
ing up in excellent condition. Of course what we have
gained by this method of dredging will be apparent at
once.

“ I thought that these results would be interesting to
you and I think we shall see the day when steel rope
will be exclusively used in all this sort of work. Expe-
rienced little trouble from kinking by keeping line well
stretched and not allowing any slack to fall on ground.”

The cruise was marred by a most annoying accident,
of which he writes to Sir Wyville Thomson : —

“ You may have seen from the papers that we ran
aground at Bahia Honda (Cuba), in charge of a Spanish
pilot, and my private opinion is that it was a put up job,
for ever since we have had anything to do with the
noble Dagos, as we call them, it has been one series of
obstacles and red tape, but you know the cubs and my
writing on the subject only drives me mad. I had, how-
ever, the satisfaction at Havana, on leaving, to express
my mind freely to the Spanish Admiral in command,
and to thank him in my best Spanish for his duplicity
towards us ever since we landed on his infernal island.
I have of course known people to lie, but to go out of
your way, as these people have done, in order to keep
us aground, was more than I could stand. It was only
after seeing that we got no help from Havana, in spite of
telegraphic promises, that I went overland to Havana —

176

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

and what a ride ! I had to go up to waist in mud, and
almost forcibly secured what we wanted from the Navy
Yard and Arsenal, hired a tug, and in two days we got
our vessel off ; not badly damaged, but still we have lost
three weeks.”

During this cruise he found that the fauna of the
Yucatan Bank was identical with that of the Florida
Bank, which was already well known from the shallow
water on the Florida side. Along the Cuban coast, the
dredge brought up quantities of silicious sponges, and
many of the corals collected by Pourtales to the south
of the Florida reefs. Though Agassiz got many stems
of Pentacrinus and portions of the arms, he was not for-
tunate enough to obtain a single entire specimen of that
famous sea lily, of which there were probably not more
than a couple of dozen specimens in collections at the
time. He discovered, as the Challenger had, an abund-
ance of life on deep bottoms that were covered with Glo-
bigerina ooze. He also found that most of his deep-water
species were closely allied to those brought up from great
depths by that vessel. Often when examining the con-
tents of the trawl he would recognize old Challenger
friends, including many of the curious deep-sea fishes, —
forms he had become acquainted with while examining
the Challenger collections with Sir Wyville Thomson
the previous winter. One especially interesting species
resembled a huge tadpole with a gigantic cartilaginous
round head without eyes. Among the others were a
couple of species with elongated flattened heads, diminu-
tive eyes, and gigantic filaments fully as long as the
body, which probably have the function of organs of
touch.

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

177

On the line from Tortugas to the Yucatan Bank, he
first obtained magnificent specimens of a bright scarlet
Gnathophausia, together with some gorgeously colored
eyeless Macrurans. Here he also secured several species
of remarkable deep-sea Holothurians, similar to those
obtained by the Challenger off the coast of Portugal ;
these species appear like large masses of jelly bril-
liantly striped with deep crimson bands, with the mouth,
which forms a kind of foot, placed on the lower side.

On one occasion, during a short calm, he had an ex-
cellent opportunity of seeing a number of Globigerinae
and Orbiculinse alive. They were swarming near the
surface, the nucleus of a brilliant vermilion, in com-
pany with a host of Diphyes, pteropods, heteropods,
masses of gulfweed, and the accompanying countless
larvae of Crustacea, mollusks, and fishes which inhabit
this wreed.

On the last series of lines from Tortugas to the Miss-
issippi, Agassiz found that the deep-water fauna on
the western slope of the Florida Bank corresponds with
that of the eastern slope of the Bank of Yucatan, and
that this deep-water fauna extends over the bottom of
the Gulf of Mexico as far as the Mississippi slope, where,
owing to the presence of dark, rich mud, the fauna
materially changes its character. Here they obtained an
interesting collection of fishes, worms, mollusks, ophi-
urans, and sea-urchins.

When Agassiz left the Blake at New Orleans he felt
it must have been a great relief to the officers, more
particularly to the executive officer, Lieutenant Ackley,
to be able to get the Blake into an orderly condition
again. For during the whole period that Agassiz spent
on board, no routine was allowed to interfere with his

178

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

work, and dredging is not a cleanly process ; the quan-
tities of material brought up from the bottom often
made the bow of the Blake look like a mud scow.

Leaving New Orleans, the Blake returned to Key
West to continue her regular work of sounding. But
before sending ashore the dredging apparatus, Captain
Sigsbee ran over to Havana in the hope of supplement-
ing the exceedingly rich collections with a few speci-
mens of Pentacrinus from one of the localities where
they had found innumerable fragments of stems. In
this he was most successful, for at a point on the coast,
about one and a half miles to the eastward of Morro,
he succeeded in bringing up no fewer than twenty per-
fect specimens.

In the fall the Blake was again placed at Agassiz’s
disposal. He joined the ship at Washington on Novem-
ber 27, 1878, once more taking Mr. Garman as his
assistant. On this voyage the vessel was in command
of Commander J. R. Bartlett, U.S.N., though there
were still on board a majority of the officers who had
been so efficient in the work of the previous season.
Proceeding directly to Havana, they made two casts of
the dredge on the Pentacrinus ground discovered by
Captain Sigsbee, and brought up a few specimens.
They then kept along the north shore of Cuba, through
the Old Bahama Channel, without stopping to sound or
dredge, as this was an old line of Pourtales years ago
in the Bibb. Some hauls were made off Jamaica, whence
they were obliged to keep on to the eastward without
stopping till off Porto Rico, for the trade winds kick up
a considerable sea at this time of year, which endangers
the apparatus if used in exposed regions from such a
small boat, and makes getting to windward an uncom-

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

179

fortable process. The winter was spent in dredging and
sounding among the Windward Islands/ chiefly on the
lee or Caribbean side, although some work was done
to windward of Barbados.

A guest on a much later expedition has reason to
believe that the soundings then made on the Blake
form the basis of the charts of this region. Hereabout
lies the island of Saba, an abrupt volcano rising directly
from the sea, whose chief industry is boat-building.
Although there is neither a harbor nor any timber on
the island, the inhabitants, living mostly within the
crater, construct their craft inside its walls, and labori-
ously drag them to the ocean.

When in 1907, Agassiz was visiting these old haunts
in the yacht Virginia, some of the party were anxious
to see this curious island. As it was not convenient to
land there, the yacht was steered so close along the
shore, for a better view of the mountain, that presently
there was a note of protest.

“It strikes me/’ exclaimed an expostulating voice,
“ that this is a very risky business ! How do you know,
father, that the chart is to be depended on ? ”

“ Oh ! I fancy,” said Agassiz quietly, “ that the
soundings are all right ; I made them.”

While to leeward of the Caribbean Islands the Blake’s
dredge brought up large quantities of vegetable matter
and land debris from deep water many miles from shore.
It was not an uncommon thing to find at a depth of
over a thousand fathoms, masses of leaves, pieces of
bamboo, of sugar cane, dead land shells, and other land
refuse, all of which had undoubtedly sunk after being

1 Much work, which does not appear on the chart, was done among
the islands, often at very considerable distances from the track shown.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

blown out to sea by the prevailing easterly trade winds.
The ship frequently encountered masses of vegetation
more or less waterlogged and ready to sink. Agassiz
imagines how such a deposit might puzzle some future
palaeontologist who should discover the fossil remains
of Crustacea, Annelids, fishes, Echinoderms, sponges,
etc., mixed with mango and orange leaves, branches of
bamboo, nutmegs, and land shells. He would naturally
explain such a condition as representing a shallow estu-
ary surrounded by forests, and yet the deposit might
have been made in fifteen hundred fathoms.

While examining the contents of a trawl under a
scorching sun, the well-known fact was brought home
to Agassiz that the water of the ocean grows colder as
one descends, till at great depths, even in the tropics, it
approaches the freezing point. For the bottom ooze is
intensely cold, and it was a strange sensation, when as-
sorting the catch, while his back was broiling to have
his hands nearly frozen from handling the stiff, cold
mud.

One hot muggy day it occurred to the thirsty voy-
agers on the Blake that the cold silent deep might make
an excellent refrigerator. Proceeding to apply the re-
sults of pure science to practical purposes, they care-
fully fastened a bottle of champagne to the rope close
to the trawl, and sent it down to a depth of twenty-four
hundred fathoms. But alas, the result was only encour-
aging to the friends of total abstinence. It came back
cold, it is true, but filled with muddy salt water, which
had been forced through the foil and cork, and had re-
placed the more palatable contents of the bottle.

Of the results of this season’s dredging, Agassiz says
in a letter to Mr. Patterson : —

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

181

“ During this season we occupied no less than 200
stations, and made over 230 hauls from the 100-fathom
line to the depth of 2412 fathoms. A few hauls were
occasionally made in shallow water, but they formed no
part of our regular scheme.

“ We rarely got from deep water, say between 1500
and 2400 fathoms, the rich hauls so invariably made in
the Gulf from depths of between 1200 and 2000 fathoms.
But we found, what was much more important for our
success, that the range of the greater number of the
deep-sea species extended within very easy dredging
limits, and we soon discovered that by dredging mainly
between 300 and 1000 fathoms we obtained, not only
nearly all the species extending to the 2000-fathom line,
but obtained them in considerable numbers. This enabled
us, of course, to collect a large amount of material, and
the collection of this year’s cruise, combined with those
of the previous year, added to the older collections made
by Count Pourtales on the Bibb, and to those of the
Hassler, make our deep-sea collections but little inferior
to those of the Challenger.

“The collection of Ophiurans is perhaps the largest
ever made. In some places the bottom must have been
paved with them, just as the shallows are sometimes
paved with Starfishes and Echini, and many species
hitherto considered as extremely rare are found to be
really abundant.”

TO SIR WYVILLE THOMSON

Barbados, March 11, 1879.

Here I am at the end of my work for this season and
a very good season it has been. I am surprised to see
how many of the Challenger things I have brought up,

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

and I think that I now have the bulk of the groups which
you brought home and we shall find that in this region
at least the deep-sea things come into quite shallow
water, say 300 to 400 fathoms. But of course this will
all come out when collections are worked up. Although
we got a very much larger number of specimens than last
year, the bottom here is not so uniformly rich as in the
Gulf of Mexico, where we never made a cast without
bringing up a regular museum. Here we often trawled
for days, getting little, but when we struck a good spot
it produced wonderfully.

I have quite a number of stems of Rhizocrinus Raw-
soni, but only got ten heads complete. As for the other
Pentacrinus, I have now enough to feel satisfied that
there are two species and I shall be able to send you
both. What do you think of bringing up in one haul
12J/ of them! I thought I should jump overboard when
the tangles came up loaded with them. This brings
me to ask you if you want any more for dissection ?
Ludwig, who wrote the paper on Rhizocrinus, wanted
also Pentacrinus just before I left, but as you had them
in hand I did not wish to send him any specimens for
work till I knew what you were about. Or why don’t
you ask him to do a lot of this nice microscopic work
to help you in your Memoir, so as not to duplicate the
papers. Let me know your ideas. I am sorry to say I
got no Holopus, though I dredged for two days in all
places where I thought they might occur and brought
up tons of rocks and broken stones and corals but no
Holopus, and none anywhere in Barbados. I leave to-
morrow for St. Thomas and hope to be in New York
the 26th or 27th of this month, and I shall tackle the
Challenger Echini at once and not stop I hope till they

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

183

are back in 1 Park Place. I shall commence shipping
you the Plates on my arrival.

TO A. MILNE EDWARDS

Cambridge, April 9, 1879.

I was delighted to find here your letter of February 5
and the plates of the great Isopod, and the book of
Crustacea of Mexico, for which I thank you.

I have again this winter made a superb collection and
the Crustacea are well represented. I have again found
two specimens of the great Isopod and a gigantic Pycno-
gonida measuring two feet ! I begin to unpack next
week and I think that about the end of June I shall be
able to send you the collections. I have also a magnifi-
cent blind Phoberus as big as a lobster ! and a very inter-
esting collection of hermit crabs that occupy fragments
of bamboo and other pieces of wood transported to great
depths by the trade winds. The collection of Ophiurans
is astonishing. The Sponges, Mollusks, Fishes, with the
Annelids, Echinoderms and Actiniae now make a collec-
tion but little inferior to that of the Challenger. What
do you say to 300 Pentacrinii ! two kinds.

I almost forgot to thank you for telling me that I
had received from the Academy the Prix “ Serres.” I feel
very much flattered that the Academy have noticed my
studies and should have considered them worthy of
recognition, which is the more precious to me in that
it comes from Paris, whence my father in his day also
received the first testimonies of appreciation from his
scientific colleagues.

In the summer of 1880 the Blake, with Commander
Bartlett again in charge, was for the third time assigned

184

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

to Agassiz. The object of this expedition was to run a
series of lines of dredgings from the northeastern edge
of George’s Shoal to the vicinity of Charleston. In this
way a portion of the Atlantic was explored that had
been left untouched by the Challenger, and an extension
was made into deep water of the ground already occu-
pied in part by the United States Fish Commission.

On the lines off Charleston and in the Gulf Stream
Agassiz was much disappointed in the poverty of the
fauna ; this was probably owing partly to the very grad-
ual slope of the continent toward deep water, and partly
to the fact that the strong current of the Gulf Stream
sweeps everything off the bottom along its course ; so
that there is little food for the deep-water animals, and
it was only along the edges of the Gulf Stream, where
mud and silt accumulated, that he made satisfactory
hauls on the southern lines. It was not until he reached
the steep slope of the Gulf Stream plateau south of Cape
Hatteras, where the bottom is fine mud and Globigerina
ooze, that he made a rich harvest again. The richness
of the northern hauls, however, amply compensated for
those further south, and the expedition was as successful
as its predecessors.

Captain Sigsbee accompanied this cruise to superintend
the working of an extremely ingenious invention of his,
known as the Sigsbee Gravitating Trap.1 Agassiz and
he had often talked together about the best method of
determining the depth to which animal life extended
below the surface of the ocean. On the first cruise of
the Blake they had endeavored, unsuccessfully, to de-
vise a self-closing net. Before the departure of the last
cruise Sigsbee contrived an instrument by means of which
1 Described in Three Cruises of the Blake , p. 36, vol. I.

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

185

it was possible to strain a column of water of any height
desired, at any given depth. A considerable number of
experiments with this apparatus resulted in their being
unable to find any life below one hundred fathoms.
These investigations led Agassiz to believe that between
the fauna living at or comparatively near the surface,
and the animals living close to or on the bottom, there
was a vast belt of water where practically no life existed.

This theory Agassiz maintained to the end of his life,
in opposition to many naturalists, although from his
later investigations in other parts of the world he came
to the conclusion that the upper zone of life was con-
siderably thicker than he had at first supposed. This
question will be referred to again at greater length in a
subsequent chapter.

By an arrangement with Sir Wyville Thomson, the
collections of the first two cruises of the Blake were sent
to the same specialists who had undertaken the study
of the material gathered by the Challenger. But much
of the plunder dredged on the third cruise was given to
the naturalists who were working on the collections
gathered along the Atlantic seaboard by the Fish Com-
mission.

During these voyages Agassiz was able to add ma-
terially to our knowledge of the warm current, which
forces its way between the Straits of Florida and, separ-
ated from the coast of America by a cold arctic stream,
flows in a northeasterly direction and bathes the coasts
of northwestern Europe. Benjamin Franklin appears to
have, made the first real study of the Gulf Stream, of
which he published a chart for the aid of navigators,
based on information obtained from Nantucket whale-
men. Humboldt and Arago are among those who have

186

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

been interested in the study of this chief cause of the
great difference in the climate of the eastern United
States and western Europe.

From such soundings as were already known, his
own and those subsequently made by Captain Bartlett,
Agassiz concluded that at one time the Caribbean was
most probably virtually an arm of the Pacific, or at all
events was more closely connected with it than with the
Atlantic. This furnishes a ready explanation of the
fact that the fauna and flora of the West Indies bear a
closer relation to Central and South America than to the
southern part of the United States. This view also ex-
plains the close similarity of the littoral fauna on both
sides of the Isthmus of Panama. The theory was further
strengthened by Agassiz’s discovery, on subsequent ex-
peditions, that the deep-sea forms on each side of the
Isthmus bore a closer relation to each other than did
those of the Caribbean Sea to the deep-sea fauna of the
Atlantic.

These expeditions also threw much light on the geo-
graphical distribution of marine fauna, and the question
of the survival of archaic types in the depths of the
ocean. Writing of these matters Agassiz says : —

“ The depths of the seas seem at first glance the
safest of all retreats, — the secret abysses where the
survivors of former geological periods would be sure to
be found. Yet oceanic dredgings have not brought to
light as many of the ancient types as the more enthus-
iastic dredgers had led us to expect. They have, how-
ever, given us a large number of animals living in deep
water, where they have been subjected to no violent
changes, to which no revolutions of the surface of the

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

187

earth can extend, and where the only changes are prob-
ably those of temperature, — animals living now in the
depths of the sea, under much the same conditions as
those which prevailed during the last days of the Juras-
sic period.

“ The conclusion drawn from these facts by Loven,
Moseley, Perrier, and others is that the abyssal fauna
has descended from the littoral and other shallow re-
gions, to be acclimatized at great depths. The conditions
of existence becoming more and more constant, or even
in the deeper regions perfectly uniform, species of the
most varied derivations, when they had once attained a
certain zone, could spread everywhere. This explains at
once how the deep-water fauna presents a very uniform
composition in all regions of the globe, but at the same
time includes various species the analogues of which live
in the sub-littoral regions of both cold and hot climates,
and may have sent an occasional wanderer into deeper
waters.

u While the little dredging thus far done in deep
water has added to our knowledge a large number of
antique types which strongly remind us of Tertiary,
Cretaceous, and even of Jurassic forms, we should not
forget that such antique types occur everywhere, — in
limited numbers, it is true, — both in the shallower
regions of the sea and in fresh water. We can only
say that in the deep-water fauna a relatively larger
number of such antique forms has been found than else-
where.”

The final reports of the collections gathered in these
voyages were published by the specialists to whom they
were allotted, and appeared from time to time in the

188

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

publications of the Museum. At Agassiz’s death, how-
ever, one or twro of them were still unfinished.

In 1888 he published a semi-popular account of these
expeditions, under the title of “ Three Cruises of the
Blake.” With the exception of the narratives of the
Challenger Expedition, this was the first publication of
the kind. It would be hard to point to anything to-day
that gives a better general idea of oceanography. The
first volume deals with the general aspects of the sub-
ject and the work of the Blake. The second volume is
devoted mainly to a description of the various groups
collected.

The following paragraphs describing the probable
appearance of the depths of the ocean are taken from
the first volume.

“The monotony, dreariness, and desolation of the
deeper parts of this submarine scenery can scarcely be
realized. The most barren terrestrial districts must seem
diversified when compared with the vast expanse of ooze
which covers the deeper parts of the ocean, — a mono-
tony only relieved by the fall of the dead carcasses of
pelagic animals and plants, which slowly find their way
from the surface to the bottom, and supply the prin-
cipal food for the scanty fauna found living there.

“ Nearer to the continental masses we find the slopes
inhabited by a more abundant and more varied fauna,
increasing in variety and numbers according to the
amount of food available. But no matter how varied or
how abundant life may be, the general aspect of the
slopes must be dreary in the extreme, and can only be
compared in character to those higher mountain regions
where we find occasional fields of wild-flowers and low

THREE CRUISES OF THE BLAKE

189

shrubs, or to those zones lying beyond the limits of for-
ests, where vegetation is scanty and poor, and forms but
a slight covering to the earth’s surface.

“ It is true that along the continental slopes, where
there is an ample supply of food, we find animal life
in great abundance, and there are undoubtedly long
stretches of bottom carpeted by the most brilliantly col-
ored animals, packed quite as closely as they are on
banks in shallower waters, or near low-water mark. But
the scene is much less varied than on land ; the absence
of plants in deep water makes great diversity of scenery
impossible. The place of luxuriant forests with the
accompanying underbrush and their inhabitants is only
indifferently supplied by large anthozoa and huge cuttle-
fishes, or nearer in shore, within moderate depths, by
sea-weed and the pelagic forests of giant kelp.

“It requires but little imagination to notice the con-
trasts, as we pass from the shallow littoral regions of the
sea, — full of sunlight and movement, and teeming with
animal and vegetable life, — into the dimly lighted, but
richly populated continental zone ; and further to imag-
ine the gradual decrease of the continental fauna, as it
fades into the calm, cold, dark, and nearly deserted
abyssal regions of the oceanic floors at a distance from
the continents. It is like going from the luxuriant vege-
tation of the tropical shore line — the region of palms,
bananas, and mango — into the cooler zone of oaks and
pines, until we pass out into the higher levels, with their
stunted vegetation and scanty fauna, and finally into the
colder climate of the bleak regions of perpetual snow.”

Any one who has read that passage will scarcely
doubt Agassiz’s ability to write with imaginative force.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

There is, however, some truth in the criticism that most
of his writing was lacking in a quality that would have
added a certain delicacy of touch. But it must be re-
membered that, with two exceptions, he wrote entirely
for the scientific world, and he always felt that the
naturalist should be extremely careful that the use of
the imagination did not lead to its abuse. This left him
little sympathy for those scientific men whose temper-
amental desire for effect made them lose themselves in
that misty region that lies on the borderland between
philosophy and science.

CHAPTER IX

1881-1884

MEXICO AND INDIA

Some defect in Agassiz’s circulation made it very
painful, after the days of his youth, for him to pass a
winter in New England, and he never did so if he could
avoid it ; the few he spent in Cambridge always left him
much out of condition in the spring. In the eighties,
most of his journeys to warmer climates were taken
purely in search of health. These travels formed blanks
in his scientific life, and make the amount of work he
succeeded in accomplishing all the more remarkable.
Indeed, much of his research was pursued in a state of
health that would have incapacitated any one with a less
determined will. It was, however, impossible for such an
active mind not to find much of interest, whether in the
archaeology of Central America and Egypt, the geology
of North Africa, the structure of the Hawaiian Islands,
or the life of India.

The winter of 1881-82, Agassiz spent in Yucatan
and Mexico. A return of his old trouble, brought on
by the jolting of the native conveyances of the former
country, prevented an extended trip that he had planned
with Clarence King to inspect some Mexican mines.
King, first Superintendent of the United States Geo-
logical Survey, and Director of the famous survey of
the fortieth parallel, had apparently a fatal charm for
Messrs. Agassiz, Shaw, and Higginson, who were con-

192

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

stantly in search of another Calumet. For at various
times he persuaded them to undertake a series of disas-
trous mining ventures in Mexico, only two of which
ever showed any real promise, Yedrasand Prietas. One,
King entangled hopelessly in a complicated financial
arrangement with an English company; the other, after-
ward a most successful mine, was sold on the representa-
tation of a rascally mining captain.

Had Agassiz and his brothers-in-law ever undertaken
the management of these mines personally, or had Agas-
siz ever travelled in the field with King, whose optim-
ism was greater than his judgment, probably the latter
could not, after each successive failure, have hypnotized
these gentlemen into embarking with fresh enthusiasm
on some new venture.

Nor were these unsuccessful mining schemes limited
to Mexico ; their corpses lie scattered over the United
States, — gold, silver, and placer claims in Colorado and
California, bought under the best expert advice, coal
lands in the South, and oil fields in Pennsylvania.

In the projects which he rejected, Agassiz was no
more fortunate. One of the first to turn his attention to
the Gogebic Iron Range, he decided against it, follow-
ing the advice of a distinguished consulting engineer
of the day, who reported to him that the region, now
famous for its iron, was not worth developing. In the
early days of the Rand he also sent an engineer to South
Africa to examine a property, which afterward became
fabulously valuable. Later, when he visited the district
himself, he realized that had he been on the spot he
never would have allowed the opportunity to escape.

Agassiz planned his journey to Yucatan with a view
of seeing some of its ruins, for his travels in South

MEXICO AND INDIA

193

America had excited his interest in the old civilizations
of this hemisphere. In the following letter, when speak-
ing of this project, he expresses his intention of doing
absolutely nothing till his return ; it is curious to note
in his letters from Yucatan to Mrs. Agassiz what his
idea of doing nothing was.

TO SIR WYVILLE THOMSON

Cambridge, Nov. 20, 1881.

I am off in a few days for Mexico via Yucatan. The
doctor says I must not be seasick any more for the next
year, so I shall go on land and look up antiquities. I
shall bring up in Mexico middle of January and ride
across country from there to Gulf of California, to be
about six weeks on horseback. I have an excellent com-
panion in Clarence King, and we have also a first-rate
cook as part of our escort. I shall do absolutely nothing
except keep my eyes open and hope to come back a new
man. While I am gone, my Report on Blake Echini
will make excellent progress. I leave artist plenty of
Plates arranged and I hope on my return to find the
bulk of the Plates for that memoir done. There are now
fourteen finished and ten more to make. This will make
quite a dose even after the Challenger Echini. In mean-
wdiile, to fill up time I am finishing a short paper on
Young Fishes, which has been under way in some shape
for more than eight years.

You will receive shortly, as soon as I can get them
bound, a copy of the Challenger Echini via bookseller.
It may seem a waste of material to duplicate yours and
Murray’s, but I don’t want you to have a copy from
anybody but myself, and hope you will put it on your
shelves, and when you look at it sometimes think how

194

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

pleasant a task it has been to me and how much I have
to be indebted to you for letting me have the Echini,
and I trust you have not been disappointed in the result.
It is of course not all it could be in histology and ana-
tomy, but all that is necessary to a zoological and geo-
graphical point of view till we have a better idea in these
respects of our ordinary Echini. I cannot say I am sorry
my task is done ; sometimes I felt somewhat overwhelmed
with the work in addition to my other jobs, hut now that
I look back upon it, it is certainly most satisfactory, not
only in the work but the pleasant associations it carries
with it.

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Merida, Jan. 2, 1882.

Arrived here at last, Saturday night, after a very
pleasant passage from Havana. But as we got to Pro-
gresso, the port of this place, a regular Norther set in
and we had to lie at anchor all Friday without commun-
icating with the shore, with the pleasant prospect of the
wind lasting for three or four days, and then of being
carried on to Vera Cruz without landing at all. Fortun-
ately Saturday morning the wind abated and the boats
managed to get ashore after a fashion. The American
Consul met me at Progresso, passed all my traps through
the Custom House without any fuss, and my only mishap
was the loss of a spring overcoat, which, with the many
changes made from boat to shore, to Custom House, to
hotel, to wagon, found another owner.

Although we had all morning to get through before
the train started for Merida, the delays of Custom
House, etc., were sufficient to keep us busy till that had
gone and we had to go to Merida, twenty-seven miles

MEXICO AND INDIA

195

off, in a wagon — what they call here a “ volacache,” a
leather apron stretched upon a frame and suspended on
two huge wheels, like the Cuban volantes, only with
short shafts. This machine is drawn by three mules
which go off at full gallop and keep it up all the way
through thick and thin, puddles and dry, thanks to the
howling and whipping of the Indian driver, who sits up
in front while the passengers are extended full length
on a mattress laid upon the frame of the wagon. The
whole is covered with canvas to keep you dry and cool,
and you hold on the best way you can on the standards
of the cover to keep from going up to the ceiling.

The road is perfectly straight from Progresso to Mer-
ida, as flat as my hand, the whole rise in twenty-seven
miles being about five feet; it is just like the roads in
Key West; in fact my ride to Merida showed me what
I had long suspected, that the whole of Yucatan was
built like the Florida Peninsula of coral limestone. For
about three miles inland it is nothing but a succession
of low flats with pools lined with mangroves and heads
of flat coral limestone, just as you find them at the east-
ern end of the Island of Key West. All this comes in
admirably well with my ideas of the old course of the
Gulf Stream and of its action in building up not only
Florida but Yucatan. It will fill up my Blake chapter
admirably well, and had I not seen anything else than
this my stoppage in Yucatan would have filled my object.

On arriving at Merida I was driven at once to most

elegant quarters which C , who was in the class below

me, engaged for me : in fact I have at my disposal here
a huge parlor just now unoccupied, one of the finest
houses in Merida, where I sleep, and take my meals at
the Consul’s. I am just on the Plaza with the cathedral

196

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

opposite ; and last night being Tuesday and New Year’s
Day, it was a very pretty sight to see all the Indians,
men and women, in their neat white dresses with ele-
gant embroidery, sitting around or walking about smok-
ing, chatting, and indulging in the usual lively Mexican
way. I never saw such a clean lot of people, all got up
in spotless white, well washed, well dressed, and evi-
dently well to do. It ’s by far the best specimen of Span-
ish country I have ever seen ; it ’s true it ’s not Spanish,
but Indian.

I am in luck. I met here Charnay, the Frenchman
sent out by Lorillard, wdio starts to-morrow on an ex-
pedition to Chichen,1 where some of the finest ruins are
to be seen, and I am going with him to spend there a
couple of days. Had I known that Charnay was here and
that I should catch him, I would have let Mexico slide
and devoted myself to Yucatan, under conditions which
I fear are not likely to recur again for some time to come.

Everybody here is very polite to me and I could have
anything I want, I think — or perhaps it ’s because I
want nothing they are so polite. If you happen to see
Charles Norton, tell him of my good luck, and also tell
him the way for us to get Yucatan explored is to help
the American Consul here, Louis H. Ayme, who is an
enthusiast, and who will learn with Charnay on his ex-
pedition all the practical part of taking moulds, etc., etc.

I am getting thoroughly rested. I sleep from nine
till seven every day, am out in the open air all day, and
I expect to get back from my expedition in tip-top con-

1 Charles Eliot Norton writes Agassiz : “ I am especially glad that you
have had so good an opportunity to see the ruins of Chichen. No other
living American, so far as I know, whose report could be trusted, has
visited them.”

MEXICO AND INDIA

197

dition, except perhaps a little hungry. The temperature
is delicious, about 70° all the time, just what I like;
why can’t I introduce this reform, among others, in the
climate of Cambridge? You will hear nothing from me
again till I come back from Chicken. We start at day-
break to-morrow.

Love to the boys and the family. Please keep my let-
ters, as it ’s my easiest way of keeping a journal — not
that I want them for their literary finish !

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Izamal, January 7, 1882.

I write this on the chance of getting into Merida to-
morrow in time for the mail. I have got back as far as
this from my first trip to the ruins, and it has been a
most successful and interesting trip. By the way, Izamal
is about fifty miles east of Merida, in case you want to
see where I have landed. The ruins I have visited are
at Chicken, about one hundred and twenty miles from
Merida, in an easterly direction. We left Merida at five
on Tuesday last in one, or rather three, of these wooden
riding machines on two wheels, such as I made my entry
into Progresso. Mr. Charnay had a whole lot of traps
for a ten days’ stay and was of course well loaded with
all sorts of things.

The first day, as far as Izamal, we got along nicely,
the road being quite fair, and the mules were kept on the
full gallop all the time except a delay of about two
hours for breakfast at a sort of a halfway house called
Cacalchen, where we had eggs and beans and oranges
and coffee and tortillas. We passed the night at Izamal,
but instead of staying at the comparatively comfortable
place where I am to pass the night [now], we had to

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hang our hammocks in the barracks and a dirty place it
was, even for a Spanish town. We managed to get
through the night, after a dinner much like the break-
fast, and started at seven only, having waited patiently
two hours after chocolate time, until our muleteers chose
to go on. The American Consul is with us and he is
supposed to have this expedition in charge and to have
made all the necessary arrangements with the command-
ing officers, but somehow thus far the orders which were
to have been issued have not yet met us, and all the
way through till we got to Chichen, we got only pro-
mises and very little had been done.

The second day from Izamal to Tritas was pretty
tough riding ; if you will imagine a wagon driven at
full tilt from the fort at Key West over the rocky beach
to the redoubt, you have a sample of the kind of driving
we had. We got to Tuncas, twenty-nine miles, to break-
fast, glad indeed to have a little rest ; here we got into
the Indian country and I was glad to see that as far as
escort was concerned we were all right ; the road had
been well guarded for the next stage, and we arrived at
Tritas late, to find that all the plunder which Mr. Char-
nay had sent on two weeks before, to be sent to the
ruins, was still there, and the evening was spent in
swearing and trying to find horses and men to get all
this forward. At last, by dint of perseverance, the neces-
sary men were promised at five in the morning, and we
went to hammock pretty tired. Next morning it was
ten ! before we got the men and horses and we pushed
on fast with the horses and a light escort and reached
the ruins at two.

You cannot imagine the damage these Indians have
done; they still hold the greater part of Yucatan, ex-

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cept a narrow strip along the seaboard, and have never
been subdued ; and no wonder ; you might as well try
to drown a cloud of mosquitoes as attempt to get at
them through the woods where they retire. Every little
while they make a dash into the small settlements and
destroy everything. Tritas used to be a prosperous place
of fifteen hundred inhabitants ; there is nothing left but
a few houses and half-breeds. On the way to the ruins we
passed a couple more villages entirely overgrown with
trees about ten years old, so that had they not been
pointed out you would never have suspected their ex-
istence. We had seventy-five men escort and about fifty
more men had been sent ahead to clear away the rub-
bish from the ruins, so that I had all that afternoon and
the next day to see the remains found at Chichen.

Look in the Stevens which is on my shelves — Stev-
ens’s “ Yucatan” — and you will find a good descrip-
tion of all I have seen, only the ruins are fast going to
the dogs, and in the last twelve years, since Mr. Char-
nay was here, the changes have been very great, and
with this rate of destruction nothing will be left of these
magnificent ruins except piles of stones. At Izamal
there are also pyramids which we examined on our way.
The two nights I spent at Chichen we lived in the ruins
in the “ Castillo,” so that we were perfectly safe from
attack, and the men besides were all out on picket and
careful watch kept — but all was quiet.

The only drawback to this expedition has been the
ticks ; you get perfectly covered with them ; they are
very small and sting in proportion ; the after effects
especially are very unpleasant.

I kept an eye on the geology of the country, which
is most interesting and supplements the history of

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Florida wonderfully well. I don’t believe these ruins
are very old. Pieces of timber used as lintels and bars
are still well preserved, and in this climate that does
not mean a great antiquity. It ’s the old story again of
Peru, and the accompanying gushing history.1 The In-
dians of the present day are a fine set of people and
still adhere to their old language and do just what their
ancestors did, at least if we can judge from the paint-
ings on the walls which go into very minute details.
Some of these drawings are wonderfully well preserved,
and the stone carvings quite good, but everything is
rude and shows but little art.

What a pity these ruins are not in a civilized country
where they could be studied and preserved and perhaps
restored. I hope to arrange to go to the other ruins to-
morrow, and shall be gone again till the end of the
week, and have then a few days to get rested after my
return from Uxmal. That’s in a perfectly safe country.
But it is stupid going about alone, especially when the
travelling of the day is over and you have nothing to
do all the afternoon and evening. I shall not be sorry
to be quiet for a few days again before going to sea,
for this is rushing it and rushing it is pretty rough
work — but to take it more leisurely would be impossi-
ble except to a professional loafer or a Spaniard.

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Merida, Jan. 17, 1882.

Returned yesterday from Uxmal and found quite a
package of Cambridge letters. Rodolphe’s letter was

1 From what he had seen in Central and South America, he believed
that the Incas and allied races were not as highly civilized as is generally
supposed.

MEXICO AND INDIA

201

very good and quite legible ; make him write often. I
wrote him a little note by the last steamer to tell him
there were no monkeys here and that he would get liz-
ards later in the season, so that they should not freeze
on the way.

I am not sorry to have a couple of days to rest, for
my trips to the ruins have been pretty fatiguing. I have
made a little over four hundred miles over perfectly
infernal roads ; what with starting at daybreak, getting
well shaken to pieces, with very poor food, and sleep-
ing in hammocks, it is not conducive to comfort. I am
beginning to feel that I cannot get along without more
nourishing food than I get in the tropics, and I must
manage to keep hereafter within more civilized regions,
where the food is not simply beans and tortillas and
coffee and chocolate and a very occasional egg, with
nothing to drink but beer; fortunately I was warned of
this state of things and took with me some claret so that
I managed pretty well. But I feel pretty tired and I
don’t think it ’s good for me to live in this way — I lose
ground. I have also had signs of my old trouble again,
which probably accounts for my being so tired ; if there
is any trace of it left when I get to Mexico I shall have
to give up my trip in the interior and come home by
way of Vera Cruz. What seems to use me up is the
shaking of the coaches. I thought I was perfectly strong
again, but it seems I must still be careful.

This last trip to Uxmal has been a most interesting

one. Mr. C , who was in the class of ’56, and who

has been most kind and attentive to me, came to Ux-
mal with me, so that it was very pleasant and not in the
least lonely. At one of the haciendas where we passed
the night we were joined by his cousin and two more

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

friends, who kept us company to the ruins, and from

there we went back to the hacienda of Mr. to

spend the night before returning to Merida. This gave
me an excellent chance to see something of the way of
living of the better class — in fact of the swells of the
State.

I must frankly say that it is appalling what barbarians
they still are, at least a hundred years behind the age.

How anybody who, like C , has spent four years in

the United States and subsequently studied eight years
more in France, can have gone back to this semi-bar-
baric state passes my comprehension. They eat like pigs,
sleep ditto, and have a holy horror of fresh air and cold
water. The latter they think is sure to give you a fever,
and they keep a scarf over their mouth for fear of
allowing the least miasma from entering their lungs. Not
one of the decent comforts of life to be found in any of
the swell haciendas where we happened to stop, either
for breakfast or for the night, and although the over-
seers had all been warned we were coming and to be
ready for us, there was very little to eat, and they did
not seem to know how to make use even of what they
had. They gave us some wretched beef and potatoes,
while there were pigs (young) and oranges and plantain
and all kinds of vegetables, growing all round ; and then
the dirt and the fleas and the ticks we got while running
round the ruins — all was not conducive to make me
look on the bright side of things.

Still in spite of all this the trip has amply repaid me
and I have enjoyed it immensely and learned a great
deal. When I have seen the pueblos near Santa Fe, I
shall have a pretty good idea of American archaeol-
ogy. I will not go into details of the ruins of Uxmal,

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203

but refer you again to Stevens, whose account is most
accurate.

Everybody here is very polite to me, in fact too polite,
as the exertion of speaking Spanish and keeping it up
any length of time is nearly as tiresome as riding the
same time over a very rough road, and when it comes
to talking philosophy and religion, as some of the peo-
ple here are very fond of doing, and theorizing all round,
it ’s too much for me.

Going to Vera Cruz by steamer, he continued by easy
stages to the City of Mexico. From there he writes : —

“ I wish I had Charles Norton, or some other classical
enthusiast here. I think I could show him exactly how
the Roman barbarians, who lived in Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum, lived, and they would form a very different idea
indeed of that so-called ancient civilization. All the lit-
tle shops, especially the drinking saloons, are frescoed,
some of them with considerable attempt at art ; and I
dare say the shops and bar-rooms of the ancient Romans,
of which we admire the mural paintings so vastly, were
nothing but the daubs of the sign painters of the day.
I wish I had the time and skill to write a picture of the
scenes of this Spanish life as you see it here, and com-
pare it to the Roman period ; something very good might
be made of it. Imagine our friend, Wyeth, in Harvard
Square, selling his wares behind a counter with walls
ornamented with the sacred history or with views of the
Indians and their fights writh the Pilgrims, or scenery
of the Rocky Mountains ; or Pike 1 receiving his orders

1 A keeper of a stable formerly frequented by Harvard’s jeunesse
doree.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

for carriages in an office, the rear of which is a shrine
for the Virgin Mary, with a magnificent wax doll and
burning candles, before which some of the faithful are
going through their ordeal.”

Writing to Mrs. Agassiz a few days later he says : —

“ I am gaining little by little and am able to do a good
deal more than when I came to Mexico ; still I get very
easily tired, and a stage journey finishing with a horse-
back journey is out of the question. It ’s intensely stupid
here in the hotel ; were I on the seashore I could do
something, but here in the midst of a great city I am at
a loss for occupation. I only dare to make very short
excursions in horse-cars to surrounding country.”

He returned to Cambridge late in February, for the
state of his health prevented not only his trip with King,
but also any further travelling.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Cambridge, March 10, 1882.

I was thunderstruck this morning to see the notice of
Thomson^ death in the papers. I had no idea he was
so near his end from anything you said or I had heard,
though from your last letter I greatly feared he never
would be able to finish his Challenger narrative. It is a
great loss to science, and it will be next to impossible
for anybody to write that narrative. His experience and
all he had thought and written on the subject cannot
be found combined in any one man, and it will be long
before we have one who knows so much and says what
he knows in such a charming way. I shall feel his loss

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205

greatly ; the death of my own brother could hardly be
more heartily felt, and I shall sadly miss his corre-
spondence. He was one of the few scientific men from
whom I liked to have frequent letters, and to talk over
plans of future and discuss the past. I was greatly in
hopes that when he was freed from all anxiety regard-
ing his professional duties he might be able to work
again moderately and accomplish some good work yet.

In the early winter of 1882-83 Agassiz passed a few
weeks in Florida, where he went with one of his sons,
who had not been well and was ordered to a warmer
climate. But the rest of the winter he was forced to
pass in Cambridge in charge of many business matters,
that fell to him owing to Mr. Shaw’s illness and absence
in Europe.

TO ERNST EHLERS

Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1883.

It is quite a while since I have had the pleasure to
hear from you. I trust all is going on well with you and
that it is only as with all of us, press of work which has
kept you from giving signs of life. I hope you receive
regularly our publications, both the Museum and mine.
You will have noticed that the Blake Reports are getting
on quite well, and I am in hopes now to have the re-
maining ones shortly, so that I can finally go to work
at my popular account, for which I am accumulating
material so fast that I fear I shall be overwhelmed by
it and lose my way in selecting what is needed. How
are you progressing with the Annelids? I have been
since I wrote you last, as usual, a good deal of a wan-
derer, and each year I find it harder to stand our hard

206

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

winters. This winter I am obliged to remain at home
owing to the serious illness of my brother-in-law, which
has thrown all his business on my hands. I am making
excellent progress here with the Museum, and next fall
I hope we shall be installed in our new laboratories, and
that hereafter I may be able to devote some of my time
and energy to the laboratory part of the establishment,
which has suffered considerably from want of proper ac-
commodations; but now we shall soon catch up and with
the assistance of my colleagues here I hope we may
build up a satisfactory and effective biological school
here.

I am always dreaming of going off dredging and
sounding in the Pacific; my mouth waters at all the
problems there are to be solved, but whether I shall ever
get off is another question. It is practically impossible
to get the Government to do anything, and we must de-
pend on private means to fit up a large steamer, for the
work I wish to do requires a good deal of money. Still
I hope I may accomplish it before I get too old to
enjoy it.

TO HUXLEY

Cambridge, Mass., April 23, 1883.

My dear Huxley : —

It becomes my pleasant duty to inform you that at
the last meeting of the National Academy of Sciences
held at Washington you were elected a Foreign Asso-
ciate. The proper diploma will be forwarded to you in
due time, and I hope you will not object to your Asso-
ciates who move in the first colored scientific circles on
the other side. This notice is not perhaps as formal as
it should be, but I trust the stiffness of the parchment

MEXICO AND INDIA

207

will make up for the informality of this “ first of Ex-
change.”

Always yours very truly,

A. Agassiz,

Foreign Secretary, N. A. S.

TO HUXLEY

Newport, Sept. 10, 1883.

I am getting now to work seriously at my final Blake
Report for the public, and should like greatly for the
Cephalopods to include an account of the u Spirula,” of
which I sent you the only specimen we had for com-
parison with those of the Challenger. If you are suf-
ficiently well advanced not to need the specimen any
longer, I should be glad to have it again. If not, and
you could send me proofs of your Plates on the Chal-
lenger specimens and a short account of the peculiarities
of our specimen for use here, and copy of what you think
might be interesting in a popular account of the Natural
History of such an expedition as the Blake, I should
greatly value it. Of course any such copying of your
manuscript as is required, please have done at my ex-
pense. I have nearly all the Preliminary Reports of the
different departments in, and trust the Report will not
be delayed so long that nobody will care to hear about
the Blake any longer.

I hope you have received by this time a short Memoir
of mine on the Florida Reefs, and the first part of one
on Porpita and Velella, and being old friends of yours
may interest you.

I had the pleasure of having Sir Charles Bowen to
dine here (Newport), and am greatly obliged to you for
giving me a chance to make his acquaintance.

208

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

I have this summer gone back to my Fishes and with
the help of an excellent assistant, C. 0. Whitman, have
some good things. We shall hope to publish early next
year a good Memoir, made up of all my accumulations
for twenty years and a careful revision by an outsider
during two years.

I almost forgot to say how pleased your friends here
were at the action of the Royal Society in electing their
new President !

In the winter of 1883-84 Agassiz chose India as the
goal of his annual journey to get away from the cold
weather. His letters from there are those of a casual
traveller in a well-known land, who obtained his first
glimpse of the Himalayas from Darjeeling, and visited
most of the cities which make India a pilgrimage to the
English. One of his experiences was, however, unusual,
for he saw the installation of the Nizam at Hydera-
bad : —

“To this I had been invited, thanks to the kind of-
fices of Colonel Chapman, the military Secretary of the
Commander-in-Chief (General Stewart), whose acquaint-
ance I made on the way from Brindisi to Bombay, who
not only made out my itinerary but also gave me letters
to all his friends and acquaintances, and I was thus
passed on from one delightful bungalow to another un-
til I returned to Bombay. At Hyderabad I spent three
days during the festivities of the installation, living in
part in camp with other invited guests, having a huge
tent, an attendant of my own, a bed-room and sitting-
room and tent for a bath-room, and all the guests din-
ing together in a huge tent and meeting after dinner

MEXICO AND INDIA

209

in another of still greater size. The last day when the
ceremonies were over we were allotted to sundry “ big
bugs ” of the city to see the illuminations, the like of
which I have never seen again, the whole place illum-
inated by hundreds of thousands of colored oil lamps of
all shapes and sizes.

“ I was most fortunate to be able to see this first Dur-
bar ; the natives in all their glory, bedecked with pearls
and diamonds and rubies and other stones, in great con-
trast to the dark European clothing of the guests, the
dresses of the ladies and the gay uniforms of some crack
English regiment alone relieving the monotony of the
European side of the festival. I shall never forget the
sullen look of the chiefs, as they seemed to feel the Ni-
zam or some of the natives had been slighted, and cer-
tainly the mode of procedure of Lord Ripon was enough
to irritate the dullest susceptibility. Everything seemed
to be done to aggravate the native princes, and it was
not a pleasant feeling to know that there were 300,000
native troops in a city of the same number of people, all
fanatic Mohammedans ready to break out at the least
provocation, and to oppose them was one regiment of
Lancers and a horse battery of artillery.

“ I was quartered with the Nizam’s brother-in-law,
who had been educated in Europe and spoke French,
and I, being an American, he and the Afghan chief with
him did not hesitate to express their feelings towards
the English. The Nizam’s brother-in-law lived in a pal-
ace built in a square with a huge wooden door protected
by small field guns and a small garrison ready to defend
it from outside attack, half a dozen huge elephants
ready to start up and charge any mob that might make
themselves unpleasant.

210

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

“ With one of the Afghan chiefs we went to take an
elephant ride through the narrow streets of Hyderabad,
with a howling escort preceding us and an equally dis-
reputable crowd yelling and hooting behind us, swing-
ing their guns and spears in a most careless manner. I
don’t know which seemed the most dangerous, the
escort or the populace which followed us. The crowd
was so great that the elephants could only proceed at a
very slow walk, putting out their trunks and one foot
at a time to push aside the solid mass of people which
confronted us and which seemed to rise on the sides of
the walls of the houses as we slowly forged on.”

Early in the spring Agassiz was back in Cambridge,
bringing with him a very complete collection of photo-
graphs of Indian architecture, and some superb pieces
of old jewelry.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Newport, Aug. 8, 1884.

I have to thank you for Vol. I of the Physical Chem-
istry of the Challenger, which came safely to hand, and
which I ’ve just dipped into a little. How are you get-
ting on with that Preliminary Report on the bottoms ?
Are you coming over this year to the scientific meet-
ings ? If so, don’t fail to drop in upon me here. I shall
not budge. I’ve been so keeled up since July — good
for nothing, and the doctor says the warning I have
this time is one I can’t afford to neglect and that I
must give up everything I possibly can. So I shall stay
here principally and hope that a few of my friends will
drop in on me, but I am getting poor company just
now. I hope to finish my Blake Report, but that of

MEXICO AND INDIA

211

course is postponed for the present and I shall do well if
I can keep away from the undertaker. Everything was
arranged for me to make a dredging trip — Guayaquil,
Galapagos, Panama — next spring, and owing to some
cussedness of the Treasury Department the whole thing
is knocked in the head, and I had a fine chance to use a
700 ton steamer which will pass over the district and do
nothing !

Financial affairs here seem to be going to the eternal
bow-wows, but I hope the fall will stop before we reach
hell, but just now the more you have of anything the
poorer a fellow feels.

How are you getting on for funds for the new Bio-
logical Laboratory? I see you have plenty of names,
but how’s the cash? Lyman has returned from Wash-
ington for the present till fall, but he is so anxious to
be returned again (election in November) and so deep
in politics, that I do not believe a new deep-sea Ophiuran
even would turn him aside from his politics.

TO F. A. FOREL

Cambridge, Oct. 10, 1884.

I have just got your letter of Sept. 17th announcing
that the Societe Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles had
done me the honor to elect me an honorary member.

Please be kind enough to thank the Societe Helve-
tique for having inscribed my name among its members.
Permit me also to thank you for the extremely kind
way in which you send me this news. Although I left
Europe when very young, and have become a complete
American, it is with great pleasure that I receive the
tokens of approbation that my Old World colleagues
have done me the honor to show me.

212

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Some years later, in acknowledging his election as a
Foreign Member of the Royal Society, lie wrote, “ Al-
though I have little ambition, yet I have a very soft
spot for the praise of my peers.” Certainly no man ever
cared less for empty honors, but he valued the recogni-
tion of scientific men.

CHAPTER X

1885-1890

MORE WANDERINGS AND WORK

Agassiz’s usual winter pilgrimage led him in 1885
to the Sandwich Islands, whose hospitable shores were
in those days ruled by that genial and unconventional
monarch, Kalakaua, who was only too ready on the
slightest provocation to throw off the burdens of roy-
alty. Agassiz spent the greater part of the winter roam-
ing among the islands, sometimes a guest on some great
sugar plantation, sometimes exploring the wonderfully
picturesque gorges in which the islands abound, visiting
the volcanoes, or studying the coral reefs, often in some
native outrigged canoe, which his Hawaiian fishermen
skilfully steered along the edge of the breakers pound-
ing on the reef flat.

Honolulu, Jan. 27, 1885.,

“ I arrived here on time after a good passage as com*
pared to an Atlantic one, but in spite of this I was more
seasick than I remember having been for a long time.
I have spent the time thus far in making up for my lost
meals and riding and rowing round the island. The
scenery is very pretty, and there are endless trips to be
made and a great deal to see. Thus far I have done
nothing except have a good time, and when I get back
from my trip to the other islands I expect to spend my
time in looking up the coral reefs and something of the

214

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

marine world of the place. This is a most charming con-
trast to Florida where time hangs so heavy on your
hands. Here there is something new to see and to do
the whole time. I had the good luck to make the pass-
age with the great California sugar king, Mr. S ,

a smart, self-made German, who really controls every-
thing here ; he has given me letters to his agents on the
two islands I visit, and I shall he well taken care of. I
find that all my letters from General Armstrong are to
the missionary crowd, so that I shall wait to deliver

them till my return. That crowd hates S and I

can’t throw him overboard now — at any rate I don’t
propose to, he is too sensible a cuss and very entertain-
ing. I have had an audience with his Majesty Kala-
kaua ! He appears a most inoffensive and good-natured
animal. But it is a pity to see the natives — they are
withering before the whites, and soon the islands will of
their own weight fall into the hands of the Americans.”

After three days spent in examining the volcano of
Kilauea, he writes from the little village of Hilo on the
Island of Hawaii : “ I was greatly disappointed at the
coral reef here, which amounts to nothing ; and at
the amount of sea life ; there is more in a square inch at
Nahant than on the whole beach of the Bay. I am very
well and enjoying every minute of my time. Hope all is
going on well at Museum.”

An amusing little incident, during his wanderings
about the islands, shows how unexpectedly a bit of ab-
stract science may be of the greatest practical value.
One day as Agassiz was sitting with his host on the
porch of the house of a great sugar planter, he noticed
a schooner discharging a cargo of lime in the roadstead.

MORE WANDERINGS AND WORK

215

“ Why,” he asked, “are you importing all that lime?”

“ Because,” replied his host, with evident contempt
at his ignorance — “ because we use it in great quanti-
ties on the plantation.”

“ Yes, I know,” said Agassiz; “but why don’t you
make it ? ”

“ Make it ! How can I ? ” exclaimed the planter.

“ All this rock about here is pure limestone ; you have
only to burn it,” Agassiz answered.

“ My God ! ” said his host, “and I ’ve been import-
ing it for years.”

Wailuku, Maui, Feb. 14, 1885.

“When you get this you will know I am back again
in Honolulu, where I shall spend the rest of my avail-
able time studying the coral reefs. I have enjoyed this
past week very much, riding round the different plant-
ations, seeing the mountains. Some of the scenery here
is indeed beautiful and many of the gulches must be
far more beautiful than anything in the Yosemite Val-
ley. I made the ascent of Haleakala — the extinct vol-
cano of this island — very successfully, and after having
seen the active one on Hawaii you can realize what this
one must have been when active. The crater is about
thirty miles in circumference, filled with lesser cones and
vents on an immense plateau — which is desolation it-
self, sunk about two thousand feet below the edge. The
view from the top is one I shall long remember, so
totally different from anything else I have ever seen.
You are ten thousand feet above the line of the sea and
can see the horizon towering all round, so that you feel
as if you were in the bottom of a saucer, trying to look
over the rim.

216

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

This trip lias, I think, done me more good than any
other I ’ve taken. I have practically been out in the
open air ten hours a day during the past fortnight,
riding nearly the whole time from twenty to thirty miles
a day. The horses here have just the gait that suits
me, and I feel as strong and tough as an ox just now.
I wish I could stay as I am now. I must manage when
I get home to get more exercise and shaking up.”

TO H. N. MOSELEY 1

Cambridge, April 9, 1885.

Here I am back again from the Islands of the Blessed
after a most delightful trip. I came across your tracks
at the Volcano House, and those of the Challenger
party. I spent three days up there and was loth to leave.
I worked very little, devoting myself to hard riding and
walking and seeing all I could. I managed, however, in
making the round of Oahu to look up the elevated coral
reefs and to study the reefs of Honolulu and of the
weather side of the island, also the seolian limestones of
Maui, which are most interesting and throw very con-
siderable light on the elevated reefs of the extremity of
Oahu near Kaliuka Point. I have not yet had a chance
to see what Dana had to say about them.

On my way back I again came across your chirography
at the Hotel of the Grand Canon of the Colorado. I
hope yon stopped at Flagstaff to see the cliff and cave
dwellings near the station. I had an interesting time
there and at Laguna where I went to see the Acoma
Pueblo. I also put in a few days of antiquarian work at
Santa Fe, went to the San Juan! and [undecipherable]
Pueblos, but they did not compare with the Acoma

1 Of the Challenger staff.

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217

Pueblo ; the pueblos near Santa Fe have felt the influence
of civilization too plainly; they are too near an old
European settlement. I have now seen all that is worth
seeing in the way of the ancient North and South Amer-
ican ruins and shall try my hand sometime at presenting
what seems to me the true explanation of the unity of
race of all the people who have taken part in their
buildings and whose path can, I think, be plainly traced
from the North where they are hunters, to the agricul-
turists of the Pueblos and of Yucatan and Mexico, to
similar buildings in South America (Peru and Chile),
till you come at last to the hunters again of Patagonia
and the Eastern steppes of the Andes.

I am very sorry to hear of Mr. Jeffreys’s death and
was very greatly surprised to find that his favorite col-
lections were to go to Washington. It will be most valu-
able to us. But how and why did the B. M. permit so
valuable a collection to leave England?

TO ERNST EHLERS

Cambridge, May 22, 1885.

Many thanks for your offer to send me hereafter the
numbers of the “Zeitschrift” as they appear. The sim-
plest way is, as you suggest, to send it directly by post.
I shall be very glad to get the manuscript and plates
of your final Report.1 There are now not many more to
come in, and I shall not be sorry to have that off my
hands and devote myself again to my seashore work and
to the publications of the work done by Museum assist-
ants. We have now, I am happy to say, got along so
far with the Museum that I do not propose to spend
either so much time or money in collections. The Pale-
1 On the Blake Annelids.

218

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

ontological Rooms alone now remain to be done, with ex-
ception of the marine faunae, and I can take my time
about all this and start the work more in the direction
in which I should have been most interested — that of
publication of work of students and of professors en-
gaged here. I feel as if I had done my duty to the In-
stitution I have inherited, and at my age — for I fear
we are all getting on — I have not a great many
working years to start the Institution in the* direction in
which I should like to see it develop. Had I the Museum
alone to attend to, I would move fast enough and make
progress rapid enough even for my taste ; but what with
all the claims of the University in various directions,
and the necessity of hunting up funds to carry out pro-
jects, it seems to leave but little time for scientific work
proper, and I often feel as though when I got ready to
work my time would be past. That is the great misfor-
tune of having to work in a new country where every-
thing is to be built up and nothing is accomplished
without spending the lifetime of private individuals in
doing what a Government does for you in a few years.

TO SIR W. H. FLOWER1

Newport, Aug. 12, 1885.

Many thanks for your kind note of the 21st July,
and for the pleasing information regarding the Hume
collection. I shall look forward with patience to its com-
ing and am very glad to entrust our interests to your care
and Mrs. Flower’s. I am thankful the collection is at
last safely housed.

I have been hard at work this summer preparing the
text of my final Blake Report, and trust to finish it this

1 Director of the Natural History Department of the British Museum.

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219

fall and leave it to await the finishing of the illustra-
tions during next winter. I hope I may get across and
on my way to warmer climes find you in your new
quarters. Please give my kindest remembrances to Mrs.
Flower and my congratulations and best wishes on the
marriage of your daughters. My boys are getting on ;
the eldest is now 23, and having passed through Cam-
bridge, has caught the cowboy mania and is herding
cattle in Arizona. The second is devoting himself to
growing, and having reached 6 feet and 190 pounds I
hope he will stop. The baby is 14 and is the only one
I depend on much, and this will not be for long, as he
is looking forward to college. I was sorry to hear from
young Carpenter that Huxley was no better and was
giving up all his posts. As for myself, I have turned
over a new leaf, giving up all work for other people,
becoming thoroughly selfish, and the result is that I
feel like a fighting cock and hope now to be able to do
a few things in which I am interested before I lose all
my go. I hope this fall to get out the first part of an
extensive paper on Embryology of Fishes, w7hich you
will receive in due time.

In the fall of 1885, President Cleveland offered Agas-
siz the position of Superintendent of the Coast Survey
and scientific adviser of the administration. Agassiz was
much touched and pleased at this mark of appreciation,
coming as it did at a time when the Coast Survey was
not the only scientific government bureau that showed evi-
dence of a need of reorganization, a condition of affairs
that had greatly troubled him, and in which he had at-
tempted to exert his influence, only to call down the ani-
mosity of some of the scientific men at Washington.

220

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

However, he felt that it was out of the question to
consider the offer, for he thought the post should be
filled by a professional mathematician or physicist ; the
necessity of leaving every winter for his health was also
an objection, to say nothing of the interests which held
him at Cambridge, and the sacrifice of his own scientific
work that such a position would involve.

TO E. L. GODKLN 1

Newport, Sept. 30, 1885.

Your dispatch came duly to hand and I hope the
reply reached you. I am sorely tempted to give up every-
thing and go to Washington, for to become the chief
scientific adviser of the Government and be able to
influence legislation as far as can be done, on behalf
of science, is a thing of which any man might well be
proud, and not lightly to be declined. Were I five years
older I would not hesitate a moment. But I am afraid
of taking hold of a new thing on account of my health.
I am just getting out of the woods and my private in-
terests, on which my scientific future depends, are in
such a condition that I could not in justice to others
leave their management at present in untried hands, so
I had to decline.

Still there is the other side. I fear I should be much
like a bull in a china shop ; what with red tape, and
etiquette, the Superintendent to be, who is somewhat of
an autocrat, might have a hard time. It has been most
gratifying to see how unanimously my scientific col-
leagues and friends, as well as the public, have approved
the choice of the President, and the manner in which
it was offered to me by him through the Secretary of

1 Editor of the Nation.

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221

the Treasury, was cordial in the extreme and most flat-
tering, for I had been sounded in the middle of the sum-
mer and had given a most emphatic denial at that time.

The following winter (1885-86) he went to Egypt,
which had not then become the great playground of
Europe and America, dotted with the huge caravansa-
ries which meet the modern tourist at every turn. Those
were the days of the insurrection on the Upper Nile ;
the Soudan was in possession of the followers of the
Mahdi, and all travel above the First Cataract was sus-
pended. “ There are not many travellers,” he writes,
“ but there are also very few facilities for getting any-
where, the Government having seized everything that
can float or walk to transport troops and materials to
the Soudan.”

The place that he had engaged on a boat up the
Nile was requisitioned by an English officer, and he was
obliged to wait for a later steamer. He had the good
luck to reach Assouan, the end of his journey, just as
the Cairo Museum was opening some tombs in the
neighborhood. On his return to Cairo, finding that all
the steamers for Italy were full, he took passage for
Constantinople, stopped a couple of days in Athens, and
returned to America by way of Vienna, Paris, and
London.

TO HIS SECRETARY, MISS E. H. CLARK

Athens, March 1, 1886.

Athens is a very clean and wholly uneastern place,
the native costumes of the men and women very gor-
geous, that of the women specially so, but few of them
however wear it in public. It being carnival time there

222

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

were rather more than usual out. Everybody here is on
tiptoe about the war. You see nothing but soldiers in
the streets, and it ’s melancholy to see a small country
like Greece spending all its substance in army and navy.
The ruins here and collections are most interesting, but
strange to say they are not half as well cared for as
are the Egyptian ruins, and considering all the talk that
classical people all over the world make about Athens
and all her glory, the state of the ancient remains and
collections is a disgrace to the cultivated races. How-
ever, it has always been that way. Whenever the class-
ical people and the literary cusses want anything, they
always appeal to Government. They never think of the
simpler method of putting their hands in their own
pockets.

I have got hold of a very pleasant Englishman who
is going to Vienna and who has been with me on the
steamer from Alexandria, and we shall keep company till
Vienna, where he stays for a time. So it will be quite
pleasant to have a decent travelling companion and some
one to talk to.

Constantinople, March 9, 1886.

“ I have been much disappointed at this place. It has
lost nearly all its Oriental charm, having been greatly
spoiled by European influence of the East. It has kept
only its dirt. The bazaars are very poor and there is
little to be bought here except a few Persian things and
rugs, of which very fine ones could be picked up with
ample time to waste in bargaining and sitting still. It
takes about four days to buy the smallest thing at a
reasonable rate.

We had a miserable passage from Athens here, and

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223

it was a delight to all to get into the smooth water of
the Dardanelles. Such a wretched little steamer; the
Blake was a floating palace compared to her. We were
also blessed with the most abominable set of passengers,
a couple of German swells and a French count, who
were at the same hotel at Athens, where they had man-
aged to make themselves as offensive as possible to
everybody. They continued the process on the ship and
came near being thrown overboard by some Italians
who thought themselves a good deal better than they
were. Everybody was sorry they were not drowned.”

TO HUXLEY

Cambridge, Mass., April 17, 1886.

Your capital letter on the subject of the English
Fishery Board has been republished on this side, much
to the disgust of the friends of general and unlimited
government coddling of science. Our weak-kneed peri-
odical “ Science,” which is strictly impartial and there-
fore represents nothing, has during the past winter been
crowded with articles on the beauty and benefits to be
derived from federal pap liberally supplied to every
crank who has a scheme. The unfortunate dissenters,
who, like myself, don’t believe in such a policy, have
been held up to the public ridicule as simple-minded and
nearly idiotic cusses who had no conceptions of the
grandeur of science ! It makes very amusing reading,
but it ’s somewhat discouraging to see criticisms of opin-
ions uttered frankly dealt out in such a spirit, and will
make me at least most careful how I give my views to
Government committees, if the men of science in the
country are bent to warp and misrepresent the plainest
statements and involve one in endless and useless dis-

224

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

cussions. I ’ve come to the conclusion that my best plan
is to mind my own business, and devote my time to work
and the publication of what I have to say, and leave
these discussions to be carried on by the other side alone.

Calumet, Oct. 4, 1886.

“ I never saw anything like the steel pens here — they
are simply abominable. I shall have to bring up my own
quills hereafter, or I run risk of spoiling forever my
otherwise striking chirography. The weather to-day is
superb again. I have taken advantage of the day to take
a general survey of the location and of the proposed
alterations and additions, and by to-morrow shall have
seen all the surface places, and then will make out a
program for the next five years, which will open the
eyes of all concerned ; and in five years from now there
is nothing I have dreamt of I cannot then carry out,
even if copper goes to ten cents!! again, which I don’t
think it will for a while at least.

I shall be hard at work for a while here and hope by
middle of the week to be able to say when I can leave.
But I shall have to come back by way of Philadelphia
and see the builders who are to make all the new equip-
ment and make sure we can carry out the program, for
it is one which will tax the largest shops of the country
to the utmost, and to make time as laid out on the time-
table of the proposed duplication will need all the man-
agement and forethought possible. But if I succeed it
will be the greatest thing ever done in a mining way. I
have not yet had a chance to go to the mills where the
great changes have taken place and see what has been
accomplished. The fact is, I ’ve only just awakened to
the discovery that if I had spent my thoughts and capi-

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225

tal on Calumet the last ten years, instead of all the other
moonshine enterprises in Mexico, etc., I should now be
a very rich man, and be able to do all I have ever
dreamed of in my wildest days. However, it is not too
late, and if I can carry out my plans, which seem per-
fectly feasible to the men here, I shall in less than five
years treble our dividends.

I am up early, run round all day and talk all evening
to the various bosses and hear what they- have to say
and suggest, and think that by the time I get off the
whole plan for five years will be laid out like a time-
table, to which we can work and lose no time if we take
matters in hand now.

The weather continues magnificent. Went to Lake
Superior yesterday. The woods are superb now, and I
enjoyed tramping along the shores and trying to find a
suitable site for the location of waterworks which we
shall shortly have to put up to supply this place with
water, as all the wells are being dried up by the mine
as it gets deeper and deeper.,,

But such rosy prospects were unexpectedly postponed
by a series of disastrous fires in the timbering of the
mine, which, had it not been for Agassiz’s ingenuity in
devising new methods for extinguishing them, would
probably have resulted in an overwhelming calamity.
The burning portions of the mine were sealed, and
steam forced into them through pipes that led well down
the shafts ; later carbonic acid gas was manufactured on
a huge scale, and many million feet were forced into
the mine in the same way. Such devices proved success-
ful in eventually extinguishing the fires, but the mine
was crippled for a number of years.

226

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

W riting to Murray in January, 1888, Agassiz says :
“\Ve ought to have made millions by the rise in cop-
per ; it unfortunately caught us with a fire in the mine,
which is still burning, and I have had the satisfaction
of seeing others reap the benefit of a state of things for
which I had been hoping for five years. It is aggravat-
ing to have things happen as one anticipates, and then
when the time comes, to be knocked out of time by
such a disaster as has hit us. However, better luck next
time”

By October he writes from Calumet : “ Everything is
humming here, and if we keep on as now, no accidents,
we shall nearly catch up all our copper allowance1 by
January 1, and after that are sure of $30 to $35 per
share as long as the syndicate lasts — two years at $35,
and then from $40 to $50! 2 after the equipment is in.
It begins to look as if I might yet have my [exploring]
steamer.”

Still another fire further crippled the mine ; early in
1889 he writes : “ Calumet is at last put out again, but
I fear the damage of these successive fires has been very
great and will use up much of the profit.” A few months
later he says : “ I find things at the mine in much bet-
ter condition than I feared the fire would leave them
after being closed so long. So I shall go back greatly
relieved and trust this will be the end of our burning.
It ’s getting to be worse than the fire of the Y estal
Virgins.”

But to turn back again to his more congenial fields;

1 Refers to an arrangement with a French syndicate that attempted to
control the copper market of the world.

2 At its most prosperous period, Calumet paid $100 a share in one
fiscal year.

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227

for, apart from his interest in the development of a great
industry and the welfare of its employees, he always
regarded Calumet as the means that enabled him to
accomplish his scientific work. In the fall of 1887 he
characteristically writes Murray : “ I am getting on well

with my Blake Report and hope to have the d thing

out soon. I ’ve done nothing this summer but correct
proof and am almost dead.” That winter he found time
to visit his confreres in Germany, Paris, and London,
going down to Cambridge before returning to its name-
sake in the New World, to receive an honorary degree.
Marks of recognition of his thalassographic researches
were now fast accumulating from all parts of Europe ;
in the summer he was elected a Corresponding Member
of the French Academy of Science.

The first few lines of the next letter refer to the so-
called “ Conspiracy of Silence.” On the return of the
Challenger, Murray had been advised not to publish
hastily his theory of coral reefs. This had delayed its
appearance for a couple of years. The Duke of Argyll,
stumbling across the fact, had construed it into a delib-
erate attempt on the part of the English scientific world
to suppress the truth, for fear of injuring the prestige
of Darwin, who held different views in the matter. This
called forth an indignant protest from Huxley : he after-
ward, however, wrote Agassiz: “I beg you to believe
that I had not the slightest intention of posing as a de-
fender of Darwin’s views [on coral reefs]. My purpose
was to deal with the Duke’s charges against the honor
of scientific men, and I did not want to diminish the
force of my blows by raising any side issues.”

228

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Cambridge, Dec. 2, 1887.

I have been greatly amused at the articles in “ Fort-
nightly ” and “ Nature ” by the Duke, Huxley, and
Bonney. I am surprised that Huxley should have taken
up the cudgels in favor of Darwin’s theory. But Huxley
has always hankered after a sunken continent in the
Pacific ; and Darwin, who has always objected to that
kind of juggling with continents, could not resist when
it came to coral reefs to do just the same thing, and calls
the reefs of the Pacific, if I remember rightly, the last
traces of a sinking continent ! It is no use to talk of
subsidence in the Yucatan plateau in case of such a fine
atoll as the Alacran, or on the Florida Reef in case of
Marquesas. Still we can wait and let them fight it out.
I was somewhat surprised in Darwin’s Life to see the
element of wishing his cause to succeed as a cause
brought out so prominently. The one thing always
claimed by Darwin’s friends had been his absolute im-
partiality to his own case. Certainly his correspondence
with Hooker, Huxley, and Gray shows no such thing.
However, I don’t want to branch off. The book is a
mighty interesting one and admirably put together.

TO FRITZ MULLER

Cambridge, May 28, 1888.

I hope that by this time the Life of my father has
reached you, and if it has not please to let me know and
I will send you another copy. But if you can indicate
to me any safe method of forwarding, I should of course
like to avail myself of it. I trust that my “ Three Cruises
of the Blake” has also arrived safely and that you will

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229

find some interest in this sketch of the western Atlantic
off our shores. I have been nearly five years working
this up, and am not sorry to have this work behind me
and to be able to go back again to my Laboratory at
the seashore and my embryological work which I have
so long neglected. It was to me a bitter disappointment
not to be able to join the Albatross at Panama, but
owing to the severe and dangerous illness of my part-
ner I was obliged to remain in Cambridge, although the
Fish Commission kindly kept the steamer over at Panama
for more than ten days in hopes of giving me a chance
to go. But it was hopeless, and I shall have to be satis-
fied in working up a part of the collections, a very dif-
ferent thing from having had a share in securing them
on the spot, and catching and observing all the acces-
sories which give life and interest to such material.

Weismann’s speculations have interested us here to a
great degree, and I am desirous to see to what they will
lead. We are going ahead here constantly and enlarging
our facilities for the study of Natural History, and before
long I hope to see nearly all the plans laid out when I
first began to work here, carried out, at least so far that
it will be a comparatively easy task to finish the schemes
which were begun by my father, and which have grown
far beyond the wildest dreams he ever could have in-
dulged in. It has been to me a great satisfaction to have
the means to do so much for science here, and if the
mere administrative work of so lar^e an establishment
has crippled to a certain extent my own scientific work,
I can still have the satisfaction of knowing that where
I alone might have been at work, there are now a dozen
in full activity. The general care of the University,
which has of late years taken so great a development,

230

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

lias also materially increased my work in many direc-
tions not my own and compelled me to give a lending
hand to building up other scientific departments. But
in a new country, where all is to be moulded, it is no
small satisfaction to feel that one is a power behind the
throne for good and for evil.

I need not say how glad I was to receive your letter
and to hear again from you, for I have never forgotten
that it was from you that I received the first friendly
recognition of one of the first papers I ever wrote, and
that your kind words did much to keep me in a path
which did not seem to have too many attractions for a
young and ambitious student.

TO HUXLEY

Calumet, Oct. 16, 1888.

I intended long before this to have answered your
kind note, which reached me at Newport, but I have had
an extended fit of laziness and have allowed myself to
put off during this summer all that was not absolutely
essential. The strain of last winter floored me at last
and I ’ve not been able to buckle down to work as I
hoped to do at the seashore. I am here on my semi-annual
visit to the mines, and the doctor has ordered me for a
few weeks to the mountains in Colorado. So I am on my
way to the other side of the Rockies, into what is said
to be a most beautiful country just beyond the main
divide of the Rocky Mountains, back of Denver and
Leadville. He thinks that ’s all I need to start fresh,
specially if I get away during the coming winter.

I was sorry to hear from Mrs. Moseley of the poor
condition of Moseley’s health; the poor fellow seems
utterly broken down, and his chance for any more work

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231

very poor. I hope mine is not all gone, for if the French
gentlemen who have so kindly undertaken the task of
special providence to the copper market will only per-
form that office a few years, they will enable me to carry
out all the plans I ever dreamed of, before I am too old
to carry them out myself. And I trust that at any rate
they will enable me to go ahead within reasonable time
and explore the Gulf Stream on my own account and not
be dependent upon the aid of Government, which, as
you know, I look upon as the worst kind of assistance.
The new Fish Commissioner has tried to do his best to
continue to extend to naturalists the facilities of the
Wood’s Hole Station, but Congress has drawn a line
through the bulk of his appropriations for that purpose,
and our expenditures are so well arranged that it may
be the end of the summer before the money for the season
is available.

The present heads of Government scientific bureaus
at Washington are starting a crusade for a great Na-
tional University to have its seat there. It may do very
well for a beginning, but after ten or fifteen years no
Professor would be anything but a political demagogue,
and it would be the worst thing for science and the
existing Universities — of which there are too many
already — to have official science get a stronger foothold
and have greater influence than it already has. It has
killed all individuality in Geology, the Professors of
Geology in the United States being, with few excep-
tions, the satellites of the Director of the Geological
Survey of the United States. I hope to get back to
Cambridge towards the middle of November and you
may see me drop in upon you in January on my way
somewhere.

232

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

He spent the winter of 1888-89 in northern Africa,
accompanied by his second son Maximilian, who, having
just left Harvard, went with his father on most of his
later wanderings. The two made ideal travelling com-
panions, the calm placidity of the son acting as an ex-
cellent foil to the occasional nervous impetuosity of the
father.

Agassiz’s letters of this winter cover what is now
such well-worn ground that, except for a few extracts,
they wrould be out of place here; writing from Constan-
tine, he says : “ The scenery so far, from Tunis to Con-
stantine, is pretty, but tame and not worth seeing to
one who has travelled as much as I have ; were I alone
1 should give up the whole thing at once and go home,
— it ’s not worth the journey. But Max enjoys it im-
mensely and he is first-rate company travelling, always
cheerful and pleased and satisfied.”

The following may be interesting as showing a scien-
tific man’s impression of the desert : —

Biskra, Feb. 7, 1889.

“My visit to this place has been most satisfactory and
I think I have found out what has been the former con-
ditions of the desert, much to my satisfaction at least.
I never liked greatly the various explanations which
had been given of the formation of the desert, and I
think I have seen the whole thing and can explain most
naturally what now exists on the Sahara from what I
saw along the line of the railroad, on the high plateaus,
the Hondas, as they are called, on the way to Biskra.
I drove this day about twenty miles into the desert to
an oasis called Sidi Ocka, and on the way there got all
the evidence I wanted that my explanation was at least

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233

far more reasonable than any other I had seen, calling
upon great elevation and all kinds of cataclysms to ex-
plain what seems to me a most simple thing. The whole
phenomenon is very much like that which has caused
our Great Salt Lake Basin and the Sinks of Nevada and
Idaho and Utah and that part of the West.

I have been greatly interested in the few days I have
spent here and they have fully repaid me, and I dare
say if I don’t see much I shall at any rate get an excel-
lent idea of the physical geography of Northern Africa,
which is certainly very different from that of any other
region I have seen. The oasis here is an interesting
one, and the life of the Arabs on the desert in their
tents and with their herds of camels and of goats and
sheep is much like what I saw on the Nile, only here
they are in their element. As for the Arab villages they
are all alike, mud walls, low houses, narrow streets, filthy
as can be, and here and there squares planted with date
palms, oranges and lemons, which relieve the scene.
The Arab dress is very monotonous, — like the desert
you see nothing but their gray cloaks ; occasionally a
gaudily dressed woman on the doorsteps with her silver
bangles and rinors and necklaces. The bazaars of this lit-
tie place and of the Arab villages we have seen are not
very gaudy, but at any rate they have not been con-
taminated by French influence, as at Tunis or Constan-
tine, where they are no longer characteristic. Still even
here the goods for sale are gradually becoming the very
flimsiest of European make in competition with the hand-
made native work. There are in a store here plenty of
reptiles and insects for sale, but so badly preserved that
I do not care to get any.”

234

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

On his return to Cambridge he writes : “ I come back
in good order, but how long I will remain so remains
to be seen. I greatly fear that I have reached the stage
where I am well only when I do nothing, and that is not a
very agreeable prospect for an active individual like me.”

In the fall, Agassiz was offered charge of the section
of Marine Zoology on the U.S.S. Pensacola, which con-
veyed the U.S. Eclipse expedition to West Africa, the
idea being to dredge from the Equator to the Cape,
while the astronomers were at work on land. Unfortu-
nately, he was asked to join the expedition at so late a
date that he found it impossible to fit out the vessel in
time unless he could transfer the Blake equipment to the
Pensacola; this, owing to red tape, he was unable to do.

TO HUXLEY

Cambridge, Jan. 14, 1890.

We were very sorry not to be able to have your son
to stay with us while he was in Cambridge. But I have
been laid up with a most obstinate fever since the be-
ginning of December and am only allowed now to see
one or two people and to write an occasional note. For-
tunately, your son fell into good hands and I hope he
will be able to do what he has planned. But it needs
good backing from a few rich parents in New York, and
with that he is safe. Most of the schools, such as he pro-
poses to establish, are under the wing of some denomi-
nation, but there is plenty of liberal spirit to support an
entirely unsectarian affair.

My fever has upset all my plans for work for this
winter. I came back from the West feeling particularly
well and hoped for a steady working winter. I was spe-
cially interested in working up the material of a most

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235

interesting new stalked Crinoid, closely allied to Apio-
crinus, and one of the most interesting finds from the
deep sea. It was collected by the Albatross — Fish Com-
mission steamer — off one of the Galapagos. Of course
all this is hung up to my great disgust, and the doctor
says it will be fully a month before I can hope to be at
work regularly again.

I was glad to hear you had cast the dust of London
from your feet and were quite well again in your new
home in the country and able to do quite as much work
as you like. By the way, a few days before I knocked
off work, Murray wrote me he should only publish one
more volume of the Challenger, and a supplementary
number containing your Memoir on Spirula. If you
have quite done with my specimen I should be glad to
have it again. The best way of shipping it would be to
put the bottle in a small box and leave it at the London
office of the Cunard Line, asking them to send it to
Boston by their first steamer.

By the spring of 1889, the fagade of the Museum
building had been completed, with the exception of the
corner piece. Except for the sections of botany and min-
eralogy, built by subscriptions collected with Agassiz’s
help by Professors Goodale and Cooke, nearly all the
building and the publications, as wrell as most of the col-
lections in the Museum of Comparative Zoology proper,
had been, since the death of his father, at Agassiz’s
expense.

Dr. Brown-Sequard, an old friend of the family, in
writing to Agassiz about this time says : “ I am very
glad, indeed, that you are carrying out so fully the grand
ideas of your father as regards the Museum. When you

236

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

have accomplished that great work, Cambridge will he
a unique place in the world for such a natural system-
atic display of the animal creation. When steamships
can cross the Atlantic in four days, I expect that Euro-
pean Naturalists will go and study your father’s plans
and views as exhibited in this Museum, whose existence
will be due to your exertions and liberality.”

It had always been Agassiz’s aim to build up a mu-
seum that would above all things furnish facilities for
original investigation and advanced work, and his efforts
were constantly directed toward that end. It was now
becoming apparent that the resources of the Museum
were being more and more absorbed in undergraduate
instruction, for which they were never intended. This
often led him to take a dark view of his work for the
Museum, and to wish that the time he had spent in its
interests had been used in other directions. Such feel-
ings grew with the advancing years, and his correspond-
ence abounds in passages similar to the following extract
from a letter of somewhat later date to Professor F. Jef-
frey Bell, of the British Museum : —

“ Since Fewkes left the Museum we have had no
specialist for Radiates, and hence all I can send you is
a small piece of Titanideum suberosum from Stono In-
let, South Carolina. I picked this off from one of the
specimens on exhibition. I don’t quite see what is to
become of us. I am sick to death of supplying the
means of running a big machine, when I have so much
better use for them in explorations and publications.
After twenty years of playing a lone hand, I shall some
fine day clear out and burn my ships behind me. I have
no doubt there is no end of this material in the Museum

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237

(Titanideum), but there is not a single person who
knows the Alcyonarians enough to pick out anything,
and I am out of the question for any such work. Sorry
to treat you so shabbily.”

With all his varied interests he had found time to
devote himself to his Alma Mater in many ways
besides looking after the Museum. When Professor
Pickering was appointed Director of the Observatory,
Agassiz raised a fund which served as the basis of es-
tablishing the department of Astronomy on its present
footing. And it was through his influence that the
generosity of Mr. T. J. Coolidge took the form of found-
ing the Jefferson Physical Laboratory.

From 1878 to 1884, Agassiz had been a member
of the Corporation, a body that controls the affairs of
the University. He resigned on the plea of not being
able to devote sufficient time to its duties, but in 1886
he again accepted the position, feeling he could not re-
sist the pressing invitation to serve once more. Of his
appointment he writes: “I hope you will not pitch into
me for having rejoined the Corporation. The fact is,
I could not say no. I have got through my Blake —
Calumet responsibility is well off my hands through

Mr. ; I am getting too old to do much more work

of my own, and this is the simplest way of helping
others and doing my share of public work in something
I know all about.”

It will be noticed that the man who accepted the
position on the Corporation because he was too old to do
much more work of his own had still most of his scien-
tific expeditions ahead of him ; and as for Calumet re-
sponsibility being well off his hands, he writes from

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

there about this time : “ I am as usual taking time by
the forelock, and looking ahead a few hundred years
and laying out more work. It will soon pay the Calu-
met stockholders to pay me $100,000 a year to stay at
home ! ! Iam going underground to-day and to-morrow,
and on what I see will depend plans for the future.’’

During Agassiz’s connection with the administration
of Harvard his efforts were directed toward moulding

o

it more on the lines of a German university. He was
especially interested in attempting to remedy what is
still to-day a crying evil in most of our American uni-
versities, the lack of their professors of sufficient time
for research work. So strongly did he feel in this mat-
ter that, under certain conditions, a considerable portion
of his estate may eventually revert to the founding of
research professorships in connection with the Museum.
He also exerted his influence toward abolishing a clas-
sical education as the only and compulsory method of
obtaining a degree ; but he was one of the first to regret
that a liberal curriculum led more and more to the in-
troduction of technical instruction in the older univer-
sities, a danger which was clearly pointed out to him by
Charles Eliot Norton.

TO C. E. NORTON

A few days ago I received the rank list of the Fresh-
man Class and find it as I expected a fine example of
the working of the present rules of the College Faculty.

B , for example, stands on the rank list in six

out of nine subjects, and well up in three of them, but he
is notified he cannot get his degree if he does not get a
certain per cent in Greek.

If a boy’s work is to be judged by percentages, let

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239

him at least get the benefit of it in the things in which
he does well. The present system is eminently calculated
to discourage a boy from doing well in any one thing;
if he can scrape through poorly in all, he is safe. If he
has a taste for a study and does remarkably well, then
it is useless unless he can manage to do a certain amount
in something for which he may be totally unfitted. I
most decidedly object to any one department, I do not
care what it is, laying down the law as is now done that
unless a boy does such a per cent in a study he shall not
get his degree, and if he does not do well in a couple,
he may be dropped. In the present state of learning this
is an intolerable assumption, and one which is sure to
react on Cambridge by leaving the men who are edu-
cated there entirely out of the tide of what is going on,
and tending to make prigs of them. It will most as-
suredly tend to alienate the good will of the friends of
the college, if they find that the regulations are such
that they cannot educate their sons (of average capa-
city) there unless they manage to imbibe something
which they cannot possibly assimilate. We want to find
out what is in a boy and give him a chance to show it.
We do not want to judge him by what he cannot do,
but by what he accomplishes. He is measured so in after
life, and he must be the judge of the course he takes.

The sooner the educators of the country recognize
the fact that at 16 to 18 a boy’s brain will do some things
and not others, the better; and furthermore that all
brains are not alike and never will be, and cannot up to
that time be developed alike, nor in the same direction.

A boy who shows aptitude in one line of study ought
to have the chance to remain in Cambridge and get his
degree. This is eminently just. Comparatively recently

240

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

all that was required was the literary side of education
for such a degree. I now ask that the scientific side
have the same chance. I do not want to interfere in any
way in that direction, but I do not want the literary
side to dictate terms, which if dictated by the scientific
side would deprive nine tenths of the students of their
degree, and yet we might not be asking more than you
think every well-educated man should know.

This is to me a most serious matter. I have fought
in vain to obtain recognition thus far ; but those who
feel as I do are numerous, they are many of them warm
friends of the college, and something must be done to
satisfy one half of the patrons of the college.

Excuse this long epistle, it may be worded somewhat
dogmatically, but I must acknowledge that since I have
had anything to do with college matters I have never
felt so hopelessly helpless as when attempting to attack
the circumlocution office of Faculty — Overseers —
Corporation.

Agassiz frequently said that the idea that a classical
education was the only education was a survival of the
days when, if a boy was to be taught anything, the
only people who could do it were the monks who knew
nothing but the dead languages. He did not deny the
value of a classical training, but maintained that an
equally good one could be given by other methods, to
boys whose tastes lay in different directions ; and
greatly resented the assumption of the classical scholar,
who calmly assumed that the scientific man was unedu-
cated unless he was on familiar terms with the classics,
while he himself was most probably ignorant of the
causes of the simplest things happening about him.

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241

In 1890, finding himself more than ever out of sym-
pathy with the administration of the University, feeling
that his influence had not accomplished what he had
hoped, and especially that the wider interests of the
University were being sacrificed to the undergraduate
department, he again tendered his resignation from the
Corporation. In a letter to his old friend, Mr. John
Quincy Adams, also a member of the Board, explaining
his reasons for this action, Agassiz says : “ I might go
on indefinitely, and show you that we are very nearly
at the same stage as when we began to take an interest
in the College. That is the discouraging part for a man
who is accustomed to accomplish something.,,

TO CHARLES W. ELIOT

Newport, June 1, 1890.

While I fully appreciate the consideration shown me
by the Corporation in laying on the table my proposi-
tion to be on the lookout for my successor, and will
not press my resignation at this moment, it does not
change my view of the position. It is impossible for me
to be hereafter much more than a dummy in the Cor-
poration. I am carrying altogether too much sail, and am
unfortunately too much of a foreigner to take things
as they come, and cannot help taking things to heart
so far as to produce a state of mind wasteful in the
extreme, both of energy and time. I have allowed my
interest in Cambridge completely to overshadow my own
plans and have been drawn little by little into a position
which is no longer tenable. Put yourself in my place.

1. I am expected to run the largest Department of
the College with the exception of the Observatory.

2. To supply the means practically for doing this.

242

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

3. To run the machine which gives me the means of
so doing.

4. To carry on my own scientific work.

Most men are satisfied to do any one of 1, 3, 4, and
you must add the Corporation to this. It is true I have
stopped 2, practically. But to carry on my own scien-
tific work I must of necessity continue in charge of 3
(Calumet). I must find relief somehow, and the only
thing to do at my age is to withdraw from the Corpo-
ration — and do the same from the Museum as soon as
it is free of debt, and a suitable Curator can be found,
or as soon as my plans are matured for leaving Cam-
bridge, making my steamer my headquarters for the
winter and Newport for the summer. I have done my
share for the public and propose now to retire and do
a little at least of what interests me most.

Notwithstanding the amount of time, from 1881 to
1890, which Agassiz devoted to the executive work of
the mine, the Museum, and the University, to say no-
thing of his enforced winter absences in search of
health, his writings during that period number no less
than fifty-nine titles. While many of these were of
course short articles, some of the more important publi-
cations were u Three Cruises of the Blake/’ — “ Blake
Echini,” “ Coral Reefs of the Hawaiian Islands,” and a
number of papers on the embryology and development
of bony fishes.

CHAPTER XI

1891

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

Agassiz had always been most anxious to supplement
his work on the Blake in the Caribbean, by an expedi-
tion in the Panamic region of the Pacific. For it was
well known that the littoral fauna of these two locali-
ties bore a striking resemblance. This led him to believe
that a comparison of the deep-sea forms on the Pacific
side of the Isthmus of Panama with his old friends in
the Caribbean would furnish reliable data for some most
interesting conclusions. If he could establish geologi-
cally the approximate period at which the Caribbean
ceased to be a bay of the Pacific, he hoped to be able to
determine the amount of change that had taken place
between the deep-sea fauna on each side of the Isthmus,
since the passage connecting them had ceased to exist.

Already he had been twice disappointed in his hope
of undertaking such an expedition. In 1879, he was in-
vited by Admiral Belknap to join his flagship off Panama
and undertake a deep-sea cruise ; unfortunately the
breaking-out of the war between Peru and Chile made
this expedition impossible. Again in 1888, business mat-
ters prevented his accepting an invitation to join the
Albatross at Panama, on her way from New York to
San Francisco.

In 1890, he was asked by Colonel Marshall MacDonald,
the United States Fish Commissioner, to take charge of

244

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

a deep-sea expedition off Panama the following year in
the Albatross. The conditions under which Agassiz was
offered the ship included his supplying the coal, assist-
ing in thoroughly reequipping the boat, and paying
part of the running expenses. In return he was to get
a first set of the collections which especially interested
him. The result of the arrangement was, that this and
his subsequent expeditions in the Albatross were little if
any less expensive to him than the expeditions he under-
took later without government aid.

The Albatross was built in 1882 especially for the use
of the United States Fish Commission. She was 234 feet
over all, 200 feet on the water-line, with a beam (moulded)
of 27 feet 6 inches. At 12 feet draught, she displaced
a trifle under 1100 tons. Her engines had an indicated
horse-power of a shade over 450, and she was fitted
with twin screws. She was furnished with a very com-
plete marine laboratory; and when reequipped for this
expedition possessed all the most approved devices of
the day for the investigation of the ocean. Her officers
were detailed from the United States Navy; her captain,
Lieut.-Commander Z. L. Tanner, having been in charge
ever since her first cruise. From 1883 to 1886, she
worked for the Fish Commission along the Atlantic
coast. In 1887, she left for the Pacific, sounding and
dredging along her route ; and in 1890, she was sent to
Bering Sea to investigate the seal fisheries.

In January, 1891, with the consent of the President,
the Albatross was ordered to Panama. Agassiz left New
York on February 10, taking with him Mr. Magnus
Westergren, who was to act as artist of the expedition.

On reaching Panama, after crossing the Isthmus, where
the French were at work on the canal, he writes : —

THE A LLiATROSS

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

245

<c It seems quite natural for me to be here again in
the same old hotel where I have so often stopped and
with the same landlord who was here in 1859, when I
first passed through on my way to California, and who
has been here ever since. He seemed quite pleased to
see me again and has made me as comfortable as one
can be in a combination of a French-Spanish mansion.

“ The canal can be fairly seen from the line of the
railroad, and it is really frightful to see the waste; the
whole length of the line is one long village, houses for
the men, and all along you find dredges by the half-
dozen laid up and going to pieces, and in a few locali-
ties every ten miles or so there is an entrepot with miles
of machinery, much of which has never been used, and
no less than six large steamers have returned to Europe
filled with the wrecks which could be still used else-
where. There has been much less work done than I
imagined, judging from the money spent; it was gen-
erally supposed that nearly one-third was done, but I
hardly think there is one-tenth of the work finished.
They have, it is true, some twenty-five miles of canal in
the plains at the two ends well advanced, but the real
work of cutting consists only of a few scratches, nowhere
more than twenty feet below the railroad !

“ I go on board the Albatross this p.m., and we start
to-morrow. The working accommodations are fine, an
upper room twenty by twenty for rough work and gen-
eral laboratory, and a second floor below for storing the
collection in racks — we ought to do well. My cabin is
nine by eight ; I have a closet to hang things, about
twelve good-sized drawers under my bunk and in a
bureau, and I keep one of my trunks to stow away stuff,
a couple of shelves and hooks, and you have my equip-

246

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

merits. My cabin opens out into a good-sized dining-room
and sitting-room of about twelve feet by the width of
the ship, where Tanner and I sit and take our meals. It
has large portholes, a fine skylight, and is very airy
and comfortable. Strange to say, it has the desk and
sideboard which were on the Hassler when Father made
his trip from New York to San Francisco in 1871—72 !

The first trip (see Chart 2 in the back cover) was a
sort of preliminary trial to test the apparatus ; the ship
left Panama on February 22, and returned after an
absence of twenty days. On leaving Cape Mala, which
marks the western entrance to the Bay of Panama, she
proceeded to Cocos Island, over four hundred miles to
the westward, and from there made a broad sweep to
Malpelo Island, about three hundred miles to the east-
ward, and back to Panama. Some idea of what was done
on the initial cruise can be gathered from a letter to
the Fish Commissioner, written after reaching Panama.

TO MARSHALL MACDONALD

On Board the Albatross,
March 14, 1891.

I have found, in the first place, a great many of my
old West Indian friends. In nearly all the groups of
marine forms among the Fishes, Crustacea, Worms, Mol-
lusks, Echinoderms, and Polyps, we have found familiar
West Indian types or East Coast forms, and have also
found quite a number of forms whose wide geographical
distribution was already known, and is now extended to
the Eastern Pacific. This was naturally to be expected
from the fact that the district we are exploring is prac-
tically a new field, nothing having been done except

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

247

what the Albatross herself has accomplished along the
west coast of North and South America. The Challen-
ger, as you will remember, came from Japan to the
Sandwich Islands, and from there south across to Juan
Fernandez, leaving, as it were, a huge field of which
we are attacking the middle wedge. As far as we have
gone, it seems very evident that, even in deep water,
there is on this west coast of Central America a con-
siderable fauna which finds its parallel in the West In-
dies, and recalls the pre-Cretaceous times when the
Caribbean Sea was practically a bay of the Pacific.
There are, indeed, a number of genera in the deep
water, and to some extent also in the shallower depths,
which show far greater affinity with the Pacific than
with the Atlantic fauna. Of course, further exploration
may show that some of these genera are simply genera of
a wider geographical distribution ; but I think a suffi-
ciently large portion of the deep-sea fauna will still attest
the former connection of the Pacific and the Atlantic.

I am thus far somewhat disappointed in the richness
of the deep-sea fauna in the Panamic district. It cer-
tainly does not compare with that of the West Indian
or Eastern United States side. I have little doubt that
this comparative poverty is due to the absence of a
great oceanic current like the Gulf Stream, bringing
with it on its surface a large amount of food which
serves to supply the deep-sea fauna along its course.
In the regions we have explored up to this time, cur-
rents from the north and from the south meet, and then
are diverted to a westerly direction, forming a sort of
current doldrums, turning west or east or south or north
according to the direction of the prevailing wind. The
amount of food which these currents carry is small com-

248

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

pared with that drifting along the course of the Gulf
Stream. I was also greatly surprised at the poverty of
the surface fauna. Except on one occasion, when during
a calm we passed through a large field of floating sur-
face material, we usually encountered very little. It is
composed mainly of Salpae, Doliolum, Sagittas, and a
few Siphonophores, — a striking contrast to the wealth
of the surface fauna to be met with in a calm day in
the Gulf of Mexico near the Tortugas, or in the main
current of the Gulf Stream as it sweeps by the Florida
Reef or the Cuban coast near Havana. We also found
great difficulty in trawling, owing to the considerable
irregularities of the bottom. When trawling from north
to south, we seemed to cut across submarine ridges, and
it was only while trawling from east to west that we
generally maintained a fairly uniform depth. During
the first cruise we made nearly fifty hauls of the trawl,
and in addition several stations were occupied in trawl-
ing at intermediate depths. In my dredgings in the Gulf
of Mexico, off the West Indies, and in the Caribbean,
my attention had already been called to the immense
amount of vegetable matter dredged up from a depth
of over fifteen hundred fathoms, on the lee side of the
West India Islands. But in none of the dredgings we
made on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus did we come
upon such masses of decomposed vegetable matter as we
found on this expedition.

Cocos Island is only about two hundred and seventy-five
miles from the mainland, and its flora, so similar to that
of the adjacent coast, tells its own story.1 Malpelo, on
the contrary, which is an inaccessible rock with vertical
sides, and destitute of any soil formed from the disinte-
1 See page 255, second paragraph.

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

249

gration of the rocks, has remained comparatively barren,
in spite of its closer proximity to the mainland.

The most interesting things we have found up to this
time are representatives of the Ceratias group of Fishes,
which the naturalists of the Albatross tell me they have
not met before on the west coast of North America.
The Crustacea have supplied us with a most remarkable
type of the Willemcesia group. The paucity of Mollusks
and also of Echini is most striking, although wre brought
up in one of the hauls numerous fragments of what
must have been a gigantic species of Cystechinus, which
I hope I may reconstruct. We were also fortunate
enough to find a single specimen of Calamocrinus off
Morro Puercos, in seven hundred fathoms, a part of the
stem with the base, showing its mode of attachment to
be similar to that of the fossil Apiocrinidse. The num-
ber of Ophiurans was remarkably small as compared
with the fauna of deep waters on the Atlantic side, wdiere
it often seems as if Ophiurans had been the first and
only objects created. The absence of deep-sea corals is
also quite striking. They play so important a part in
the fauna of the deeper waters of the West Indies, that
the contrast is most marked. Gorgonise and other Hal-
cyonoids are likewise uncommon. We have found but
few Siliceous Sponges, and all of well-known types.
Starfishes are abundant, and are as well represented in
the variety of genera and species as on the Atlantic side
of the Isthmus. I may also mention the large number
of deep-sea Holothurians (Elasipoda) which we obtained,
as well as a most remarkable deep-sea Actinian, closely
allied to Cerianthus, but evidently belonging to a new
family of that group. We found the usual types of
deep-sea West Indian Annelids, occasionally sweeping

250

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

over large tracts of mud tubes in the region of green
mud. Although we dredged frequently in most charac-
teristic Globigerina ooze, I was much struck with the
absence of living Globigerinae on the surface. Only on
two occasions during a calm did we come across any
number of surface Globigerinse and Orbulinse. On one
occasion the trawl came up literally filled with masses
of a species of Rhabdammina closely allied to R. lineata.
Thus far no pelagic Algse have been met with.

I can hardly express my satisfaction at having the
opportunity to carry on this deep-sea work on the Alba-
tross. While of course I knew in a general way the great
facilities the ship afforded, I did not fully realize the
capacity of the equipment until I came to make use of
it myself. I could not but contrast the luxurious and
thoroughly convenient appointments of the Albatross
with my previous experiences. The laboratory, with its
ingenious arrangements and its excellent accommoda-
tions for work by day and night, was to me a revelation.
Mr. Westergren has found his time fully occupied, and
we have in this trip brought together a considerable
number of colored drawings, giving an excellent general
idea of the appearance of the inhabitants of the deep
waters as they first come up. These drawings can be
used to great advantage with the specimens in making
the final illustrations to accompany the reports of the
specialists who may have charge of working up the dif-
ferent departments.

While coaling and making some slight repairs he
writes : —

“ The Albatross is an excellent sea boat and she rides
the sea wonderfully well, and really much better than

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

251

many a large ocean steamer I have been on. We have
done about as much work these eighteen days as I did on
the Blake on my first cruise. You can have no idea how
comfortable the trip has been. The quarters I share with
the Captain are very spacious and in this hot weather it
makes a great difference not to feel cramped. The ac-
commodations for work and for taking care of the col-
lections are excellent. There are two men to help to
put them aside, a Mr. Townsend, who is called the
naturalist of the ship and who is the most obliging
and hard-working man imaginable, and a Mr. Miller,
the chemist, who gets all the needed preparations
ready and also helps to put up the things, so that I
have a chance to spend what time there is between
the dredgings and, while the things are being sorted, to
examine them and make notes and superintend Wester-
gren. We shall hardly get away from here before the
20th, as there are two ships ahead of us for coal and our
repairs may take the greater part of the time till our
turn comes. While coaling ship I shall live on shore and
go on line of the railroad with the doctor of the old
Canal Company. I have also an invitation to spend the
day at the plantation of a Mr. Erman, who is the prin-
cipal banker here. This plantation is about fifteen miles
from Panama near one of the most interesting parts
where the work was done on the Canal. He seems to
have seen a good deal of Father and of the Hassler
people while they spent three weeks at Panama, and says
I shall find on the plantation a good many people who
are old acquaintances of the Hassler. Captain Tanner
has been perfectly indefatigable; he is indeed a model
Captain for such a trip. We begin at 5 a.m. and keep
it up till 10 p.m. My patent intermediate net was a fail-

252 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

lire, but Captain Tanner and I rigged up a new machine
which has worked to perfection and shows plainly that
there is no intermediate fauna as I have always stuck
to. But using the net deep down just above the bottom,
say one hundred fathoms, I have brought up some in-
teresting things, and have also found some good things
by towing at two hundred fathoms only in deep water
and have caught as surface things, which go down in
the day or when it blows, many of the so-called deep-sea
things.”

On leaving Panama for the second time, the Albatross
proceeded to Galera Point, about four hundred miles
from Panama Bay, on the coast of Ecuador ; from here
she ran a line across the Humboldt Current as far as the
south face of the Galapagos, something over five hun-
dred miles to the westward of Galera Point. After visit-
ing the islands the ship worked her way to Acapulco.

When once well out at sea the work of the expedition
settled down to its regular routine. The day’s pro-
gramme began with a sounding, often before six, but
sometimes, after a hard day, it was not taken till the
change of the watch at eight o’clock. Then the whirr
of the machine on the poop deck overhead could be
heard buzzing away merrily while Agassiz and the Cap-
tain were at breakfast. As soon as the bottom sample,
a tube full of abyssal ooze, reached the surface, it was
taken to the laboratory amidships. While Agassiz was
examining this, the great dredging boom was swung out
to starboard, the big Blake trawl was lowered away, and
the ship lay to while the three or more miles of wire
rope sometimes necessary to drag it along the bottom
was slowly paid out ; then the vessel steamed ahead

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

253

slowly, while Agassiz occasionally left his wrork in the
laboratory to note the strain on the tackle recorded on
a dial. After a time the vessel was again stopped, and
the long tedious process begun of reeling in what ap-
peared to be an endless line of cable. The incessant
monotony of the clank , clank , of the reeling engine was
punctuated by an occasional sharp vibrating jar, as a
sudden roll of the ship brought an extra strain on the
gear. Meanwhile in the laboratory, Agassiz and his as-
sistants were busy sorting what remained of the hauls
of the previous day, preserving the specimens and pre-
paring them for storage in the racks in the lower
laboratory.

As soon as the catch arrived on board, all was bustle,
activity, and excitement. The contents of the bag, a
mass of ice-cold ooze, was turned into sieves and washed
down under spray, while Agassiz, eager as a boy, in-
spected each fresh revelation from the silent depths of
the sea. Again the work of sorting and preserving the
specimens continued under Agassiz’s supervision in the
laboratory, some of the more delicate being turned over
to Westergren to sketch. There were usually three or
four dredgings a day. Often the last haul did not come
on board till after dark, sometimes as late as ten or
eleven o’clock, when they were handled by the help of
the deck lights.

While the trawl was dragging slowly over the bot-
tom, a surface tow net was sent overboard on one of
the lower booms. If this haul proved interesting, the
ordinary routine would be interrupted, and the huge in-
termediate tow net, substituted for the trawl, would be
sent down, often three or four times, if the surface
towings showed abundance of life.

254

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

On very still nights the surface net was in use till
late into the night, while Agassiz examined, in glass
bowls held directly over an electric light, the catch of
minute pelagic forms. At every anchorage electric lights
were put into the water at night to attract the surface
fauna. This furnished sport for the sailors, who fished
up the prey with long-handled gauze dip nets. Agassiz’s
attentive consideration of all the specimens brought to
him by the men served to keep up their interest, and
the amount of pelagic material thus collected was con-
siderable.

After reaching the Galapagos, writing to Colonel Mac-
Donald of the line across the Humboldt Current he says :
“ With the exception of three good casts the trawling on
that part of the sea bottom proved comparatively poor.”

He must, however, have been thinking at the time of
some of the wonderfully rich ground he had dredged in
the Blake, for the letter continues : —

“ In the deeper parts of the channel between Galera
Point and the southern face of Chatham Island we found
a great number of Elasipoda, among them several genera
like Peniagone, Benthodytes, and Euphronides, repre-
sented by numerous species. The Starfishes of this our
second cruise did not differ materially from those col-
lected during our first trip, but we added some fine spe-
cies of Freyella, Hymenaster, Astrogonium, Asterina, and
Archasteridse to our collection. Among the Sea-urchins
on two occasions we brought up fine hauls of a species of
Cystechinus with a hard test, many specimens of which
were in admirable state of preservation.” And so on
through a list of the Ophiurans, Gorgonians, crusta-
ceans, worms, mollusks, fishes, etc.

—-r*

3r THE r

EMPTYING

THAW I

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

255

“ Arriving as we did at the Galapagos at the begin-
ning of a remarkably early rainy season, I could not
help contrasting the green appearance of the slopes of
the islands, covered as they were by a comparatively
thick growth of bushes, shrubs, and trees, with the
description given of them by Darwin, who represents
them in the height of the dry season as the supreme
expression of desolation and barrenness. Of course here
and there were extensive tracts on the seashore where
there wTas nothing to be seen but blocks of volcanic
ashes, with an occasional cactus standing in bold relief,
or a series of mud volcanoes, or a huge black field of
volcanic rocks, an ancient flow from some crater to the
sea ; but as a rule the larger islands presented wide areas
of rich fertile soil, suitable for cultivation.

“ The course of the currents along the Mexican and
the Central and South American coasts clearly indicates
to us the sources from which the fauna and flora of the
volcanic group of the Galapagos has derived its origin.
The distance from the coast of Ecuador (Galera Point
and Cape San Francisco) is in a direct line not much
over five hundred miles, and that from the Costa Rica
coast but a little over six hundred miles, and the bot-
tom must be for its whole distance strewn thickly with
vegetable matter. The force of the currents is very
great, sometimes as much as seventy-five miles a day, so
that seeds, fruits, masses of vegetation harboring small
reptiles, or even large ones, as well as other terrestrial
animals, need not be afloat long before they might
safely be landed on the shores of the Galapagos. Its
flora, as is vrell known, is eminently American, while its
fauna at every point discloses its affinity to the Mexi-
can, Central, or South American and even West Indian

256

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

types, from which it has probably originated ; the last
indicating, as well as so many of the marine types col-
lected during this expedition, the close connection that
once existed between the Panamic region and the Carib-
bean and Gulf of Mexico.”

Continuing his line along between Chatham and Inde-
fatigable Islands, Agassiz was disappointed in his poor
hauls : —

On Board the Albatross,

Indefatigable Id., April, 1891.

“ Here we are at anchor in Conway Bay on the west
end of Indefatigable Island, having done all we can
afford to do at the Galapagos. We spent nearly three
days at Chatham Island, which is the island where a
man by the name of Cobos has been having a farm since
’67 ; up to a couple of years ago he worked it with con-
victs, but they gave so much trouble and it was so
dangerous for him and his family that he applied to
the Ecuadorian Government to remove them, and now
has regularly paid workmen, a colony of about three
hundred including women and children. He has now
laid out quite a large cattle ranch, about twenty thou-
sand head of cattle, a large sugar plantation, a coffee
plantation, and a huge vegetable garden. He salts his
meats and carries on also an extensive fishery, sending
all his plunder to Guayaquil. He has a small trading
schooner which goes during the season about once a
month to the islands. It was quite funny to find Baur’s 1
letter had just reached him, a few day before we got
there, by an Ecuador man-of-war, which had been sent
evidently to watch us, they thinking the United States

1 The naturalist, Georg Baur, then visiting the Galapagos.

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

257

Government had some views on the islands connected
with the Canal at Panama or Nicaragua! We paid him
(Cobos) a visit to his hacienda about six miles from
where we were at anchor. He promised to send mules
to meet the crowd, but, true Spanish fashion, after we
waited for two hours, we decided to start to walk. It
had got pretty hot by that time, and the road was nearly
impassable from the rain. It is the hot rainy season
here now, so you can easily imagine the spectacle pre-
sented by the officers after an hour of walking up to our
knees in mud in a broiling sun. But at last we met the
mules and cooled down toward the last part of the trip.
We took lunch in the most primitive manner. Every-
thing very good, but no comforts of any kind, and dirty
beyond description. We sauntered round the village of
workmen, a most interesting sight in the way of social
economy, and took some fresh mules to ride over the
greater part of the island. It is really quite pretty when
you get up well along the mountain-side, about two
thousand feet, and pass above the tangle of cactus and
mimosa, which makes the lower slope of the island nearly
impassable.

The doctor of the ship was most busy during our
stay. He had all the ills of the population to attend to,
for there is no physician settled on the plantation ! The
men shot a good lot of birds, and Mr. Townsend has
been a most hard-worked man skinning the plunder. I
spent my time on shore collecting rocks, botanizing,
and catching insects, and it seemed quite natural to be
going round again with a butterfly net. After endless
delays we succeeded at last in getting our provisions on
board and sailed for Charles Island. That has an old
abandoned plantation, the first of the islands where the

258

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Captain wanted to give the men shore liberty to fish,
bathe, and get all the fruit they wanted, as there were
no liquor shops in the way. We stayed there one day ;
the men had their fill, and I spent my time much as I
did on Chatham.

Next we went to a small island called Duncan, hop-
ing to get a lot of the gigantic land tortoise and lizards
peculiar to the island. We found plenty of the latter,
but only got one of the former; this I was sorry for,
as I depended upon our catch to fill up the Galapagos
Islands group in the Pacific Exhibition Room. Still I
think the Hassler brought some turtles, and I will have
Garman make an exhibit of the reptiles of the group
anyway. Townsend is to give me a set of the birds, so
that we can make a show at least in the space reserved
for oceanic islands in the Pacific Room. At Duncan,
I spent the day tramping, hoping to get a turtle or so,
but only got very warm and greatly enjoyed the bath at
the end of the day in a beautiful clear coral beach
where I paddled round until I got well cooled. After
dark we steamed to Indefatigable where I write this,
and shall start early to-morrow on our regular dredging
trip again, and nothing ought to interfere to keep us
from dredging to our hearts’ content from here to Aca-
pulco.”

Shortly before reaching Acapulco he continues : —

“ Here we are within three hundred miles of Aca-
pulco, and a more disgusted individual it would be diffi-
cult to find. After leaving Indefatigable Island we be-
gan to dredge ; and I fondly hoped on the weather side
of the Galapagos to find a very rich fauna and to make
splendid hauls. But time after time the trawl came up

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

259

with about a pint of most uninteresting specimens, or
else it came up torn to pieces, as the lava bottom played
havoc with the nets, and so it kept up till we left Cul-
pepper Island, the most northerly of the islands ; and I
hoped that at least on the sea bottom of the deep basin,
when out of the influence of the lava fields of the islands,
we should get some good deep-water hauls. But there
again, that part of the Pacific proved as barren as the
rest, and the piece of sea I had been congratulating
myself that the Challenger left for me, has been a great
disappointment. W e still have the chance off Acapulco,
now when within sight of land, to get something on the
continental slope. I settled, however, once for all the
fact that below two hundred fathoms at sea there was
no animal life, and the pelagic people will now have to
stop sailing into me, and take a back seat. Day before
yesterday we struck a regular trade-wind blow and I was
as sick as I could be, and as luck would have it I could
not find my Leavitt seasick pills, so made myself as
comfortable as I could. Of course no work could be
done, and yesterday the weather moderated for us to
work again and my stomach resumed its usual placidity.
It ’s funny what things you wish to eat while trying to
get well. I managed to eat a little pineapple, some fried
bananas, and sour-krout ! It seems a queer combination,
but worked admirably and kept me well alive.”

On their arrival in Acapulco he writes : —

“ We are in the midst of coaling, and a more filthy
place than the Albatross is just now, you cannot imag-
ine. I begin to realize what I escaped at Panama. I
have not gone ashore here to live because the hotel is
such a frightful hole that even I, accustomed as I am

260

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

to Spanish ways, could scarcely stand it. We spent yes-
terday making official calls to the Governor of the
Province and the Captain of the Port. The former is a
very fine specimen of a Spaniard. He was with Diaz in
the defense of Puebla, made prisoner, escaped from the
French, and is in every way a very interesting man,
well educated, speaks French and English, and has a
very good-looking and pleasant daughter educated in
San Francisco.

“ I see you have also the common idea that Panama
is deadly and the climate frightful. The whole thing is
a mistake and if people who go there will observe the
ordinary precautions, there is not the least danger.”

TO MRS. C. L. PEIRSON 1

Acapulco, Apl. 13, 1891.

We arrived here last night, and among other letters
I was pleased to find two from you. I expect from
your many dissipations to find you and Charlie quite
poorly — it seems funny to think of anybody’s going to
dine! I hear a good deal about grub on board, but
nothing of the kind that could be called a dinner by
our friend Ward McAllister. I think I shall quite enjoy
a good dinner served with some style, but it does not
look as if I should get one very soon, for I shall have
to trot to Calumet soon after reaching Cambridge and
see if there is anything left to pay for the coal bills of the
Albatross. We are just laying in two hundred tons, at
twenty dollars, and have had that pleasure twice before
at Panama, so I feel quite poor. This is quite a quaint
mediaeval place, has not changed an atom from the time
it used to be the great rendezvous of the Spanish gal-

1 His sister-in-law.

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

261

leons sailing from Manila and sending their treasures
overland to Vera Cruz for old Spain. Fort San Diego
looks much as it must have in those days, and is of
course to-day perfectly useless. It seems strange to me
to be here again. I spent six weeks here in ’59, a young
chap with my whole life before me, and I remember
very distinctly the week I passed here again on my way
home to be married ; it seems only yesterday. Little did
I dream in those days of what I should have to go
through. I had everything to live for then, and it has
been pretty uphill work for a long time. But I ought
not to complain, or at least the world does not think
so. I have been in all I have undertaken most success-
ful from the world’s point of view, but from mine it
has lost its charm long ago.

My trip is now drawing to a close. W e sail day after
to-morrow and should reach Guaymas the 25th. Then
I shall leave the Albatross and shall not be sorry to be
wending my way homeward. This will make nearly
three months at sea, and that is quite enough for one
season. I have, however, been most comfortable-.. The
officers have done all they could to make the cruise a
success, and I shall have accomplished a project I had
almost given up. It has not been quite what I antici-
pated, but has amply repaid me for the time spent.

On leaving Acapulco the cruise continued up the Gulf
of California ; since the character of the bottom, as
given on the charts, indicated nothing different from
what had been dredged off the coast of Acapulco, the
ship steamed as far as Cape Corrientes without making
a haul. Here they brought up nothing but mud and
decayed vegetable matter, so they kept on up the Gulf

262

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of California till off the Tres Marias. Here some £Ood
hauls were made, though the character of the bottom
did not change materially as the Albatross went farther
north into the Gulf. They found the trawling most dif-
ficult from the weight of mud brought up in the trawl,
but occasionally a rich haul more than repaid them for
the less productive ones.

“Two of the hauls are especially worthy of mention
as being characteristic of the deep-water fauna of the
Gulf of California, one made in 995 fathoms, and the
other in 1588 fathoms. We obtained in these hauls a
number of Ophiomusium and Ophiocreas, some speci-
mens of Schizaster, a new genus allied to Paleopneustes,
and also the same species of Cystechinus, with a hard
test, and of Phormosoma, which we had obtained before
on the line from the Galapagos to Acapulco.”

The Albatross reached Guaymas on the afternoon of
April 23, where Agassiz left the ship and made directly
for the East by rail. The collections were afterwards
distributed, to be worked up, among the best specialists
anywhere available, and proved far richer than one
would gather from Agassiz’s letters at the time. Writ-
ing of the expedition years later, he says: —

“We spent more than two months dredging and
trawling with great activity, and succeeded in bringing
together in that time a collection of deep-sea forms which
probably has not had its equal in any other expedition.
I had always hoped sometime to work with Captain
Tanner, and it was natural that with our combined ex-
perience we should have been as successful as we were.

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

263

That we had worked hard was seen at the end of our
trip. At Guaymas, when I left the ship, we were neither
of us in condition to do another stroke of work.”

During this cruise Agassiz made a special study of
vertical distribution of pelagic fauna, or the depth to
which floating animals may be found beneath the sur-
face. Some naturalists, especially the staff of the Chal-
lenger, and more recently Dr. Chun, had reached the
conclusion that animal life extended to great depths in
the ocean.

But the Challenger experimented on this question
only during the last part of her cruise, and did not use
nets that could be closed before being drawn up, so that
they might collect anything on the way to the top of
the water. This is the so-called differential method,
which Agassiz always regarded with the greatest dis-
trust. For example, suppose that an open net is drawn
up vertically from one hundred fathoms, and a second
from two hundred fathoms. By this method it is as-
sumed that anything found in the second net that was
not in the first net must come from between one hun-
dred and two hundred fathoms. Dr. Chun used a net
which, after being towed at a given depth, could be
closed before being drawn to the surface. But most of
his work was done in the Mediterranean, where the
conditions are entirely different from those in the open
sea, and he himself says he had difficulty in closing his
net properly.

It will be remembered that in his cruises in the Blake,
Agassiz had investigated this question with the Sigsbee
Gravitating Trap, by means of which it was possible to
filter a column of water of any desired height at any

264

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

given depth. With this instrument he had been unable
to get life at one hundred and fifty fathoms.* He brought
on board the Albatross a net similar to that used by Dr.
Chun, made for the expedition by Ballauf of Washing-
ton. This was not found to work satisfactorily and was
discarded after a first attempt. But, “ thanks to the in-
genuity of Captain Tanner,” he and Agassiz between
them devised an arrangement known as the “ Tanner”
net. This was so weighted that it went down bottom
first, thus preventing anything from getting into the
net on the way. It was then towed for a time at any
desired depth, and before being hauled to the surface a
messenger was sent down that released two weights
which tightly closed the lower part of the net, leaving
the upper part open, to catch specimens on the way to
the surface. On account of the simplicity of its construc-
tion and the accuracy of its action, Agassiz always con-
sidered this closing net far more reliable than any other
similar contrivance.

The results of a very considerable use of the Tanner
net on this expedition led him to believe that in the open
ocean there is a very marked falling-off in animal life
below two hundred fathoms. Later experiences, though
they did not alter his general conclusions, would seem
to have somewhat extended the depth to which he be-
lieved life to extend.

During his last expedition in 1907, Agassiz said, in
conversation, that from the results of his own investi-
gations he was of the opinion that in the open ocean
there was a great intermediate belt between the pelagic
fauna and the species living at or near the bottom, where
there was practically no life, nothing but the falling
bodies of dead animals. Where the results of other ob-

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

265

servers had led to a different conclusion, he was inclined
to attribute it to the defective working of the apparatus
used. His experience in the Gulf of California, on the
other hand, led him to believe that in a comparatively
closed sea there may be a mixture of the pelagic species
with the free swimming animals that live at or near the
bottom.

This was with one exception the last of Agassiz’s ex-
peditions that was purely zoological. The main object
of his subsequent voyages was the investigation of coral
reefs and coral islands, and the questions arising from
the study of their formation. During the latter part of
his life he does not appear to have been greatly inter-
ested in the question of the vertical distribution of life
in the ocean. On only two of his later trips did he ever
use a Tanner net. On the Wild Duck in 1893, he made
some casts with one off Havana, and a few in the Tongue
of the Ocean in the Bahamas, which led him in no way
to modify his views.

Some months after this last expedition, he says, in
writing to Dr. Giesbrecht : —

“ I do not wish in any way to be obstinate about my
views as to the extension of pelagic life — not necessarily
surface forms — to great depths. All I care to know
positively is, whether at sea, far from land, the sheet of
water below 250 or 300 fathoms is populated densely
or so sparsely as to enable us to say that animal life
practically ceases at the depths of 250 to 300 fathoms.
I am not fighting for any theory, I am only stating my
experience, and it is very strange that I have so inva-
riably been unsuccessful in tracing the existence of
animal life below the above-mentioned limits, while

266

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

others have always found something. I have no theory.
I have merely tried to account for the differences of
results obtained by Chierchia, Murray, Chun, and others
by some rational explanation, and when I see one net
after another abandoned or condemned in successive
expeditions, I naturally condemn the results which ac-
companied and were deduced by them. But the writers
of the results do not seem to think that the one includes
the other.”

In the Eastern Pacific Expedition of the Albatross, in
1904-05, Agassiz again used the Tanner net a few times,
bringing up specimens (especially certain species of
jelly-fish) from three hundred and four hundred fathoms.
He is apparently at that time not sufficiently interested
in the matter more than to mention the facts ; the only
comment in his notebooks of the voyage being, “ nothing
of any size below 350 to 400 fathoms.”

The problem that Agassiz had always considered of
greatest interest in connection with his deep-sea work
was the comparative study of the marine fauna on the
two sides of the Isthmus of Panama. When all the
reports of the numerous specialists who were working
on the various collections of the Blake and the Alba-
tross Expedition of 1891 were completed, he had always
hoped to summarize the results in a Panamic Report in
which he expected to establish some interesting conclu-
sions. Of this subject he says in his presidential address
before the International Zoological Congress in Boston
in 1907: —

u Much has been written on the relationship of the
marine animals of the Caribbean and of the Panamic

THE FIRST ALBATROSS EXPEDITION

267

region, but the speculations are all based upon data
supplied by collections made upon the littoral regions.
It was not until the collections made by the Blake on
the Atlantic and Caribbean side, and by the Albatross
on the Panamic side, were studied, collections extending
to the deepest waters of both regions, that we were able
to speculate with some degree of certainty upon the
causes which led to the existence of the peculiar fauna
characteristic of the deep waters of the Caribbean, a
fauna more closely allied to the Panamic deep-water
fauna than to that of the Atlantic, and suggesting that
after the formation of the Windward Islands, which, in
great part, cut off the Caribbean from the Atlantic, there
must have been a free connection with the Panamic
region of a depth greater than that which connected it
with the Atlantic.

“ It of course became necessary to carry on geological
surveys to determine the age at which these connections
were established, and again closed, to obtain some meas-
ure of the time elapsed necessary to differentiate the
marine fauna of the two sides of the Isthmus of Panama.
While the length of this period can only be vaguely
inferred, it gives us at any rate the comparative measure
of the changes which have taken place in these faunae
from the time when the marine fauna of the later Cre-
taceous was passing into the older and more recent
Tertiaries, and until the existing state of things was
established. The preliminary geological studies I car-
ried on in connection with the study of the West In-
dian coral reefs, necessary to determine the age of the
development of the larger Antilles and of the Wind-
ward Islands, have been extended for me by Hill and
others, so that we now have a fair idea of the geolog-

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

ical sequence of events in the growth of the Caribbean
area.

“ The careful, comparative study of the collections of
the Blake and Albatross is now nearly complete, — a
study carried out by specialists is absolutely essential,
for no mere superficial sketch even by an experienced
zoologist will suffice in drawing conclusions of any value
and bring out the minute, interesting, fundamental de-
tails which no general zoologist can hope to grasp. What-
ever final value the correlation of these Reports may have
wilfbe due to the assistance I have received from my col-
laborators in so many special fields, and my indebtedness
to them I find it difficult to express.”

Unfortunately at the time of his death there were a
few reports of the Blake and a considerable number of
the Albatross Expedition still unfinished, so the “ Pana-
mic Report ” was never written.

All the unfinished reports of the specialists working
on collections from any of Agassiz’s expeditions will,
however, eventually be published from a fund he left
for this purpose.

CHAPTER XII

CORAL REEFS

Agassiz broke the winter of 1891-92 by a visit to
Japan, with his second son Maximilian. Apart from his
pleasure in collecting old bronzes and porcelains, he was
especially interested in a visit to a copper mine, and a
trip to Bandai San. Taking a small steamer through
the Inland Sea they reached Niihama on the Island of
Shikoku, the site of the smelting works of the mine.
Here they spent three days in the owner’s house. Writ-
ing from there Agassiz says : —

“ It is such a pretty place, and such beautiful things
as the Manager showed us stowed away in a ‘godown’
as they call their warehouse. There were some lacquers
and bronzes and Chinese and Japanese vases to make
one green with envy, but Souvinisto Nuo, the owner of
the mine, is one of the richest men in Japan. The mine
has been in his family for two hundred years ! ! The smelt-
ing works are very well arranged, as are their stamp mills
and the mine and everything is very well done. We left
to go to the mine early in a drenching rain in rikishas. . . .

“ Finally we reached the tunnel of the mine, which
is four thousand feet above the level of the sea. The
tunnel goes through the mountain and comes out the
other side where the village, making up the mine, is
placed in a narrow gorge of the mountain, the houses
arranged in terraces, one above the other, and glad

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

enough we were to get to the Manager’s house and
have lunch.

“ After that we went underground and examined a
specimen of all their processes. They do their work very
well, and I am very glad to have seen this place and to
know what they propose doing. All this gives me more
faith in Calumet than ever. We were great fools not to
own it all, as we might have done. Such a desolate place
as the mining village I never saw.”

On his return to the main island, in describing his
rikisha trip from the railway to Bandai San, a mountain
well up in the northern part, he writes : —

“ The road passes through huge tracts of mulberry
orchards, just sprouting with black clusters of the tiny
silkworms attached to the young leaves. We passed
through a magnificent forest of the Kaika tree, a huge
gnarled trunk, resembling old beeches, with a leaf like
that of an elm. The villages we passed through were all
farmers’ villages and very poor-looking compared to
those of Central Japan. . . . The mountains of the
Central Range have wider and more numerous spurs,
having comparatively fewer valleys and places for culti-
vation and this, added to the greater northern latitude,
tells greatly on the general aspect of the country, which
is decidedly northern and sterile. ... At Inawashiro
village, which we reached at about four in the after-
noon, we found a very dilapidated inn.”

This is the nearest point to Bandai San, a mountain,
over 5000 feet high, which had blown up some four
years previously, sending more than half its mass in a

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great wave of earth and stones down the adjacent valley,
covering a tract of country about fifteen by ten miles,
making two large lakes by damming the river, burying
many villages, and killing about five hundred people.

“ After walking about a mile we came to the gravelled
flow which nearly destroyed the village of Mine. This
flow we followed for a mile or so, and then walked
about three miles until we came to the bed of a stream
entirely covered with huge boulders and sand. Both
these districts were before the eruption well cultivated
and filled wTith thriving hamlets. We walked along the
river-bed for about four miles, and then crossed a low
pass and a series of ravines, gradually climbing for
about two hours till we reached the edge of the huge
excavation made by the blowing-off of the mountain,
and could see from the point we had reached the two
lakes and the heaps of gravel and of boulders covering
the once fertile tract, with no end of little cones formed
by the minor explosions of steam which are still going
on in the main cavity formed. There steam is issuing all
the time and we heard many ominous noises and distant
rumbling, which made us feel somewhat uncomfortable,
as we were standing on the vertical edge of the bluff
left standing ! Max took many views which I hope will
print well, and I was fortunate enough at Sendai, to
find a lot of photographs taken soon after the eruption.”

He reached Tacoma in June, laden with spoil; but
for once his trophies were not scientific, but artistic ad-
ditions to the collections of old Chinese and Japanese
bronzes and porcelains that had been gradually accum-
ulating in his Cambridge and Newport houses.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

On his way East lie made his semiannual visit to Cal-
umet, reaching Newport in time for a late summer there.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Castle Hill, Newport,
August 2, 1892.

Thanks to sundry washouts we were delayed along
the line of the North Pacific and I found more to do at
Calumet than I expected, so did not reach here till long
after you sailed. I found your magnificent volume on the
deep-sea deposits and you are to be congratulated for
so fine a result. I ’ve only had time to turn over the
leaves and look at the Plates and expect to read it care-
fully later. I’ve been here for a few days and found the
Laboratory in full blast here. I hardly think I shall be
able to do much work myself ; the accumulations during
my absence are prodigious, and it will be all I can
manage to get my head above water by the fall. I am
thinking of building a new seagoing launch for work
in connection with the Laboratory here. I wish you
could ship me one over here whole from the other side,
free of duty as a piece of philosophical apparatus ! My
last launch was intended to be a phenomenon, and so
she proved; she was so utterly unseaworthy that I was
afraid to go out in her in an ordinary seaway, and she
now graces the Hudson River, when the seas are not
over an inch high, that she can stand.

About this time Agassiz published an extensive mono-
graph on Calamocrinus diomedse, a deep-sea crinoid
first dredged off the Galapagos by the Albatross on her
way to San Francisco in 1888, of which he had found
an additional specimen in a trawl off Mariato Point in

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273

1891. The study of this species of a new genus of
stalked crinoids was of especial interest, as it bore a
close relation to extinct fossil forms of past geological
ages, having a striking resemblance to a large group of
fossil crinoids of Mesozoic time.

For many years he had occupied his summers chiefly
in the study of the development of young fishes and the
life history of jelly-fish, with an occasional experiment
in the protective coloration of fish and Crustacea. But
after this period his research work at Newport was
much curtailed by the time required to write up the
reports of his previous expeditions, and by the care of
the correspondence involved in the distribution of his
various collections and the publication of reports of the
specialists to whom they were allotted. Since there were
over ninety of these gentlemen, and as Agassiz always
wrote his letters with his own hand, one may gather
some idea of the labor involved in keeping in touch
with them.

The year 1892 marks the close of a distinct period in
Agassiz’s life. Until then he had devoted himself chiefly
to marine zoology. The main scientific interest of his
later life was, however, the study of coral islands and
reefs, and the method of their formation. This question
has a broader interest than is at first apparent, for it
leads directly to a consideration of the forces which, in
recent geological times, have made the surface of this
planet what we find it to-day.

Many of us remember, in the physical geographies of
our youth, an illustration of a coral atoll. It captivated
our fancy, being so different from anything that had
come within our own personal experience, for we had

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

not ourselves as yet associated with pirates in the South
Seas. The picture, to which we loved to return from the
perusal of more trying subjects, showed a low, rakish-
looking schooner lying peacefully at anchor in a quiet
lagoon surrounded by a circle, deceptively perfect, formed
of a narrow strip of land studded with cocoanut palms,
under which nestled a few native huts, whose primitive
outlines appealed to our imagination. On the outside rim
huge rollers, heaped up by the trade winds, beat with
savage force. Those of us who, in later years, were for-
tunate enough to visit such regions, when a cruel civi-
lization had swept away most of the pirates, were sur-
prised to find that, fascinating as these atolls were, the
perfectly circular land rim of our geographies was the
rarest exception. Their form, often most irregular,
scarcely ever even approached a true circle. The land
rim, seldom continuous, and often broken by gaps of
submerged reef or deeper passages, was on the lee side
frequently little more than a line of breakers, with per-
haps here and there a bit of half-formed land rising
along its glistening curve. Sometimes the emerald green
of the atoll’s quiet lagoon would be bounded only by a
white ribbon of sinuous breakers pounding over a con-
vex coral reef.

It is impossible to suppose that these curious coral
formations have grown up from the depths of the ocean,
since twenty fathoms appears to be about the limit at
which reef-building corals usually flourish abundantly.
The poet naturalist Chamisso, who, from 1815 to 1818, ac-
companied Kotzebue on his voyage around the world, im-
agined that atolls grew on the summits of volcanic upheav-
als of the bed of the sea, which had reached sufficiently
near the surface to permit the corals to obtain a foothold.

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275

Darwin, on his return from the voyage in the Beagle,
first published in 1840 his well-known theory of the
formation of coral atolls, and their cousins the barrier
reefs, which, at some distance from the shore, encircle
an island or extend along a coast line, leaving a con-
siderable passage between them and the land.

Suppose Fig. 1 to represent an island along whose
edges corals have begun to grow, as shown by the
shaded portion A. Then, according to Darwin’s theory,
if we imagine the island gradually to subside at the same
rate at which the coral grows, we would in time find a
condition shown in the dotted lines, where B B repre-
sents the new sea level. A smaller island is now sur-
rounded by a barrier reef, the passage between them
caused by the favorable position of the outer rim for a
more luxuriant growth of coral.

Let Fig. 2 represent the second condition of the is-
land, the shaded parts showing the coral growth. Now

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

supposing the process to continue until the island is sub-
merged. This new condition is represented by the dotted
lines. C C is the new sea level ; nothing remains but a
lagoon enclosed in a circle of coral reef, which might
later be built up to form a lagoon island.

The beauty and simplicity of this theory of Darwin’s
appealed to the layman as well as to the man of science ;
it was strengthened by the investigations of Dana, pub-
lished in 1849, who as naturalist accompanied Captain
Wilkes on his memorable voyage from 1838 to 1842. For
many years it remained unquestioned as the true ex-
planation of the causes that had led to the creation of
these curious formations. But this theory does not rest
on the patient investigations that characterize Darwin’s
other work ; he himself says in his autobiography 1 that
it was formed before he even saw a coral reef. Keeling
wras the only atoll on which he ever landed, and his
investigation of barrier reefs was limited to Mauritius
and Tahiti. Dana’s observations, although more exten-
sive, appear to have been much curtailed by Wilkes’s
fear that his distinguished companion would be eaten by
savages.

Both Darwin and Dana, it may be noted, have assumed
a possibility as a fact, and the theory once given, have
attempted to prove the subsidence, instead of bringing
the subsidence of coral reefs in support of the theory.
Indeed, the advocates of Darwin’s view have assumed
a subsidence from the existence of atolls in regions
where there are innumerable proofs of elevation.

Gradually, a few men of science began to suspect that
the true explanation of the formation of coral reefs
might not be so simple. As early as the middle of the
1 Life and Letters, vol. i, p. 58.

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277

last century both Louis Agassiz and Le Conte had felt
the difficulty of applying Darwin’s theory of subsidence
to the conditions existing along the Straits of Florida.
Semper, who in 1863 visited the Pelew Islands, was
satisfied that the theory did not offer an explanation of
the formation of the coral reefs of that region ; and
Murray had returned from the voyage of the Challenger
convinced of the fallacy of the conception. Mr. Henry
0. Forbes, who visited Keeling Atoll some forty years
after Darwin, could not satisfy himself that there was
any proof of subsidence there, or that the causes cited by
the opponents of Darwin’s theory were not sufficient
to account for all the phenomena he observed. When
Agassiz was in Edinburgh, helping to distribute the
collections of the Challenger, he and Murray had many
talks on the subject, and Agassiz then expressed his
hope of investigating the question for himself.

During his cruise on the Blake, Agassiz satisfied him-
self that Darwin’s theory could not account either for
the formation of the Florida Reefs, or the Alacran Reef,
an atoll-shaped coral growth to the north of Yucatan*
For it seemed evident to him that subsidence could not
offer a correct explanation for events that had taken
place in regions of elevation, or districts that had long
remained stationary. He reached the conclusion that the
coral reefs of these localities had begun their growths
on banks which had been built up by various agen^
cies until they had reached a point where the depth was
suitable for the growth of corals, and that in this region
the coral reefs were a comparatively thin crust resting
on such foundations. The accuracy of this view for that
district is believed to have now been settled by the ex-
aminations of the borings of artesian wells, which show

278

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

the thinness of the coral formations. Writing to Huxley
at a somewhat later date, Agassiz says : —

“ A short time ago I received from an artesian well
at Key West samples of rock one thousand feet from
the surface, entirely made up of Foraminifera, debris of
Mollusks, Echinoderms, and Crustacea, rock very simi-
lar to that now forming on the Pourtales plateau olf
Key West in three hundred fathoms, and totally differ-
ent from coral reef rock, a strong probability that the
underlying rocks of the Florida plateau were built up
as I suggested from my dredgings of rock similar to that
of the Pourtales plateau up to the depth at which coral
reefs could begin to grow, when they took the promi-
nent part.”

The newer theories of the formation of coral reefs and
coral islands are chiefly associated with the names of
Agassiz and Murray, who were in the main in accord
in their ideas on the subject, though in some cases they
apparently differed as to the amount of work done by
modern corals, and seem to have placed somewhat dif-
ferent values on the relative efficiency of the action of
erosion, solution, and the scouring force of the ocean in
the formation of atolls and barrier reefs. Murray laid
much importance on the effects of solution in creating
lagoons and the passages between barrier reefs and the
land, while we shall see in Agassiz’s subsequent expe-
ditions the manner in which he believed them to have
been produced. In a letter to Huxley he says on this
point: “ I do not believe that solution as such has pro-
duced the effects Murray ascribes to it. It has been a
factor, but a more limited one than he assumes.”

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279

Stated roughly, Agassiz believed that corals, especially
modern corals, have played a far less important role in
the formation of atolls and barrier reefs than Darwin’s
theory would imply. The corals merely take up their
work after the banks and shoals prepared for them have
reached a suitable depth, or height, for their growth.
These shallows owe their existence to various causes,
which differ in different localities ; they may be due either
to accumulations of silt, deposits of the shells of marine
animals, the erosion of volcanic islands, or seolian lime-
stone hills, or other non-coralline limestones, and in
some cases they appear to have been formed from what
is apparently Tertiary coral rock. It is an essential part
of Agassiz’s theory, as will be explained in a later chap-
ter, that he considered the origin of these Tertiary coral
formations an entirely separate question from the method
of formation of modern coral growths.

It will readily be seen that Darwin’s theory demands
a very considerable thickness of coral formation. Thus
in any locality where the existence of only a compara-
tively thin layer of coral can be proved, it may be as-
sumed that Darwin’s theory does not hold good. On the
other hand, a thick mass of coral rock would not ne-
cessarily indicate subsidence ; for, as both Murray and
Agassiz have shown, such a formation might have orig-
inated from the growth of a coral reef pushing out to
sea on its own talus the debris of the reef, which, broken
off by the waves, had rolled down and built up its outer
slope. Furthermore, where a modern reef had obtained
a foothold on an eroded platform of older limestone con-
taining corals, it would often be exceedingly difficult by
boring to detect from the core the difference between
them.

280

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Although most naturalists who, since Dana’s day, have
examined coral reefs in the field have found difficulty in
reconciling what they saw with Darwin’s theory of sub-
sidence, still the idea proved singularly tenacious of life.
This was probably in part due to the authority that
would naturally be given to any statement of Darwin,
and perhaps also to a failure fully to recognize that
the question was in no way connected with the theory
of evolution.

It is worth emphasizing that the strongest opponents
of the new theories were men who had never seen a
coral reef, and may possibly have been in somewhat the
same attitude of mind as a frank layman of Agassiz’s
acquaintance, who confessed that, having acquired Dar-
win’s theory in his youth at the cost of much pain and
labor, he could not possibly assimilate another.

Had Darwin lived to see the mass of evidence contro-
verting his theory which has been collected since his
day, it does not seem improbable that he would greatly
have modified his views. Darwin used good-naturedly
to assure the elder Agassiz that if he lived long enough
he would be converted to his theories of evolution.
Might not Alexander have said the same to Darwin on
the subject of coral islands ?

Wishing to continue his study of coral reefs, begun
on the Blake, Agassiz spent several weeks at the Tor-
tugas in 1881, where he had quarters in Fort Jefferson.
He selected this spot because he then considered the
coral reefs of the Tortugas to offer a sort of epitome of
the probable method of the formation of the southern
part of the Peninsula of Florida.

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281

TO DARWIN

Tortugas, April 16, 1881.

It is very natural you should be in my mind, as I am
in the midst of corals. I came down here about six
weeks ago to study the surface fauna of the Gulf
Stream. The Coast Survey placed a small launch at
my disposal to go out and scour the surface when the
weather is favorable. Unfortunately thus far I have
had little chance to accomplish what I started to do, as
I find is nearly always the case on the seashore — you
never can do what you wish, but have to be satisfied
with what turns up. Thus far I have only found the
more common things with which I was familiar from
my former Blake experience and from meeting them
late in the fall at Newport.

I took advantage of bad weather to finish up a lot of
drawings and notes on Velella and Porpita, and have
some interesting things about the post-embryonic stages
of both, which I hope to publish next summer if I get
time to finish the drawings. The greater part of my
time I spend in running round inside the reef in the
launch and getting at the distribution of the different
genera of corals. The number of species here is not great,
so it makes their mapping out a simple matter. The Tor-
tugas being the very last of the Florida reefs I find much
that has not been noticed before and helps to explain,
somewhat differently from what was done by Father, the
formation of the reefs. On my way here I went across
the northern base of the Peninsula of Florida — from
Jacksonville to Cedar Keys, and found halfway across
a series of hammocks and old coral reefs, such as are
found in the Everglades at the southern extremity. In

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

tracing the growth of the reefs and the formation of
the Peninsula, I have come across no signs of any eleva-
tion. Everything, on the contrary, tends to show that the
immense plateau which forms the base upon which the
Peninsula of Florida is formed, was built up by the debris
of animal remains, — Mollusks, Corals, Echinoderms,
etc. (after it had originally reached a certain depth in
the ocean), until it reached the proper height for corals
to flourish. This here is not much deeper than seven
to eight fathoms ; generally six fathoms marks the limit.

* To the westward of this group of reefs is a coral reef
starting on a bank at a depth of seven fathoms.

I expect to publish a small map of the distribution of
the corals of the Tortugas as soon as I return home, in
my report of work (not done) to the Superintendent of
the Coast Survey. I shall, however, have first to finish
reading the proofs of the Challenger Echini, the last
pages of which I expect to find awaiting my return
home, and I trust you will see that Memoir out during
the summer.

To this Darwin replied in a letter characteristically
full of courtesy and open-mindedness, qualities not
always conspicuous in scientific discussions. It has al-
ready been published in “ More Letters of Charles Dar-
win,” but a few passages may not be out of place
here : —

“You will have seen Mr. Murray’s views on the
formation of atolls and barrier reefs. Before publishing
my book I thought long over the same view, but only
as far as ordinary marine organisms are concerned, for
at that time little was known of the multitude of min-

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283

ute oceanic organisms. I rejected this view as from the
few dredgings made in the Beagle in the South Temper-
ate regions, I concluded that shells, the smaller corals,
etc., etc., decayed and were dissolved, when not pro-
tected by the deposition of sediment ; and sediment
could not accumulate in the open ocean. ... I have
expressly said that a bank at the proper depth would
give rise to an atoll, which could not be distinguished
from one formed during subsidence. . . . Lastly, I can-
not understand Mr. Murray, who admits that small calcare-
ous organisms are dissolved by the carbonic acid in the
water at great depths, and that coral reefs, etc., etc.,
are likewise dissolved near the surface, but that this
does not occur at intermediate depths, where he believes
that the minute oceanic calcareous organisms accumu-
late until the bank reaches within the reef-building
depth. But I suppose that I must have misunderstood
him. Pray forgive me for troubling you at such length,
but it has occurred to me that you might be disposed to
give, after your wide experience, your judgment. If I
am wrong, the sooner I am knocked on the head and
annihilated, so much the better. It still seems to me a
marvelous thing that there should not have been much
and long-continued subsidence in the beds of the great
oceans.,,

Murray at the time does not appear to have made his
point clear to either Darwin or Agassiz that the forma-
tion of a bank by the deposit of the shells of small pe-
lagic animals falling to the bottom, was merely a ques-
tion of their accumulating faster than they dissolved.
Before reaching great depths, the shells would, in
falling slowly through the water, be dissolved faster

284

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

than they accumulated on the bottom. This would also
be the case in shallow water, where a thin layer of
pelagic life would not furnish so many shells. At inter-
mediate depths, on the other hand, the shells, having
less distance to fall, would be less dissolved, and would
accumulate.

TO DARWIN

Cambridge, May 19, 1881.

I find on my return from the Tortugas your most
welcome letter of May 5. I am now at work on the Re-
port of the Coral Reefs of the Tortugas, and hope dur-
ing the course of the summer to be able to send it to
you. As you well say, the fact that the Peninsula of
Florida should have remained at the same level for so
long a time is most surprising. This I consider to be in
part due to the original orographic conditions of the
Gulf of Mexico, as we have not only the Florida Penin-
sula but other equally important banks: Yucatan, Ba-
hamas, and San Pedro Banks, all of which are character-
ized by a general dead level which they have evidently
kept for an immense period of time. Yet on the other
side of the Straits of Florida and all along* the line of
the larger Antilles, as far as Barbados, and along the
northern of the Windward Islands, we have the most
distinct proof of elevation. . . .

I should feel at present inclined to assign to the action
of large marine animals (such as Gorgonise, Starfishes,
Mollusks, Echinoderms, Deep-sea Corals, Crustacea, etc.)
a more important part in building up a plateau, up to
the height at which corals can thrive, than to the pelagic
fauna which I would look upon more as the cementing
medium, but which, however, in some localities, such as

CORAL REEFS

285

are in the track of great oceanic currents, as the San
Pedro, Yucatan and Florida and Bahama Banks, do yet
form an important bulk in the mass of the debris added
to the original bank, the level of which was due to the
folding of the crust in much earlier periods, at a time
when the principal orographic features were laid down.
My experience has been that shells, etc., in these pla-
teaus which are in the track of currents, are fairly wrell
preserved after death, although covered with mud (made
up mainly of the coral ooze and of Globigerina ooze)
which cemented them to the older layer of dead shells,
etc., below, and formed the base upon which the present
living forms were thriving. Your objection that there
is not great probability of finding in the Pacific as many
banks as there are atolls is certainly a very strong one
and one which seems to me can only be met by showing in
subsequent surveys that these atolls are themselves only
slightly raised patches upon large banks, the orography
of which we do not as yet know. This is a problem in
hydrography of the Pacific which I have had in view for
a long time and hope to solve one of these days.

With reference to the chemistry of the reefs and the
action of all this large amount of carbonate of lime held
in suspense in the water, I must acknowledge I know
nothing, and I do not see the why of the action of car-
bonic acid as a solvent at one depth and not at another
— if not in exact proportions to the pressure. This part
of Murray’s argument seems to me untenable, if I un-
derstand him correctly, and we seem to have viewed his
explanation alike. There is constant talk of making bor-
ings at St. Augustine for sinking artesian wells, and
whenever they start I shall be sure to keep close watch
of their proceedings, which ought to settle a good

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

many doubtful points as to the structure of the Florida
Peniusula.

I am much pleased at what you say of my address ;
the part you refer to is just the one which seemed to
me to throw some light on the infinite lines of affinities,
which close study reveals, among otherwise distinctly
related groups, and it was the very difficulty of express-
ing this affinity by any of our present methods of nota-
tion which made me almost despair of doing more than
to follow a single character in its endless modifications
in time and space.

During a visit to the Hawaiian Islands in 1885, his
examination of the coral reefs convinced Agassiz that
this was another region not explained by Darwin’s theory.
The only indications of subsidence he found were slight
and local ; and he explains the great width of some of
the reefs by the growth of the corals seaward on their
own talus, a process which he points out might in time
produce a very great thickness of coral rock. In some
places, as in Kaneohe Bay, he was able to determine
that the modern reef forms only a thin crust over the
underlying volcanic rock. He believed the barrier reef
of Kaneohe Bay to rest upon a platform formed by the
washing down and disintegration of a lava crest to a
depth at which corals could flourish — the first instance
where such a formation had been noted. He was also
able to show that the more elevated limestone rocks
were aeolian, that is, they had been formed of the sand
from coral beaches blown into dunes by the action of
the wind, and cemented by rain-water into rock.

The supporters of Darwin’s theory answered Agassiz’s
report on the coral reefs of the Hawaiian Islands by

CORAL REEFS

287

replying that, granted the correctness of Agassiz’s
views, the district was simply another exceptional area.
This criticism he was destined to meet with such tanta-
lizing frequency in after years, that his subsequent ex-
peditions might almost be called a search for a typical
coral region.

CHAPTER XIII

1893-1894

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

The exploration in 1893 of the Bahamas and the
Cuban coast was the first of Agassiz’s expeditions hav-
ing for its main object the study of coral reefs. For
this voyage Mr. J. M. Forbes lent him the auxiliary
steam yacht Wild Duck, and through the kindness of
the State Department, the Spanish authorities granted
the yacht free access to all Cuban ports. In order fur-
ther to facilitate the expedition, the Superintendent of
the Coast Survey appointed Agassiz an “ Acting As-
sistant,” remarking in his letter that there was but one
other assistant of this “ grade and rank,” a Jesuit Father
in Alaska, so that it was evident that the distribution
of such favors was not influenced by politics or religion.

The Wild Duck was a light-draught, small displace-
ment schooner, about one hundred and twenty-five feet
on the water line, whose engine enabled her to steam
about ten knots an hour. To give an added interest to
the expedition, Agassiz equipped her for pelagic work.
The Fish Commission lent a Tanner sounding machine,
and the Coast Survey some deep-sea thermometers. Six
hundred fathoms of wire rope were put on board, to-
gether with several Tanner closing nets, dredges, trawls,
and tow nets. By increasing the diameter of the steam
capstan with lagging, the wire rope could be hauled in
at the rate of one hundred fathoms in eight minutes.

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289

It was found, however, that in a boat of this type and
size it was impossible to handle the apparatus in the
long roll of the trades, without the greatest danger of
injury to it, and less pelagic work was accomplished than
was at first intended.

Agassiz joined the yacht at Jacksonville; he had with
him, as assistants, his son Maximilian, the photographer
of the trip; Dr. A. G. Mayer, a former student of the
Newport Laboratory ; and Mr. J. H. Emerton, the zoo-
logical artist. Leaving Jacksonville on January 8, the
party sailed directly for Nassau, which they made their
headquarters. Here they were fortunate in securing the
best pilot of those regions, a darkey who had been in
the service of the Government for twenty years and
was supposed to know everything that a black man can.
Profiting by the light draught of the Wild Duck, and
the exceptional skill of his pilot, Agassiz was enabled
to cross the banks in all directions and penetrate into
regions otherwise inaccessible. Many of these trips on
the banks tested the pilot’s ability to the utmost; for
with marvelous skill he worked the yacht across the
sandbars over one spit and then another, using only the
eye or the bearing of some distant little cay. On more
than one occasion they anchored in such unusual places
for a vessel of their size, that the spongers swooped
down on them under the impression that they had gone
aground — and were much disappointed at being de-
frauded of a first-class wrecking party. “ Such a set of
darkey cut-throats I should not care to have landed on
my deck if my vessel was ashore — they looked as if
they would leave you but little show.”

The first cruise 1 embraced the outer chain of islands,
1 See Chart 1.

290

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

from Eleuthera as far east as Turk’s Island. Touching
at Watling’s Island, the first landfall of Columbus,
Agassiz compared the shores of the island with the de-
scriptions given by Columbus, and satisfied himself that
the spot selected by Sir Henry Blake was the place where
Columbus first landed in the New World. This bit of the
shore, known as Columbus Bight, is situated well down
on the east coast of the island.

From Turk’s Island the yacht headed for Cape Maysi,
and then, skirting along close to the southern shore of
Cuba, put into Santiago for coal and supplies.

Santiago de Cuba,

January 25, 1893.

“ We had a most interesting trip yesterday to the iron
mines near here, at a place called Juragua. The most
important mines belong to the Pennsylvania Steel Com-
pany and to the Bethlehem Iron Company ; they own
a large territory and run their works at Steelton, Spar-
row Point, and Bethlehem entirely on the product
shipped from here, which in all amounts to about
500,000 tons a year. The General Manager is a Ger-
man, a Pennsylvania Dutchman, and the bulk of the
officials are of the same mixed nationality. We left here
early in the morning at six, just at daylight, — that ’s
the time all trains start, and went up in what they call
the Director’s Car, a small locomotive on four wheels
with seats for six. All the way to the mine, about six-
teen miles by rail, the geology was most interesting, and
I managed to do a good bit of work of seeing, by stop-
ping off and on. For nearly eight miles the railroad
runs on one of the elevated coral reefs, about twenty
feet above the level of the sea, and I managed at a

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

291

place called L , where the railroad strikes off inland,

to make an excellent collection of corals from the ter-
race, while the locomotive wras waiting for its right of
way. The officials of the mine were quite as interested
in that part of my visit as in anything else, and we got
crowbars, chisels, and all kinds of tools to cut out some
good-sized heads, which are now safely on board. There
are three parallel elevated terraces here off this part of
the coast, and from the highest, one hundred and sixty
feet above the level of the sea, I got some coral heads
also. If I have as good luck at Baracoa on the elevated
reefs there, and along the north coast, I shall have no
cause to complain. A day like yesterday goes far to ex-
plain a lot of things.

I only wish we could stay out longer and not be
obliged to go in for coal and ice so often and waste so
much time in port. But I am thankful for what I have ;
it means simply a little less work and a good deal more
expense than if I had such a boat as the Albatross,
when you can stay out thirty days, and then spend no
more time fitting out again than we do. The Messrs.
Brooks & Company, to whom I gave my letter of credit,
were most polite to us, and all the people here in charge
of anything have simply been devotion itself. But
everything in Spanish ports costs about twice as much
as in Nassau, and this is the last time I shall fit out in a
Spanish port, I hope. But what I have seen has fully
paid so far. I fancy this trip will cure me of any other
similar yachting cruise. It looks to me as if it were a
little too much for a private party.”

Again skirting the coast to Cape Maysi, and later,
on a trip along the north shore of Cuba, Agassiz was

292

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

able to get an excellent impression of the elevated ter-
races that form such an important feature of this part
of the coast of Cuba. On the way north from the east
end of Cuba, after touching at Inagua, the yacht an-
chored in Hogsty Reef. This is a horseshoe-shaped line
of breakers with an opening at the western end into an
enclosed lagoon, and forms an atoll about five miles
by three, which, with the exception of two little cays,
one on each side of the entrance, composed of broken
fragments of coral, has not yet had time to make any
land. The line of coral reef over which the sea breaks,
except in one or two exposed spots, has at least a foot
to a foot and a half of water over it even at low tide,
but as the reef was some one thousand yards wide, the
interior of the lagoon was quite calm, though encircled
by bands of white combers piled up by the heavy roll
of the trade winds pounding on the flats.

Agassiz, now for the first time anchored in a lagoon,
was much impressed by the novelty and strangeness of
riding quietly in three fathoms of water, surrounded by
lines of huge breakers, with nine hundred fathoms a
short distance beyond, and forty-five miles to the near-
est land.

Here he passed three days, surveying, sounding,
and investigating ; and reached the conclusion that the
atoll was probably formed by a growth of coral on a
bank previously formed by the wearing away of a series
of small seolian hills. The existence of the lagoon he
attributed to the mechanical action of the surf rushing
over the reef. For he thought the mass of water poured
over the rim would be a sufficient scouring force in time
to hollow out the lagoon within, where, moreover, the
conditions were less favorable to a luxuriant growth of

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

293

coral. This view was strengthened by his examination,
the following year, of the so-called small Serpulse atolls
in the Bermudas, which are undoubtedly made in this
way. But his judgment in the matter was still in the
balance, for he asks, “ How deep can it act on a large
scale so as to produce an effective result ? ”

The next anchorage was on Crooked Island Bank,
where the pilot managed to find two and a half fathoms,
at a spot marked one fathom on the chart. Leaving
Crooked Island the yacht visited Long Island and Great
Exuma, steamed along the line of cays that skirt Exuma
Sound, and entering the bank at Conch Cut crossed to
the Tongue of the Ocean, and so back to Nassau.

On his second cruise he explored the bank as far as
Great Ragged Island, the point from which Columbus
sailed for Cuba. From there Agassiz struck across to
Baracoa on the northeastern end of Cuba, and cruised
along the north shore as far as Havana, stopping at
numerous ports and islands to examine the geology of the
coast. He was much interested in the flask-shaped har-
bors, so characteristic of the Cuban shores, and came to
the conclusion that they were due to the gradual cutting
away of the drainage area, of which they are the sinks,
during the elevation of the coast. Everywhere he was
received with the greatest courtesy and consideration,
the captains of all the ports having been instructed to
allow him to go in and out as he pleased, without the
usual formalities.

The following letter was written at various times after
leaving Havana, as the ship zigzagged from island to
island back to Nassau : —

294

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

On Board the Wild Duck,
Feb. 27, et seq., 1893.

“ We left Havana the 24th with a splendid day, which
enabled me to do a lot of deep-sea towing just outside
of Morro Castle in deep water, and most successful it
was. We had a splendid run to Salt Key Bank, visited
Cay Sal, double headed Shot Cay, where there is a fine
light on the English side of the Gulf Stream, and where
we have found a nice old Scotchman and his wife who
had not seen a soul for three months ! They live on a
bare rock, but the house is quite comfortable, and what
with goats and hens and fishing they manage to get a
little variety in their food. We left them some sugar, of
which they were out, to their great delight. We then
went to the southern islands of the Auguila Bank, and
from there crossed to the Great Bahama Bank again,
and to-day w^e have been exploring two points of the
Island which have been most interesting and instructive
and have given me just the clue I wanted to settle the
cause of the present configuration of the Bahamas, so
that the cruise has been eminently satisfactory.

“ . . . Since we left Andros we have had magnificent
weather; from Billy Island at the north end of the
Island, we crossed the bank to Orange Cay, and had as
smooth a day as we well could have and just enough
breeze to keep us cool. From Orange Cay we ran up to
Gun Cay, where we anchored for the night and exam-
ined the Island the next a.m. before starting. We then
steamed along a lot of islands which could be as well
examined from the deck as we passed, and landed next
at Great Isaac, one of the most interesting islands of
the group. It seemed to have a little of everything which
I wanted to see. Next came a lot of diminutive islets,

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

295

no larger than a man’s head, and then we had a run of
forty miles across the bank again to reach Great Harbor
near Stirrup Cay, where we anchored last night close
to a lighthouse, which enabled us to make the port ; but
anyway the moonlight was so bright that we could have
gone in anywhere, and the evening sail was perfect.

From Stirrup Cay, where we were anchored in the
prettiest little bay you can imagine, we steamed close
along the Berry Islands and crossed over to Andros to
Mastie Point where young Chamberlain1 has a sisal plan-
tation. We fired a gun as we anchored off one of the
most beautiful coral reefs I have ever seen, and rowed
inside the surf to his wharf, close to which he has built
a most comfortable and roomy house of the Nassau
pattern. He has two thousand acres in cultivation,
but I fancy leads an absolutely isolated life. He has
one English assistant — everybody else black as the ace
of spades.

“We arrived at Nassau late last night, having sud-
denly given up the last part of our cruise, as the weather
looked threatening, and the pilot did not think it pru-
dent to anchor off Andros in case a norther came up,
as all the appearances indicated.”

The rest of the voyage Agassiz devoted to a trip
among the islands to the north of Nassau, and to nu-
merous short expeditions from Nassau as a base. In his
three months’ wanderings in the Bahamas he travelled
nearly four thousand five hundred miles in all possible
directions, and visited most of the islands. Late in March
he left the yacht in Florida and reached Cambridge early
in April.

1 Son of the English statesman.

296

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

What he saw of the elevated terraces of eastern Cuba
convinced him that his first examination of this coast,
made many years before, had led him to misinterpret
their true nature. In common with other naturalists, he
had supposed that all these elevated limestones were
coral reef rock, representing coral reefs perhaps twelve
to fifteen hundred feet thick. He was now able to satisfy
himself that the first terrace was a true coral reef which
had been elevated to a height of thirty feet or less. The
limestones of the second, third, and higher terraces, on
the other hand, he considered were of older age and dif-
ferent origin than those of the first elevated reef which
flanks the shore. Although he found an occasional mass
of a species of reef-building coral in the older limestone,
this did not lead him to believe that these rocks belong
to the group of reef-building corals, any more than he
would have spoken of a few isolated heads of reef-
building species found along any shore line as consti-
tuting a coral reef. Moreover, since he found the older
limestone underlying the coral reef rock of the first ter-
race, he was inclined to believe that the presence of the
fossil corals in the higher terraces might be explained as
the remains of a similar veneer of about the same thick-
ness as the first terrace, say twenty-five to thirty feet,
which had covered the higher terraces at the time of
their elevation.

Recognizing the necessity of a more careful survey
by a younger man, Agassiz afterwards sent Professor
Robert T. Hill to investigate this question. Hill was
able to establish the Tertiary origin of the older lime-
stones of which he writes : “ In fact I do not believe
that any of the Tertiary limestones are of reef rock
origin, but they are mostly organic and chemically

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

297

derived marine sediments, mixed with the calcareous
debris of the life of the ocean’s slopes.” Professor Hill
was also able to trace a post-Tertiary folding in the older
limestones, and so establish an unconformity between
the older limestone and the modern reef rock , which
separated them into two distinct systems. From all of
which we seem led to the interesting conclusion that
the reef-building corals have played a far smaller part
in the formation of the terraces of Cuba than was pre-
viously supposed.

Agassiz found that the Bahamas, as far as Turk’s
Island, were of aeolian origin. They were formed at a
time when the banks must have been one huge irregu-
larly shaped mass of lowland. From the sand of its
great sea beaches, successive ranges of dunes were blown
up, such as are still found at New Providence, which
the action of the rain and spray has hardened into aeolian
rock.

He assumed that the “ ocean holes ” which he sur-
veyed on the bank were made above water, and are
similar to the holes found in the aeolian rocks on land,
and concluded that the Bahamas have subsided about
three hundred feet since the formation of the aeolian
land. During this subsidence the wasting forces of the
sea and air have little by little eaten away the land,
leaving only here and there narrow strips in the shape
of the present islands. The modern coral reefs form
but a very insignificant part in the topography of the
islands and have had nothing to do with the building
up of the islands beyond filling here and there a
bight or a cove with more modern reef rock, and they
form but a comparatively thin coating on the aeolian
rock.

298

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

As a result of this investigation of the Bahamas,
Agassiz believed them to embrace another region of
coral reefs whose formation could not be explained by
Darwin’s theory.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Cambridge, April 13, 1893.

A few days ago I got back from my trip to the
Bahamas. I was quite successful as far as the general
reconnaissance of the islands is concerned, but I have
learned little more regarding coral reefs and am as far
in the dark on the subject of the underlying rocks plateau
as I was before I left. It looks to me now as if nothing
but a series of systematic diamond drill explorations
would settle the disputed points. And I should greatly
like next year, if it does not cost too much, to do a
little drilling — one hole in Florida, which has been
stationary — one hole in the Bahamas, where there has
been a slight subsidence — and one hole along the Cuban
coast somewhere right through the elevated coral reef
terraces, unless I can find a better place in Jamaica,
which I do not know.

By the way, I am satisfied that the same causes
which have given the Bahamas their present physiog-
nomy have been the cause of the Bermudas assuming
their present outline. The coral reefs have of late (geo-
logically late) had absolutely nothing to do with this,
and the talk about the present reefs of the Bermudas
and Bahamas having been instrumental, owing to sub-
sidence, in giving those islands their present shape, is
all moonshine. There is nothing to be seen at the
Bermudas or Bahamas which gives us any clue of how
these islands were formed by the reefs — we are as

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

299

much in the dark in regard to their early origin as
ever. The enclosed will give you a little sketch of what
I have seen. I had a beastly time, thanks to unusually
heavy trades which made pelagic work very difficult, so
I did but little. It was aggravating, as I hoped to do
lots, having two artists on board who simply ate their
heads off! Has not the British Association for the
Advancement of Science appointed a committee to act
on the boring of coral reefs? If so, who is the active
man and what do they propose doing?

TO HUXLEY

Cambridge, Dec. 24, 1893.

The old year is so far gone that I must not forget to
send you my best wishes for the new. I am trying the
experiment of staying at home this winter and putting
my affairs to rights, which have got badly mixed from
my frequent and prolonged absences. I hope the doctor
will let me remain here, but I fear some fine morning
he will pounce upon me and ship me South. I hoped
this winter to continue my explorations of the coral
reefs of the West Indies, and my experiments on the
bathymetrical distribution of the surface fauna. I don’t
believe a word of all the pretty theories my German
friends have. It \s very strange how they always mam
age to find something at any depth they wish. My
machinery never works that way, and as I have tried a
hundred times to their once, I feel naturally very skep-
tical. But my scheme could not be managed this year,
— no yacht to be had.

My Bahamas notes are now well written out, and
I hope to get out this first contribution to the history
of the West Indian coral reefs during the summer.

O

300

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Tt is becoming* very evident that the whole theory
is pretty complicated and coral reefs have done far less
work than they have been credited with, at least in the
Bahamas.

My Reports on the Albatross Expedition of 1891 are
making fine progress and I hope to get out this year
(’94) the Holothurians and the Crustaceans. Both these
Memoirs will have colored Plates, giving a good idea of
the looks of many of these deep-sea beasts. Dr. Pelsener
wrote me the other day to ask for the Blake Spirula which
you sent back, and for the life of me it cannot be found,
it has been so admirably put away ! — by some zealous
person too orderly inclined.

My youngest son has managed to become engaged to
a very charming girl from Philadelphia. I am somewhat
taken aback ; not having had any experience with daugh-
ters I hardly know how to behave. So far it ’s a very
delightful experience.

After his visit to the Bahamas it was natural that
Agassiz should turn his attention to the Bermudas;
writing from Cambridge early in 1894, he says to Mur-
ray of this proposed visit : “ So far I have managed to
stay here without any great detriment and am getting
fat on it. But the doctor does not think it very safe for
me to stay much longer, and by the middle of next
month I ’ll make a visit to the Bermudas.”

He spent nearly a month there, examining the struc-
ture of the group and concluded that the Bermudas
offered an epitome, as it were, of the physical changes
undergone by the Bahamas. The following letter gives
an excellent idea of his views on the formation of this
region : —

O

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

301

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Hamilton, Bermudas,
March 12, 1894.

I Ve been here nearly a couple of weeks examining
the islands and running out to the reefs whenever the
weather will allow. I Ve had so far not many pleasant
days. March is nearly as windy here as at home, but of
course far preferable. There is an excellent tug of which
I have the refusal every morning ; this has enabled me
to see a good deal in a very short time. I Ve made four
sections across the reefs and am quite satisfied that corals
here have had still less to do with the present configura-
tion of the islands than at the Bahamas. The problem
here is practically the same, but the corals are so unimpor-
tant an element in the so-called reef as to form practically
the thinnest kind of veneer over the ledges of seolian
rocks which form the so-called Northern, Western, and
Eastern Reefs.

The Northern Rock, Mills Breaker, and a lot of rocks
which are awash, are all of seolian formation, the rem-
nants of the former Proto Bermudas land when it occu-
pied the greater part of the bank as an oval highland
full of seolian hills which have been eroded and eaten
away, and left the ledge on which the thin veneer of
corals, Alcyonoid, and Millepore have built. All the
patches between the outer reef and the islands are simi-
larly fragments of the former land coming within the
five fathom line quite close to the L W M, many of them,
and veneered in the same way. That these patches are
nothing but sunken islets and ledges can be plainly seen
anywhere along the north and south shores, where they
are still actively forming, especially on the south shore,

302

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

where the so-called reef is nothing: but a series of islets
and ledges overgrown by Serpulae and Algae, which, in
the long stretch from Tinker’s Farm [?] to the Gibb’s
Hill Bay on the south shore, form no end of atolls, bar-
rier reefs, and crescent-shaped reefs. But the rising rim

is not formed by the growth
of the Serpulae. The outer
edge is merely protected by
Serpulae and Algae, and the

-H.W.M. & ’ .

suit breaking over that pro-
tected edge digs out a deep
hole and thus are formed
potholes (atolls) or crescent-
shaped reefs, if there is an outlet broken out, or a barrier
reef if it is a shore ledge which is acted upon by the surf.

I had before seeing these little atolls always supposed
the vertical walls were built up by the Serpulae, but it ’s
no such thing — four to six inches is the highest Ser-
pulae thickness I ’ve found, and everywhere where I have
looked into the rim of an atoll, etc., it has always been
made up of ceolian rocks ! — the walls left by the eating
and scouring of the surf on blocks of aeolian rocks, of
all shapes, after they have been reduced to the line of
the sea. This
will show you
my idea : —

When the
rock A [Fig.l]
is cut if at
H W M, it
leaves a flat ledge at L W M / the block A falls to one
side and is, according to its size and thickness, then acted
upon by the surf and breakers, and disintegrated accord-

- H.W.M.

L.W.M.

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

303

ing to the angle at which the strata meet the sea, and
may in its turn form one of the Serpulae atolls or knobs.
The ledge which is left [Fig. 2] below L W My composed

of seolian strata which have been cemented together by
the solving action of the sea, is coated by a hard crust.
Algae and Serpulse and all the beasts of a Serpula atoll
are already growing upon the ledge. But as soon as the
water instead of playing round the ledge begins to break
upon it, it will soon eat away the softer part of the in-
terior, or where not so well protected and, according to
the slope of the strata of the ledge, will form an atoll if
horizontal, if a little inclined a crescent-shaped reef, and
if it is a thin ledge a barrier reef, as per sketches.

From horizontal strata the Algae and Serpulse may
cover the bottom slope A C or B O [Figs. 3 and 4], but
if the surf is too great the sides E F are broken off,
and thus are formed
isolated broken walls
of all shapes and out-
lines. [Fig. 5.]

If the strata are dip-
ping and in the same block, we may have, as in all
seolian rocks, strata dipping at all angles, which will
account for the diversified shapes.

•=§>

Fig. 5

304

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

H.W M.

L.W M.

Fig. 6

The mushroom rock is eaten away, or rather pounded

away, along the
line A C [Fig.
6], leaving a
crescent - shaped
wall at the level
Ay and the water
all falls out at C

[Fig-7].

At the foot of a vertical cliff a ledge is frequently
formed [Fig. 8], and the surf
during low tide pounds over
A and cuts away all the dotted
part A Cy forming a regular
barrier reef at the foot of the
cliff, with as much as eight
feet in one case, a regular
slope from A to C, If this
slope is protected by Algae or corallines, it is not eaten

away, otherwise
it may make a
pothole inside
the wall. Then
vertical walls are
of all shapes,
winding around

and twisting,
forming all kinds
of reentering

curves [Fig. 10],
Fig. 8 Now before I

had seen these

Serpulae atolls, I had come to the conclusion that the

Fig. 7

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

305

Hogsty Reef (atoll) [Fig. 11], five miles by two and a
half, had been formed by the scouring of the surf, just

in the way represented by the preceding crescent-shaped
reef (Serpulse Algae atoll). The corals had grown and
formed a barrier over which the surf broke and dug out
the atoll. But the atoll was not formed by the growth
of the coral during subsidence, as it is only a few feet
thick on a sub-basis of seolian hills which have disap-
peared, and when that bank got a proper depth for corals,
they flourished. One thing is very plain, that while to
subsidence the present configuration of the Bahamas and
Bermudas is due, that is a very different thing from
saying that the reefs which surrounded the islands and
banks as a thin veneer
are the cause of the
forming of the atoll-
shaped islands keep-
ing pace with the
subsidence, when a
few feet below the coral is found the seolian rock ! !

I don’t yet know what my plans are to be this early

306 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

summer — the Dolomites or Calumet — I much fear
the latter.

Agassiz always intended to pay a visit to the Dolo-
mites and see for himself if these limestones are coral reef
rocks, as some geologists assert ; but though the excur-
sion was frequently contemplated, something always
arose to prevent its actually taking place. On this occa-
sion he developed some trouble with his throat, and the
doctor considered that it would be unwise for him to go
abroad and attend scientific meetings, so he spent his
summer quietly at Newport writing up his reports on
the Bahamas and Bermudas.

Agassiz’s previous conclusions as to the probable
method of formation of the lower coast of Florida were
upset by his exploration of the Bahamas and Bermudas.
In order to make a further examination of the Florida
reefs he chartered the Clyde, an ordinary small tug with
four berths in the cabin, which were occupied by the
Captain, the Engineer, his son Max, and himself. He
joined the boat at Key West in the middle of December,
1894.

On Board the Tug Clyde,

off Key West, Dec. 22, 1894.

“ We are already halfway nearly down from the most
northerly point, Key Biscayne Bay. We have had splen-
did weather so far, except last night going from Elliott
Key to Cape Florida it was pretty rough for a couple
of hours, but Max and I stood it well. I am more than
pleased to have taken this trip. I shall have to modify my
views on the Florida reef greatly and never could have
done it had I not seen the Bahamas and the Bermudas.

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS

307

We have landed on the way up at all the interesting
points on the Keys — and on the way down I am taking
the outer reef and the reefs in the intervening channel.

When up at Key Biscay ne it suddenly came across
me that I had not been there since I was quite a small
boy in the winter of 1850-51, when I distinguished my-
self by falling down the hatch of a Coast Survey vessel
and being picked up for dead and laid out on the sofa
of the cabin, where, however, I soon came to and have
been pretty lively ever since. We then examined pretty
nearly the same rock exposures I examined then in
Father’s company, only what he saw, and which I sup-
posed he had seen, does not exist — but no one who has
not seen Bahamas and Bermudas would have written
differently. I have found the old reef which runs all the
way from Key West to Key Biscayne, which has been
elevated just like the Cuban reef, but only not more
than six to twenty feet at the outside. Everybody has
looked upon this inner reef as similar to the outer sea-
faced [reef] formed in the same way. What I said about
the Tortugas is, I think, all right, for I was not then look-
ing at the Keys in the eyes of what had been dinned
into me by Father.”

On this expedition Agassiz was surprised to find that
Lower Matecumbe Key was edged by a slightly elevated
coral reef, which he was able to trace as far as the keys
off the central part of Key Biscayne Bay. From his
present investigations, combined with the results of the
borings at Key West, he reached the conclusion that in
Pliocene times the landward extension of what is known
as the Pourtales plateau stretched in a series of bars and
flats from the outer reef of to-day many miles inland of

308

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

what is now the coast line of the mainland. On these
bars and flats corals began to grow in post-Pliocene
times, and as the thickness of this reef is not over fifty
feet, the greatest depth at which the corals began to
grow was probably considerably less than the greatest
depth at which corals are known to thrive.

The reef was slightly raised and then eroded, leaving
patches of elevated reef and coral sand beaches; this
sand has been blown up to form the seolian rock of the
keys, which has solidified into hard ringing limestone
by the action of rain or sea spray, while the coast line of
the mainland he believes to have been formed in a
similar way. He believed that the sounds that separated
the keys from the mainland are due to the mechanical
and solvent action of the sea, while the ship channel
separating the outer line of reef patches from the main
line of keys probably represents a sink of greater ex-
tension which the currents have swept clean and subse-
quently deepened. “ Finally, it is upon the remnants of
the old elevated reef that the present growing reef
flourishes, forming, as it does in the Bahamas and Ber-
mudas, a comparatively thin crust upon the underlying
foundation rocks, which are now known to be Pliocene,
and which occur at a depth considerably less than that
at which reef corals are known to grow.”

Griswold and others are of the opinion that the
oolites of the mainland were laid down under water.
Agassiz, on the other hand, considers them seolian, and
explains their stratification by the action of rainwater
containing carbonic acid on successive layers of coral
sand, more or less mixed with quartz sand. The rain
would take up a little lime, and on evaporation would

THE BAHAMAS AND BERMUDAS 309

form successive crust lines of demarcation between the
various layers of sand.

Agassiz again visited the region in 1908, when the
quarry back of Miami and the cuttings of the railroad
to the south had made some interesting sections which
furnished material not available on his previous exam-
inations. The results of this expedition were never pub-
lished, but from his notes there seems no reason to
believe that his views of the formation of that part of
the Peninsula were materially changed.

CHAPTER XIV

1896

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

Agassiz selected the Great Barrier Reef of Australia
for the goal of his next expedition, as he wished to deter-
mine whether the causes instrumental in creating the
coral regions about the Antilles were as local as some of
the scientific men of the old school believed. This great
reef, stretching for hundreds of miles along the north-
eastern shores of the island continent, seemed an excellent
place for the purpose. Not only had Darwin especially
cited the Great Barrier Reef in support of his theory,
but J. B. Jukes, who visited it in the Fly, also concluded
that the formation of the reef was due to subsidence.
Judging from a magnificently illustrated volume on the
Great Barrier Reef which appeared in 1893, W. Saville
Kent also seemed to believe that the theory of subsidence
must be true, because it had been adopted as an ele-
mentary axiom in the “ leading Australian handbooks.”

“ The Voyage of the Fly,” published by Jukes in
1847, gives a remarkably accurate description of parts of
the reef. In order to explain its formation by Darwin’s
theory, Jukes makes use of the accompanying imaginary
section.

Since reef-building corals will not grow much below
twenty fathoms, the great mass of coral rock F, which
the theory demands, could not possibly have been formed
by corals growing up from the bottom. The supporters

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

311

of the theory, therefore, assume the land to have been
higher at the time the corals began to grow, than at pre-
sent, so that the coast line then reached the line of the
outer reef b. As the land gradually sank, the corals
grew up, keeping pace with the incursion of the ocean,
finally producing the tremendous buttress of coral rock

a. Sea outside the barrier, generally unfathomable.

b. The actual barrier.

c. Clear channel inside the barrier, generally about fifteen to twenty fathoms
deep.

d. The inner reef.

e. Shoal channel between the inner reef and the shore.

F. The great buttress of calcareous rock, formed of coral and the detritus of
corals and shells.

G. The mainland, formed of granites and other similar rocks.

that overlies the sunken land, and stretches out from
the present shore line.

Agassiz began the preparations for this expedition
months in advance, and every detail was most carefully
thought out and provided for. Indeed, he exercised
the same careful forethought in the organization and
equipment of all his cruises. Knowing the labor and
care necessary to arrange for what he called “ one of
his own little trips,” he was always amazed at the work it
must have required to fit out for such a voyage, for ex-
ample, as Nansen’s exploration in the Fram.

A small cargo steamer, the Croyden, was chartered

312

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

from the Australasian Navigation Company. Suitable
quarters for Agassiz and his assistants were built into
the boat ; she was fully provisioned for two months,
and arrangements were made for insuring a supply of
coal at points where it would be needed along the coast.
Captain Tanner kindly took charge of the building of
a sounding machine and deep-sea nets for the expedition.
These, with a complete and extensive outfit for pelagic
fishing, w^ere forwarded in advance to Sydney. In the
midst of the preparations Cleveland delivered his Vene-
zuela message, which for the moment so strained the
relations between the United States and Great Britain.
The owners of the Croyden at once telegraphed, asking
for a release from their contract owing to the prospect
of war, but Agassiz telegraphed back laughing at their
apprehensions. Through the State Department he ob-
tained, from the Foreign Office in London, letters to
the Governor of New South Wales and the officer ad-
ministering the Government of Queensland, so that he
everywhere received much courtesy, and every opportu-
nity was offered him for carrying on his work.

Three assistants, Dr. W. McM. Woodworth, Dr. A.
G. Mayer, both then members of the Museum staff, and
his son Maximilian, accompanied Agassiz, who left for
Australia via San Francisco early in the spring of 1896,
reaching Sydney in the midst of the four or five days
of Easter holidays. The Croyden was in dry dock wait-
ing for her finishing touches, and he was much exaspe-
rated to find that nothing could be done till the end of
the holidays. While waiting he made an excursion into
the interior, where in common with other travellers he
felt the dreary monotony of the great Eucalyptus for-
ests, ran across a drive of wallabies, and had the luck to

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

313

see what the Australians call their bear, a tree kangaroo.
He was much interested in some of the valleys so char-
acteristic of Australia, whose structure has greatly puz-
zled the older geologists, but which he speaks of as
simple enough to an American who has seen the large
and small canons of Colorado and elsewhere. Mean-
while the Croyden had started for Brisbane, where the
party went by rail, joining the ship on April 16.

On Board the Croyden,

Townsville, Queensland,

April 22, 1896.

“ To-morrow a.m. we put into Townsville where I
shall mail this letter. We left Brisbane the 16th, p.m.,
and ever since until to-day we have had beastly weather,
much worse than anything between San Francisco and
Sydney. W e dropped right into it [rough weather] the
night of the 16th and by next a.m. made what is called
“ Wide Opening,” which is seventy miles from Bris-
bane, and cut off about fifty miles of outside sea, so
we had peace for breakfast, and anchored in the even-
ing at the lighthouse of Break Sea Spit ; then we went
ashore, saw some natives, and after dinner put to sea
so as to reach Lady Elliot Island, the southernmost
reef, by daylight. When we got there it was blowing
hard and raining, so there was no landing possible, and
we kept on, passed the Bunker and Porcupine Islands,
which are rather peculiar reefs, without chance of see-
ing them. So we put in for the night at Keppel Bay,
where we had a good night and quiet dinner. The next
day we remained there hoping for a change of weather,
but none being in sight, we left at night for the next
anchorage, the Percy Islands. When we got there we

314

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

were no better off, heavy sea running and no chance to
see the reef, so we kept on to Whit-Sunday Passage,
where we got yesterday a.m.

I fear I have brought a great deal too much ma-
terial and supplies of all kinds, for unless the weather
is very different from what it has been, and all say it will
be, I cannot hope to do anything outside, and my reel-
ing engine and sounding machine will be very little
used. For such a long trip and so many men a larger
vessel is wanted ; there is no storage for one’s clothes in
the cabin — all has to be kept in valises and trunks and
we have each one shelf to place the most urgent material.
The food is very fair and the vessel an excellent sea boat.
We are now in latitude 20 and it’s getting warm, and
pretty warm in the cabin at night.”

TO MISS E. H. CLARK

On Board the Croyden,

Cairns, April 26, 1896.

Bad weather seems to pursue us since leaving Towns-
ville. We have only had one really good day for work,
and of course the day we spent coaling was perfect.
Still the time is not all wasted, and I am learning a
little something nearly every day. We manage to get a
few things to look at from the beaches at low tide, if
they are accessible, and land on the Islands when we
anchor, where I devote myself to the rocks, W oodworth
to collecting on the beaches, and Mayer to insects, and
both Max and Woodworth bring1 their cameras in case
there is anything of interest to photograph. Still I am
getting frightened at the little work that has been ac-
complished thus far, and unless in the next month there
is a radical change for the better, the expedition will be

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

315

noted as a failure. Still it won’t be for any fault of
mine.

We got this afternoon late to Cairns, but have not yet
been ashore ; the place as seen from the sea is quite at-
tractive, stretching along the beach with plenty of trees
separating the low houses. Our coming in caused quite
a sensation — the population was evidently just coming
out of church and they all flocked to the wharf to see
us come to an anchor. The Captain has gone ashore to
see the authorities and to make arrangements for our
going to see the Barren River Falls, which are the most
noted falls in Australia. Of course if the wind lets up
we go out to the reef, which is only about twelve miles
off from our anchorage. But to-night there seems to be
no prospect of such good luck.

On Board the Croyden,

Off the Lark Passage,

May 5, 1896.

u At last we got off from Cairns last Sunday after-
noon, after having wasted a full week there at anchor
doing absolutely nothing except the little occupation we
manage to get from drawing a rather interesting jelly-
fish which seems to swarm up in the estuaries of the
Australian coast. Had we been weatherbound at any
other port we would have fared better, as there would
have been the railroad lines running inland, some of
which lead to interesting mining districts where I could
have spent some time profitably looking at mines. On
getting away we had an excellent sight of the reef on
the southern side of Trinity Opening, which showed
nothing remarkable. The night we spent running north
towards Cooktown ; we had a good passage, then after
breakfast attacked the two inner patches leading to the

316

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

‘Lark ’ Passage. There I began to have my eyes opened,
and to get an explanation of the formation of the coral
flat reefs. So that was most satisfactory ; on the weather
side of one of these reefs we got a glimpse of the corals,
which were simply wonderful in the way of coloring,
nothing like it have I ever seen. I wish one could get
a photograph or a picture of such a brilliantly gaudy
reef, but that is hopeless. While we were laid up at
Cairns we also lost a set of very low tides on which I
had depended to get some such fine photographs as those
of Kent.

We are anchored for the night just under the lee
of the thin line of the outer reef, upon which the surf
is thundering. To-morrow morning we intend to go out-
side if the sea is not too heavy and do a little sounding
and deep towing. We set up the sounding machine to-
day and are ready to use it now. I shall depute Max to
run it, for I hardly trust any of the men. They are none
of them very handy and the boat men especially are
pretty awkward, and my only safety lies in having Max
at hand ready to take hold.

As we were off Cooktown we saw the missionary
steamer, John Williams, go into the harbor. She has
just come from New Guinea, and we hope to pick up
quite a lot of New Guinea curios when we put into Cook-
town, which will be as soon as the weather compels us
to do so. We are going to try and examine all the reefs
within fifty miles of Cooktown before we refill our water
tanks and lay in the last supply of ice we shall indulge
in till we get on board the Ocampo for Hong-Kong.

“ May 9th — Cooktown. Got here last night after a
few hours of work only and the rest fighting against
the trades. After all, the Admiralty was right — this is

LABORATORY OX THE DECK OF THE CROYDEN

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

317

no time to come. It is just as I feared in the region of
trades — while they blow, nothing can be done, and you
get here and there a good day. With the prospect of
wind before us, it is hopeless to do anything till end of
July! Hereafter I shall stick to Admiralty advice. It’s
a bitter experience to have wasted so much time and
accomplished so little after all this flourish of trumpets.
But I shall be glad to get home and turn down this leaf
of failure and forget all about it in the pleasure of get-
ting back.”

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

On Board the Croyden,

Cooktown, Queensland,

May 16, 1896.

I am thankful you did not come and join this expe-
dition, as I hoped you would. I have never been con-
nected with a greater fizzle. Since we left Brisbane,
more than a month ago, we have had just five days of
good working weather. The corals here are superb, and
I had no conception from the West Indian reefs of what
a reef can be. The gigantic masses of the Astraeans,
Meandrina, etc., dwarf the largest masses of the Florida
and Bahamas, and all within six to seven fathoms, so
that with a water glass one can see the whole reef. The
most striking characteristic is the absence of Gorgonians,
which form so marked a feature of the West Indian reef.
They are replaced by the Alcyonaria tribe and by the
sponges and huge Actineans, the like of which I have
never dreamed of till I saw them figured in Kent’s book.
Why he advised me to come here during the time of the
trades I cannot understand. Wharton 1 warned me about

1 Admiral Sir W. J. L. Wharton, of the Hydrographic Department of
the British Admiralty.

318

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

the trades, and I knew enough of trades to know that
when they blow very little can be done. Yet when I
cabled Kent he reaffirmed his opinion, and got Wharton
to agree with him to boot.

All captains here say I should have come in Novem-
ber and December before the hurricane season when
every day counts for work almost. It is hot then but
calm, now it is not hot and anything but calm. It is
aggravating, to say the least, to lead such a failure, and
the more so, as I never went on any expedition better
equipped in men and material, and hoped besides the reef
examination to make a great collection of pelagic ma-
terial. But I hauled twice only, and then it was blowing
so hard that in so small a boat as the Croyden I did not
dare to do much for fear of carrying all my tackle away
the way she rolled and pitched. I have, however, seen
enough of the reef to satisfy myself of its mode of for-
mation, and I fancy the subsidence people will not have
much ground for support. It is very much like the
Florida reef, only on an immense scale.

I intended to have pushed through to Thursday Is-
land, in spite of the bad weather which everybody who
knows anything prophesies, but the steamer I was to
take at end of May from there for Hong-Kong has been
lost in China Sea and is replaced by a cargo steamer
carrying no passengers. The same is the case with the
Batavia steamers — they take no passengers; so that
unless I could stay till end of June there was no chance
of my getting away from Thursday Island unless I was
prepared to buck five hundred miles of trades in a small
steamer of little power, like my boat. That I could not
see my way to do. So I give up the trip and go back
via Naples, the 27th.

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

319

It is fortunate that there is no one except myself on
whom this failure falls, and that I have not to account
for such a miserable expedition to any one, so that I
can now turn down this wretched page and think no
more of it except when I write a few pages giving an
account of the trip. I have had a pleasant yachting
trip and am very sorry for my two assistants whom I
hoped would gather no end of pelagic stuff to work up
when they got home. They have taken it very good-
naturedly, for it ’s no joke for them to lose, as they
have done, five months of other work.

Agassiz’s reasons for disagreeing in toto from the
opinion of Jukes that Darwin’s theory was applicable to
this region may be summarized as follows : In the first
place, the 66 unfathomable depth ” of the sea outside the
barrier, of which so much is made in coral-reef discus-
sions, simply does not exist. The slope outside the reef
is, in fact, more gradual than the outer slope of the ex-
tension of this great continental plateau farther south,
where there are no corals. Furthermore, the space be-
tween the outer reef and the present coast line is stud-
ded with islands, which would give Jukes’s imaginary
diagram an entirely different aspect, as it would show a
series of peaks cropping out and connected with the
mainland G. (p. 311.)

The deeply eroded flanks of the coast mountains, the
existence of extensive high table levels, characteristic
of the adjacent islands also, convinced Agassiz, when
taken together, that the coast of Queensland has for a
long period been subjected to a very extensive denuda-
tion and erosion, and that the islands were once a part
of the mainland. This supposition is fully confirmed

320

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

by what is known of the geology and botany of the
mainland and the adjacent islands. Many of the more
distant remnants of the former mainland are now mere
islets flanked by extensive flats, or they are simply flats
eaten away to beneath low-water mark.

He was thus led to the conclusion that all the flats and
reefs lying between the outer line of reefs and the main-
land are but the remnants of former islands extending
to the eastern edge of the continental plateau, islands
which once formed a part of the eastern coast of Queens-
land, but which have by erosion and denudation gradu-
ally been separated from the mainland and reduced to
the flats forming the outer reef flats of the Great
Barrier Reef.

The reports of the Queensland colonial geologists
seem to prove that there was a very considerable subsi-
dence in Cretaceous times, followed by an elevation of
the beds then laid down, as exemplified in the desert
sandstones. The outlines of the present coast line and
its submarine extension Agassiz took to have been
shaped by this subsidence and subsequent elevation,
and by the erosion and denudation to which these beds,
since their elevation above the level of the sea, have
been subjected for so long a period. It is on the upper
part of these submarine slopes, of a former geological
period, but modified by erosion and denudation up to
recent times, that during the present epoch corals have
obtained a footing and built up the Great Barrier Reef
of Australia. Thus, instead of Jukes’s tremendous but-
tress of coral, there should be but a comparatively thin
veneer of coral rock overlying the denuded land.

Certain puzzling peculiarities of the reef Agassiz ex-
plained as follows : — There is every reason to believe

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

321

that the outer strips of flats, now worn to below the level
of the sea, were at no very distant time (geologically)
covered by a reef which was elevated from ten to twelve
feet above the highest level at which corals are now
growing. Gradually this elevated reef was eaten away
by the action of the sea, and this accounts for the small
fragments of dead coral which are scattered over the
outer reef flats. On the inner reef flats, where the pro-
cess has not gone on quite so long, he found the ele-
vated reef eaten into “ negro heads ; ” while yet nearer
the mainland there are still portions of the reef that
have not been so eaten. Thus the upper part of the
present reef may be said to form a crust over the dead
and denuded elevated reef, which forms the core of the
reef.

The same erosion and denudation that formed the
great submarine plateau of Queensland, undoubtedly
has separated North Queensland from New Guinea, and
left the shallow continental shelf stretching between
them. Finally, he concludes that if the Cretaceous sub-
sidence and subsequent elevation of the beds then formed
in Australia could be traced sufficiently far to the east-
ward, the same erosion and denudation of these beds
would go far to explain the existence of the banks,
islands, and archipelagoes of the Southern Pacific.

CHAPTER XV

1897-1898
THE FIJIS

As soon as Agassiz had returned from Australia, he
began to consider what region wTould be best suited for
a further investigation of coral reefs. With the advice
of Dana and Admiral Wharton, he selected the Fiji
Islands, for they appeared to be remarkably rich in a
great variety of coral formations. At once he started
preparations for the voyage. He chartered from the Aus-
tralasian Navigation Company the steamer Yaralla, of
about five hundred tons ; Captain Thomson, who had
commanded the Croyden, was again put in charge. The
summer before he left, all his equipment and materials
for preserving his collections were shipped direct to
Sydney. He also planned to take with him a number of
the various self-closing nets known to the scientific
world, in order to compare them with his old love, the
Tanner net.

While these arrangements were in progress, he spent
the spring of 1897 in visiting the last of his unsuccess-
ful mining ventures in Mexico. Three days on horse-
back from the picturesque little city of Culiacan brought
him to the mine. On leaving, he continued his journey
across the mountains to Jimenez on the Mexican Cen-
tral Railroad ; and from there went to the City of
Mexico to arrange some business matters.

THE FIJIS

323

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Cambridge, May 16, 1897.

On my return from Mexico I find yours of the 9th
of February. I have been way up on the west side of
the great Mexican Plateau, anywhere between 8500 and
9000 feet, riding mule-back, camping out and living
outdoors and getting into fine shape. Iam now as tough
as the mules I ’ve associated with, but I hope not as
obstinate ! Food was not all that was desirable and our
cook, an old cowboy, would not pass as a French chef.
Max and a friend of mine composed the party ; we were
all ready for anything, and finally managed ten to eleven
hours in the saddle a day without being the worse for
it. I quite regretted getting back to civilization. I move
to Newport to-morrow, when I shall try and finish my
Australian Report before starting for the Fiji. All my
preparations are now made for that. I have a fine twin
screw steamer, 200 feet on water line, lots of room — she
will meet me at Suva end of October. I am going to have
a launch and take with me a boring apparatus and the
most skillful man of the Diamond Drill Company. We
go prepared to go to 350 feet, and I shall put a hole in
an elevated reef and in the edge of an atoll if I can find
solid ground anywhere to start. To obviate difficulty of
water supply, I take a kerosene motor with me to run
the Diamond Drill. The company are of course interested
in the success, and they say that the man who goes with
me is noted for always landing on his feet. I take with
me the same assistants I had in Australia, and trust we
shall have better luck. Still I am going prepared to be
more or less disappointed. I have just published a fine
Monograph on Crinoids by Wachsmuth and Springer,

324

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

which you will get in due time. Also a Memoir by
Milne Edwards on some more of Blake Crustacea, and
a Memoir by Maas on the Albatross Medusse, which
should come out shortly.

The members of the expedition left Boston on Octo-
ber 9, 1897, to join the Yaralla. The evening of Novem-
ber 6 saw them at the little town of Suva, the capital of
Fiji, with its one street of shops, set in a great sweep
of low sharp hills, their slopes thickly wooded with
tropical vegetation. Here they found the Yaralla, which
had been waiting for ten days. The next morning,
Agassiz went ashore to present his letters to Sir George
O’Brien, the High Commissioner; here he found in
Mrs. Allardyce, whose husband was in charge of the
native Department, an old acquaintance with whom he
had once made a passage from Bombay to Naples. In
the midst of his scientific notes one finds, as unexpect-
edly as a joke in a mathematical table, the following
entry : “ Went to see Mr. Allardyce — queer to see man
servant with nothing but a loin cloth round him — he
served tea to us and two lady callers ! ”

Agassiz supposed, he must be coming to a character-
istic area of subsidence , since, according to Darwin and
Dana, there is no coral reef region in which it is a simpler
matter to follow the various formations. For this reason
he had thought that one of the atolls here would be an
excellent place for boring to decide the thickness of the
reef. The preceding letter to Murray suggests, however,
that his surprise could not have been entirely unex-
pected, when he found, a mile out of Suva, an elevated
reef about fifty feet thick and one hundred and twenty
feet above the level of the sea !

THE FIJIS

325

Agassiz was fortunate in securing the services of Cap-
tain B. Cocks as pilot, especially recommended by Sir
John Thurston, the late Governor of the Fijis, who
had taken the greatest interest in the plans for the ex-
pedition. This pilot proved invaluable, as he knew every
nook and corner, and just what to do in any emergency.
The inset in Chart 2 at the end of the volume shows
the track of the Yaralla. It comprised practically all of
the group, with the exception of some of the outlying
islands, and the region to the north of Yiti Levu, the
largest of the islands, on the south of which Suva is
situated. Vanua Levu, the other large island, the ship
merely grazed as it steamed through Somo Somo Strait.

Leaving Suva on November 8, the Yaralla made for
Mbenga, to the southwest of Suva, a volcanic island
about five miles across, rising about fourteen hundred
feet above the sea, and surrounded by a vast barrier reef
some thirty miles in extent. Here Agassiz passed several
days examining the reefs, and then started for Vatu
Leile, the next island to the west. About halfway across,
the weather began to look dirty and the glass started
to fall so rapidly that it was thought best to put back
to Suva which the ship reached just before the storm
broke.

The next and longest run was so planned as to offer
a study of at least one or two examples of each type
of island, and of the different types of atolls, barrier
and fringing reefs in the group. Proceeding through
the group to the northeast, Agassiz then ran down along
the line of smaller islands, which form the eastern or
Lau group of the archipelago, and afterward worked
his way westward back to Suva. The nights were usually
spent at anchor, sometimes under the friendly lee of

326

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

a point, or perhaps between a barrier reef and the shore
of the island that it encircled, close to some native vil-
lage ; while again the pilot, watching for shoals from
the masthead, would guide the ship through a narrow
passage between the breakers into some quiet lagoon ;
and once she anchored in the crater of an old volcano,
whose giant walls towering about her formed the island
of Totoya. Curiously enough, the Yaralla visited Oneata
exactly fifty-seven years after Wilkes, the first steamer
to go into its lagoon since 1876.

The opportunity of seeing something of the natives
was not the least interesting part of the expedition.
The English have had the good sense to leave them
very much undisturbed, and allow them to go on as
they always have, so they are among the finest exam-
ples of what the South Sea Islander was before he fell
into the hands of missionary and trader. As the ship
steamed along some island, with scattered huts lying in
the shade of the palms that overhung sandy beaches,
her appearance would cause the greatest excitement
among the natives, who ran wildly along the shore as
she passed. Anchoring at the mouth of some pretty
little bay at whose head clustered a tiny village along a
coral sand beach, the explorers would go ashore to find
the whole village, clad only in loin cloths, waiting to re-
ceive them. The chief would lead them to his house of
reeds, with its high stone foundation and steep thatched
roof ; entering, by means of a flat log, in which notches
had been cut for steps, they would find themselves in a
large room whose walls and roof were hung with tapaand
matting. Some dozen girls, the top of their heads clipped
and their ringlets entwined with flowers, would squat
down on the floor and begin one of the curious chant-

THE FIJIS

327

ing songs of the country, shyly, at first, but warming up
as they proceeded, clapping their hands to the rhythm,
and swaying to and fro with all kinds of graceful mo-
tions of the arms and bodies. When the song was ended the
men would be given tobacco — the women a few trinkets
or a little money, some of the boys looking-glasses, and
with mutual good feeling the party would break up.

At night, when the ship came to her anchorage, the
chances were that a canoe load or two of natives from
some neighboring village might put off. They would
be shown all over the ship, whose various wonders they
saw with the greatest astonishment, while the kindly
treatment they received evidently filled them with de-
light and surprise.

The following is an extract from Agassiz’s journal
written shortly before returning to Suva : —

“ Have been working pretty hard ever since I left
Suva, getting up at 5 a.m. to see what there was to be
seen in going in and out of lagoons or anchorage ; used
to have a cup of coffee and run round in pajamas till time
to get ready for breakfast — to make up went to bed
early, generally 8.30, and have never felt better in my
life — sleep well as usual. Generally spend time after
coffee measuring distances for the day’s work or run, so
as to make a programme and find shelter for the night;
everybody joins in and finally we get the most time
available for work at any place, and only twice have we
been scrimped for time, the two days when we made two
long stretches dead to windward against a huge ocean
swell, which cut us down to less than seven miles. This
boat is an excellent sea boat against the wind, but rolls
more than I like when going broadside to the sea.”

328

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

The Yaralla reached the harbor of Levuka, on the
island of Ovalu, the night before the great swarm of
Bololo was expected. Leaving the ship early next morn-
ing in a boat with a native crew, Agassiz and his as-
sistants had scarcely reached Bololo Point, some two or
three miles off, when the water became thick like ver-
micelli soup with this curious marine worm. The natives,
who had gathered for miles in anticipation of the event,
immediately put out in canoes, and men, women, and
children waded out on the reef with nets and all kinds
of utensils to catch the Bololo, which they consider a
great delicacy, eating them raw or cooked with bread-
fruit. After a time the swarms vanished as suddenly
and mysteriously as they appeared.

This great swarm always occurs in the last quartering
of the moon in November, and is eagerly awaited by the
natives, who can tell by certain signs when to expect it.
Only recently had this curious phenomenon been called to
the attention of naturalists. It proves to be the marriage
swarm of a species of marine worm, living in the crevices
of the neighboring coral reef, who throw off their sex-
ual segments into the adjacent waters. After the dis-
charge of the sperm of the males and the ova of the
females, nothing is left but shrivelled transparent skins,
hence their sudden disappearance.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

On Board the Yaralla,
Suva, Dec. 3, 1897.

Hurrah ! I have been and gone and done it, as we
say in Yankee slang. We have just come in from nearly
a month’s trip round the islands of the Fijis, and a
more interesting trip I have never made. I have learned

THE FIJIS

329

more about coral reefs and islands than in all my expe-
ditions put together, and it looks to me as if I had got
hold of the problem of deep [lagoons of] atolls, and of
the history of the coral reefs of the group. But I ’ll not
go into details now except to say that I am more than
ever satisfied that each district must be judged by itself,
and that no such sweeping theory as that of Darwin can
apply to coral reefs as a whole, or even to atolls. I don’t
believe from what I have seen that a single atoll in the
Fijis has been formed by subsidence ! — Darwin and Dana
to the contrary notwithstanding. This is eminently a
region of elevation at least to eight hundred feet! and
subsidence has never shaped the reefs here. Without my
experience in the West Indies, etc., it would have been
impossible for me to have got a proper and correct idea
of the Fiji Islands and their reefs. But I will not go
into details until I get through here.

I only hope I shall have as good weather as we have
had, not a day lost, working hard from 5 a.m. till we
came to anchor for the night, and often steaming at
night the huge stretches to save time. The Yaralla has
proved herself eminently well fitted for this kind of
work, and had the Croyden, in which I cruised along
the Barrier Reef, been as good a boat, I could have
bucked the trades and felt safe as I do here. She is
very comfortable; we are well cared for, and have all
been getting as black as the natives, from whom we
can only be distinguished by the amount of clothing
we wear ! Besides coral work, we have greatly enjoyed
seeing the natives in their villages, of which we have
seen some of the best specimens. The islanders are the
most friendly, jolly, and hospitable people, fully up to
jokes, and most grateful for the smallest kindness. We

330

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

were daily overwhelmed with them, and sent them off
usually happy and full of food and presents.

The scenery is also very beautiful, so that all in all
we are enjoying every minute and glad to have done
the outlying and most distant parts, so that now we shall
be within easy reach of Suva in case of a blow.

I left my party for boring at Wailangilala, where
they are well settled for six weeks; when I left them
they had got going to eighteen feet in sand. But I look
upon this boring as a mere experiment. Boring to be of
any good must be in a recent coral reef like that of
Florida or a fringing reef like that of Honolulu —
wThere outside conditions have had no influence, and I
shall tackle that some time and some where.

By the way, David, in a letter I find here, says the
reef proper was only forty feet!1 Judging by the re-
porters’ accounts in the papers, they made it the full
depth of the bore, but I shall give them a dose they do
not expect, and the theory of subsidence will, I think,
be dead as a doornail and subside forever hereafter.

The little island of Wailangilala, in the northeast of
the group, seemed admirably adapted for the purpose
of boring ; a low tiny island about five cables long, cov-
ered with shrub and cocoanut trees, that rose on the
northeastern rim of a reef of the same name nearly
nine miles around, enclosing a roughly elliptical lagoon.
The island had the added advantage of having a light-
house whose keeper was able to furnish shelter for the
boring crew. Here a party of three white men and four
natives was landed with the boring apparatus and pro-

1 Refers to the boring made at Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, which
will be mentioned later.

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331

visions, while the Yaralla steamed away, to return and
pick up the men later.

On going back to Wailangilala, after he had seen
something more of the elevated limestones so common
in the group, Agassiz found the drill had reached the
elevated limestone at a depth of about fifty feet, and
stopped the work about thirty feet lower. For, as he
says, “ Of course it seemed foolish to go on boring here
when it is so simple to get at the face and slopes of
elevated reefs and study their composition in situ on a
large scale and not from a core, reefs of which the un-
derlying strata can be seen to be volcanic rocks as at
Kambara, Mango, Fulanga, Vanua Mbalavu, and Suva
Harbor and approaches.”

The boring convinced Agassiz that the island was a
fragment of one of larger size which once covered the
whole area of the lagoon. For the northern extremity
of the atoll was less subject to the destructive agency
of the waves created by the southeast trades ; so that
here there was left a wider reef flat, upon wdiich Wai-
langilala and another diminutive island represented the
only dry land not worn away by the action of the sea.

Agassiz’s next trip took him to the islands of Ngau,
Nairai, and Ovalu, to the east of Suva, and included
the tiny island of Mbau, close to the shore of Yiti Levu,
once the most important place of the Fijis, and crowded
with houses. This was the home of the last great chief
Thakombau, who ceded the islands to Great Britain.

After again touching at Suva, Agassiz proceeded to-
ward Nandronga, whence he writes on December 8 :
“We got here this noon, our most westerly point, a
pretty little harbor on the north coast of Viti Levu.
The trip from the Mbenga passage has been most inter-

332

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

esting and has confirmed all I have seen elsewhere in
the group. We are now going again to Vatu Leile,
where we had no chance of taking good photographs,
and then examine three or four little harbors between
here and Suva, and then I am done! except towing.”

TO WOLCOTT GIBBS

On Board the Yaralla,
Suva, Dec. 15th, 1897.

Here I have been at work now nearly six weeks with
only a couple days bad weather, and I have been most
successful! It’s by far the best coral reef expedition
I ’ve undertaken, and were I to stop to-morrow I should
feel more than repaid for the time and outlay involved.
We have seen a good deal of the natives in their vil-
lages and found them most interesting. They are jolly,
hospitable, and friendly, and it seems hardly possible
that it is scarcely fifty years since Wilkes and their
great King, Thakombau, had such a row! We have
lunched with his son who is a great swell (he does not
look so), and who lives in the finest house in the Fijis
(native house, of course). He enjoys a pension of £500
from the English Government. When we saw him he
had just come back from a fishing trip, was dressed in a
loin cloth, his hair daubed with lime, and his face black-
ened, and in every way was not a prepossessing figure.

I have learned more about the coral reefs during the
past month than in all my previous expeditions, and
think that I now understand the causes which have
brought about the existing state of things (in coral reef
ways) in the Fijis. Had I seen these islands I should
not have come here to bore. Whatever results are ob-
tained will not help to settle the reef question, and our

THE FIJIS

333

English friends who are howling for joy at the results
of the boring in Funafuti will be greatly surprised when
they hear from me. I shall send in a week to see how my
man is getting along. I left him on a small atoll in the
northwest part of the [Lau] group called Wailangilala ;
as long as he is there I will let him bore for another
month, but his results wTill in no way affect the question.
When I came here I took it for granted that Dana’s and
Darwin’s premises about the coral regions of the Cen-
tral Pacific were correct and that this group of islands
(Fijis) was in an area of subsidence. You may judge of
my surprise when I found that the Fijian is an area of
elevation, and in one day I ’ve seen more of the thick-
ness of elevated reef than I could have in a couple of
years of steady work. I cannot understand how Dana
ever made such a mistake, for he was in the group quite
a while, but Darwin’s observations were all theoretical
and based upon chartographic study in his house, a very
poor way of doing, and that ’s the way all his coral reef
work has been done. He never was more than ten days
in a region of reefs and thought out everything he has
written. I never could see how his theory has got such
a hold with so little holding ground. I shall now finish
my time by making excursions of a few days from Suva as
a centre and be within hail of port in case of a hurricane.

On Board Yaralla,
Suva, Dec. 17, 1897.

“ I was reminded this a.m. that I had turned the corner
of 62 ! — by Max and Woodworth, who are arranging a
dress dinner in the cabin for celebrating the day ! Since
I wrote you we have done a lot of odds and ends from
Suva as a base, and have done quite a lot of deep

334

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

towing and bagged some very nice things. But I have
given up all idea of testing the deep-sea nets ; it would
take too long, and be too hard work ; for the same
reason I have also given up soundings. Both that kind
of work all falls on me and none of the party under-
stands the management of the nets or of the sounding
machine, and I have not got the courage to do all this
myself. It ’s a very different matter to do it in the Alba-
tross, where the officers and crew know just what is to
be done ; but I am not up to it alone. W e have been
packing up our collections as far as we have got, and
what with our specimens, utensils of natives, and corals
which I bought, we have got quite a lot of boxes ready
to go back, quite a contrast to the Australian trip, already
about fifteen dozen hermetical vials of tow stuff! We
have already begun to dismantle some of the equipment
which we are not likely to use again.

W e had a most successful little trip this a.m. to cele-
brate my birthday. We started at 5 a.m. for Mbenga, the
first atoll we examined on leaving Suva, but from which
we were driven by a squall. We got there at breakfast,
the sun out brilliantly, and we took a new set of the
photos, which had miscarried the first time. I was quite
anxious to have the photos, as the island is one of the
prettiest, and most characteristic, of the group, and we
had tried twice before to get photos without success.

You have no idea how prettily Max and Woodworth
decorated the cabin with palm leaves and bright leaves
and tree greens and masses of flowers. The ceiling was
hung with all kinds of flags, so that there was not a
particle of the woodwork of the cabin to be seen. Mayer
got up some programmes, which were appropriate for
each individual. . . .

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335

The rain is coming down to-day in torrents and we
are tied to the wharf — we have had nothing but rain
— rain — rain, as it does in the tropics, but I am thank-
ful for the good time we have had. We have been pack-
ing, and I have also looked over my notes and written
out a little, enough to make a beginning of my report.
W e expect to go on shore the day after Xmas, while the
Yaralla is off at Wailangilala. We have already sent a
lot of stuff on shore to work, and have arranged very
comfortable quarters at the hotel, shutting off one end
of the piazza as a workshop and laboratory. We have
kept the kerosene launch as a boat, and might, if the
weather is decent, do a good deal of work on the reef
flats, and towing. There are quite a lot of jellyfishes
here. Our photographs have now all been developed and
are very fair ; between Max and W oodworth I ought to
make an excellent selection for my final report.”

Agassiz left Suva on January 13, and spent a few
days at Honolulu. When there he was fortunate in
being on the spot while Mr. McCandless, who made a
business of diamond drilling, was boring an artesian well.
Down to eighty feet nothing but recent reef coral rock
was encountered, but from that point to a depth of over
three hundred feet the limestone was of a very different
character. It contained but few corals, being composed
almost entirely of shells of mollusks. When Mr. McCand-
less’s attention was called to this, he assured Agassiz
that this lower limestone was identical with those he
had spoken of to Dana and to him in 1885. This would
seem amply to confirm Agassiz’s contention that they
do not belong to the same period as the superimposed
corals.

336

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Writing from Honolulu at this time (1898), he says:
“ They are now boring a well and have got down to
120 feet already, and have just got through the modern
reefs and are now on what the contractor calls an old
reef, which is nothing hut a mass of shells. This prac-
tically knocks out all the evidence there was in favor of
subsidence derived from the [previous] boring holes.
. . . There are forty wells down 400 to 1100 feet, but
unfortunately no samples of these worth anything have
been kept. All that was limestone they have called coral,
so that both Dana and I were fooled, he in one way and
I in another, but I suppose that nothing I can now say
will obliterate the things that have been said about these
wells, and which mean nothing except complication of
the subject.”

Some years later he writes : “ The borings for arte-
sian wells passed through thirty to fifty feet of recent
coral reef to enter Tertiary beds, in which a few corals
were found, and which alternated with beds of volcanic
ashes or mud. In the Tertiary beds Dana saw the con-
tinuation of the recent reef, while to me the Tertiary
beds meant a succession of events which in no way af-
fected the structure or mode of formation of the thin
crust of the recent coral reef forming the fringing reef
of Oahu, of Pearl Harbor, or of Kaneohe Bay.”

Agassiz’s study of the Fijis but strengthened his con-
viction that there is no general theory of the formation
of coral reefs of universal application ; each district
must be studied by itself. In the Fijis, he considered
elevation and subsequent erosion to be the causes that
have fashioned the steep slopes of the islands and reefs,
and not the thin crust of corals which thrive upon the
reef flats forming the substratum of the modern reef.

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337

This eroded substratum, slightly modified by the growth
of the crust of recent corals found upon it, is in the Fijis
composed either of volcanic material or of elevated lime-
stone, whose sea faces, following the ancient slope of the
land mass, represent its former extension.

The islands of Fiji may be divided into three classes
— elevated limestone, partly elevated limestone and
partly volcanic, and volcanic. As a rule the volcanic and
limestone islands are easily distinguished at a glance,
the gradual slopes of the volcanic peaks contrasting
strongly with the flat-topped summits and precipitous
cliffs of the limestone islands.

The limestone cliffs, many hundreds of feet in height,
plainly attest a great upheaval of the region ; while the
outlines of the islands, deeply furrowed by gorges and
valleys, the sharp and serrated ridges separating them,
the fantastic outlines of such peaks as those of Viti Levu
and Vanua Levu, and others, all attest the extensive
denudation and erosion that has been going on in the
group for a very considerable period of geological time.

Since the volcanic islands would naturally be eroded
to a less extent than the limestone, it is not surprising
to find that the larger islands, like Kandavu, Taviuni,
and Ovalau, are of volcanic origin ; while some of the
limestone islands have been almost entirely eroded. So
that of many which once occupied the area of present
lagoons, like Ngele Levu, there is left only here and
there a small island to attest the former existence of the
more extensive elevated limestone, that once covered the
whole area of what is now an atoll.

The elevated limestone islands, such as Maiau, Tuvutha,
and many others, with bluffs of coralliferous limestone,
have been by some considered as elevated fossil atolls

338

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

because of the existence of a depression on the summit
which was looked upon as the remains of a lagoon.
Agassiz, however, did not believe these cuplike for-
mations represented the floors of old lagoons, but con-
sidered them similar to the gigantic banana holes, as
they are called, found in the Bermudas. He attributed
such depressions to causes now going on and looked
upon them as the first process in the erosion of the islands.
The decaying vegetation, thickest in the interior of a
limestone-island plateau, on settling in any inequality
or fissure on the flat top of an island, forms acids. These
greatly intensify the solvent action of the rains, which,
percolating through the mass, carry off the limestone.
A drainage from the edges toward the centre is estab-
lished, and we get the beginning of the saucer-shaped
basins so characteristic of the elevated limestone islands
of Fiji. At first there is but a slight depression ; this
gradually deepens, till when the sea finally breaks in
we have an island like F ulanga, about whose outer flanks
corals have established themselves. A further process of
erosion would result in wearing away this land until
nothing remained of the original island but a few islets
rising from a denuded reef as in Wailangilala. And
finally when the process is carried still further, nothing
is left of the island but a submarine ridge upon which
corals have established themselves, like Reid Haven.
(See colored plate, Figs. 1.)

Where islands, composed either of volcanic material
or limestone, have been eroded to form a submarine
platform , upon which corals have obtained a footing,
Agassiz would explain the existence of the lagoon as fol-
lows : — The great rollers piled up by the trade winds
break over the outer rim, protected by a more vigorous

FULANGA

"WAILANGILALA

REID HAVES

Figs. 1. The Development of an Atoll from a Limestone

Island

MATUKU

ICO MO

THIRD STAGE

Figs. 2. The Development of an Atoll from a Volcanic

Island

FIGURES SHOWING TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ATOLL

THE FIJIS

339

growth of coral. The water thus poured in forms a hy-
draulic head that can escape only through the openings
in the outer reef flats. It becomes charged with particles
of lime or other material, derived mainly from the me-
chanical disintegration of the corals or substratum form-
ing the surface of the reef, and also in part from the
chemical disintegration due to the action of sea water
which rots and dissolves the limestones of the reef. Soon
there exist all the elements of a modified gigantic pot-
hole, from which the churned material is carried out by
the currents flowing through the entrances into the la-
goon. Where corals have established themselves about
an island on the submarine platforms formed from it by
denudation and submarine erosion, he would explain, in
very much the same way, the passages between the
islands and the barrier reefs.

Given a comparatively small volcanic island upon
whose eroded platforms corals have established them-
selves, the first result of the processes described above
would be an island with a barrier reef like Matuku. As
the denudation and scouring continued, they would
cause the disintegration of most of the land, as in Komo.
The final effect would be the total disappearance of the
land, leaving a lagoon enclosed by a reef. In this last
stage the position of the atoll near volcanic islands
would often be the only guide to the character of its
formation. (See colored plate, Figs. 2.)

There is still another method by which some of the
atolls have probably been formed. In the group are two
islands, Thombia and Totoya, both volcanic peaks into
whose craters the sea has broken through some point
in their walls, and formed lagoons. Across the opening

340

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of each island stretches a coral reef. After seeing the
coral reefs growing on the denuded rims of these islands,
Agassiz was inclined to revert to the old opinion that
some of the lagoons of atolls represent the remains of
extinct craters. He found nothing unreasonable in the
suggestion that many of the small, fairly round atolls,
and others rising from great depths and isolated, are
the denuded rims of such craters as Thombia, or, if
larger, Totoya, upon which corals have obtained a
footing.

The existence of some deep lagoons has been cited,
by the supporters of the theory of subsidence, as a proof
of its truth. Agassiz pointed out that if the theory were
true, all large lagoons should be deep. Lagoons of con-
siderably greater depth than that at which corals can
thrive he believes may be explained as the remains of
old craters into which the sea has broken during the
washing away of their walls. In support of this theory
he cites the fact that Haleakala in the Hawaiian Islands,
Aso San in Japan, and several volcanoes in Java, have
craters of a diameter fully equal to a number of the
Fiji atolls.

Great bluffs are a characteristic feature of the lime-
stone islands of Fiji. Some of these rise to a height of
a thousand feet, and attest the elevation that has taken
place in that region. The faces of these bluffs are evi-
dently coralliferous. Agassiz found it was almost impos-
sible to collect corals from the exposed surfaces of these
cliffs with the appliances at hand, as the limestones had
become so hard that a hammer produced no impression
on them, and the corals were so well embedded that they
could not be cut out.

From such examination as he was able to make, he

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341

thought these bluffs were late Tertiary, a conclusion
confirmed by Dr. W. H. DalFs examination of the fossil
mollusks that the former collected from them. Agassiz
admitted the difficulty of determining the method of
formation of these elevated coralliferous limestones of a
former geological period. He was, however, inclined to
believe them to have been built up by a variety of causes,
in part by the growth of a reef seawards on a platform
formed by pieces of coral that have broken off and
rolled down the outer slope of the reef, in part, perhaps,
by subsidence, and in part by accretion from the car-
casses of the invertebrates living upon their surface.

To examine these cliffs properly one must be lowered
over their edge with a rope, or climb their faces by
means of the long hanging roots of banyan trees. So
Agassiz concluded that the examination had best be
made by a younger man who would devote considerable
time to it. In pursuance of the advice of Professor
T. W. E. David, of the University of Sydney, Mr. E. C.
Andrews was selected for this investigation. Mr. An-
drews chartered a small cutter, and spent some time
among the islands. From his examination it would ap-
pear that these “ raised reefs ” have seldom more than a
comparatively moderate thickness, forming a capping
that lies outside and over a bedded cream-colored lime-
stone, quite distinct from the so-called reef rock. In
some cases Mr. Andrews was able to trace the underly-
ing volcanic formation whose upheaval caused the eleva-
tion of the islands. The examination by R. L. Sherlock
and E. W. Skeats of the material blasted from the face
of the cliff would seem to confirm Agassiz’s opinion of
the age of these elevated “ reefs.”

Any one who has followed Agassiz’s theory of the

342

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

formation of the atolls and reefs of Fiji will readily un-
derstand that whatever the age or formation of these
elevated limestones, he considered the method of their
origin was quite a separate question from that of modern
atolls. For these older limestones have formed the ma-
terial out of which the atolls have been eroded and de-
nuded, and on whose submarine platforms modern corals
have found a footing, just as a cathedral, built over the
remains of an ancient temple, would have an entirely
different history and structure from the ruin on which
it rested.

At whatever time the Fijian upheaval took place,
Agassiz thought it was possibly coincident with the
elevation of Northern Queensland, and that the area of
elevation included New Guinea, and the islands east of
it as far south as New Caledonia, and as far east as the
most distant of the Paumotus, and extended northward
to include the Gilbert, Ellice, Marshall, and Caroline
Islands. Since this epoch of elevation the islands within
this area have been, like Northern Australia, subject to
extensive denudation and erosion.

While Agassiz was preparing for his expedition to
Fiji, Professor David was continuing the boring opera-
tions on the atoll of Funafuti in the Ellice group, origin-
ally undertaken by Professor Sollas, under the auspices
of the Royal Society. The day before leaving Cam-
bridge, Agassiz received word that Professor David had
succeeded in boring to a depth of nearly six hundred
feet and that he was still boring in coral. This seemed
to settle the matter, but subsequent letters from Pro-
fessor David showed that the question was not so simple.
Agassiz’s investigations in the Fijis convinced him that
the boring at Funafuti had settled nothing, u and that

THE FIJIS

343

we are still as far as ever from having a general
theory of the formation of coral reefs”

The Funafuti boring was continued the following year
to a depth of 1114 feet, when the work was stopped,
as the party had exhausted their supply of diamonds.
Murray, from his examination of the bore, believes that
the drill “ passed through a portion of the talus pro-
duced by the fragments torn from the growing face of
the reef, and on which it had proceeded seawards.”

Agassiz, on the other hand, in a letter to Murray in
1907, says of the Funafuti bore : “ All I have seen
inclines me to think that the core has in part passed
through Tertiary limestones, and in part a talus of
modern material.”

Funafuti 1

In another letter to Murray, written after the publi-
cation of the Funafuti Report, he says : —

“ I have been looking over again the Funafuti book.
I do not see that the examination of the corals found
has been a comparative one and a direct one with recent
corals, and I defy any one to make such a comparison

1 There is, in the coral room at the Museum in Cambridge, a beautiful
model of Funafuti, made by Mr. G. C. Curtis, from data supplied by the
Royal Society Report, and Agassiz’s notes.

344

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

with anything after the great alteration that has taken
place in depth by calcite. The mere statement that the
corals are identical goes for nothing. If, as I think, the
underlying limestone beds of the modern reef are of Ter-
tiary age, as in Fiji and Christmas Island, the difficulty
of separating the modern corals and the Tertiary ones
is very great and difficult even where these rocks are
accessible. I don’t think the line of demarcation can be
determined by a core where it is drawn between forma-
tions with fossils so closely allied to the recent types.
The boring should be done in a region where volcanic
beds are underlying the coral reefs.”

CHAPTER XVI

1898-1900

THE TROPICAL PACIFIC

The following letter tells something of Agassiz’s ac-
tivities at Newport the summer after his return from the
Fijis, when, hoping to devote more time to his research,
he resigned the direction of the Museum : —

TO ERNST EHLERS

Newport, Sept. 15, 1898.

I think I can see your hand in the very flattering no-
tice that I have been elected a foreign member of the
Gottingen Academy. While I have given up the admin-
istration of the Museum, I have naturally retained the
care of the publications connected with the expeditions
of the Blake, Albatross, and other expeditions which I
may have undertaken, or am likely to make hereafter.
I already find considerable relief from executive work,
and before I go off this winter I hope to be entirely
free. W oodworth, who is to be Assistant in charge, will
not take hold until beginning of next year, as he goes
to Samoa to finish collecting “ Bololo ” for his paper.
When we saw them in Fiji you naturally came to my
mind, and I could imagine how greatly you would have
enjoyed the sight of the “ vermicelli soup.” One of my
assistants, Dr. Mayer, and I are collecting material for
a Revision of the Acalephs of the East Coast, and we
have some fine material which will make a new thing

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of my old Catalogue published in ’65, and will, I hope,
do something to clear up the confusion now existing in
the classification of the groups. In the mean time I am
at work on the Echini of the Albatross, and Westergren
is making some beautiful plates for me. My Report on
the Fiji coral reefs is done and only awaiting the com-
pletion of the illustrations to go to the printers. I think
that Darwin’s theory is now disposed of, still I shall not
make a general resume until I have seen the Paumotus,
Marshall, Gilbert, and coral reefs of the Indian Ocean.
I am now making preparations to go to the Paumotus
next August, and see for myself what the reefs there
look like. So you see I have laid out for myself quite a
little block of work, and I only wish I had made up my
mind to give up the Museum ten years ago, as I ought
to have done, and have had ten years of younger blood
for the coral reefs.

In the winter of 1898-99, Agassiz went to South
Africa to see the great gold and diamond mines of the
Rand and Kimberley. It was the year before the Boer
War, and he was much impressed by the rumblings of
preparation which were audible to all except the deaf
in office at London. Letters from his English friends
opened all doors to him, and his prestige as the presi-
dent of a great American mine made him a welcome
guest of the superintendents and officials of the mining
firms of England. When not busy underground or in-
specting surface plants, he appears to have been fairly
overwhelmed with lunches and dinners.

There were at that time many American mining en-
gineers in South Africa, mostly Californians, some of
whom he had known in California in earlier days. At

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Kimberley he was most interested in the ingenious skip
and bin for rapid hoisting, devised by Mr. Williams, in
charge of the great diamond mine there. This process
was afterwards successfully applied in several of the
copper mines in northern Michigan ; and Agassiz’s let-
ter files show that suggestions of his own have since
been used with success in the African mines.

Owing to the community of ownership of most of
the mines, nothing is projected or carried out without
being discussed fully by all the managers; a custom
resulting in a unity of action wrhich Agassiz found a
great contrast to the constant haggling among the
superintendents of some of the small Lake Superior
mines. At one of these meetings he was amused to find
that the managers were discussing the possibility of
mining and hoisting from a greater depth than three
thousand feet vertical. At last, when he was asked for
his opinion on the subject, he told them, much to their
amazement, that at Calumet they had already reached
a depth of five thousand feet vertical !

In walking about underground Agassiz unluckily
wrenched his knee and brought on a trouble which,
from time to time, greatly bothered him for the rest of
his life. It is believed that he thought these attacks
were gout. They were, however, due to his defective
circulation, which showed itself in this weak spot when-
ever he got out of condition, and set up a dangerous
and painful swelling that greatly alarmed his family.

Ever since his return from the Fijis, Agassiz had
been planning for an extended voyage through the is-
lands of the South Seas, to include practically all the
coral reef regions of the Pacific which he had not yet vis-
ited. On his return from South Africa he found that the

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Hon. G. M. Bowers, United States Fish Commissioner,
had definitely arranged to place the Albatross at his dis-
posal for this expedition. Agassiz was to have the ship
under the same conditions as in 1891 : he was to pay for
the coal, for fitting her out, and certain of the running
expenses. Preparations, already under way, were at once
completed for sending coal to various points along the
route ; to the Marquesas by the sailing packets that then
plied between San Francisco and Tahiti ; and by a spe-
cial steamer from Australia to Tahiti, to some point in
the Paumotus, to Suva, and to Jaliut in the Marshall
Islands.

Agassiz again took with him the same assistants he
had on his two previous expeditions, besides whom Dr.
C. H. Townsend, Mr. A. B. Alexander, and Dr. H. F.
Moore were detailed from the Fish Commission.

The Albatross, under Commander J. F. Moser, U.S.N.,
Lieutenant Hugh Rodman, executive officer, was waiting
in San Francisco. Agassiz boarded her there late in Au-
gust, 1899, for what was to be the longest of his expe-
ditions. A full description of this exploration would
require a volume ; a glance at Chart 2 will show the
track of the Albatross through the following groups of
islands : — Marquesas, Paumotus, Society, Cook, Tonga,
Fiji, Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall, and Caroline. On leaving
the Carolines, the Albatross touched at Guam and then
proceeded north to Yokohama, where she arrived on
March 4, 1900 ; here Agassiz left the ship.

The Albatross, unfortunately, proved to be a very dif-
ferent boat from what she was in 1891. Her equipment
had been allowed to run down, and her boilers were in
such bad condition that she barely crawled against a
head wind. So in order to keep the time of the voyage

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within reasonable limits, Agassiz was forced to devote
himself almost entirely to its main object, the examina-
tion of coral islands, greatly to curtail the pelagic tow-
ing, and to abandon most of the dredging.

Nearly all naturalists who have worked with govern-
ment vessels have suffered from red tape and prejudice, an
annoyance so well described by Huxley in the few pub-
lished fragments of his journal of the voyage of the Rat-
tlesnake. Agassiz seems on this expedition to have chafed
more from such vexations than on any other occasion.

“ I continue to be more and more disgusted,” he says,
“ at the navy red tape ; it is so idiotic on a trip like this
to attempt to put on man-of-war style. The natural re-
sult is that by the time an order gets carried out it has
either lost its value, or might as well not have been
given ! The other day the chief officer was coming back
in a sail boat, and it took fully ten minutes before the
officer of the deck, who was below, got it into his head
that anybody was waiting for him to give the quarter-
master the order to heave a line and keep the boat from
drifting to sea again. Yet there was the Captain, the
crew, and the officers all looking on and seeing the
boat fall off. I could not stand it and chucked him a
line, but it seems it was a gross piece of violation of eti-
quette. I am sure that in a pinch a man would drown
before the right person got the order to save him !
When I am off in a boat with the younger officers, I al-
ways assume that they know nothing about a boat, and
they don’t, and we get on famously.”

On board the Albatross , August 30, 1899 : “ One
week to-night since wre left Sausalito. We are just about

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

one-third of the way to the Marquesas, just inside the
tropics, on the way for a small island the position of
which is quite doubtful on the charts, and in fact we
shall probably find that it does not exist at all. The
first two days out of San Francisco we did not attempt
any work. We were getting ready, and besides we were
in ground which had been sounded and which was near
enough San Francisco to he worked from there later
very conveniently. On the third day we put in our first
sounding in a little over 1900 fathoms and lost our
thermometer and collecting cup. . . . But what was
still worse we smashed our sounding reel from the great
pressure that it is subject to in winding the wire ; it
collapsed entirely when we had wound up about 1700
fathoms ; on examining it we found the casting was
very defective, of poor quality of steel. . . . But what
was our dismay on examining the spare cast steel reel
to find it no better quality than the first, and sure enough
the next day on making a sounding in 2350 fathoms
that went all to pieces, and leaves us with only two old-
fashioned reels on which we wound the sounding wire
from the broken reels and have fortunately had no mis-
hap, and I hope we shall not have any more breakages
on that score, for if we do we might as well have char-
tered a small boat and gone to work independently of
the Albatross, as in the islands she will be no better
than any boat of mine.

The weather has been fine so far ; neither Max nor I
have been seasick, though since we struck the trades the
sea has run high, but we are going with it. It is, how-
ever, too rough to trawl at such deep water as we get
at twenty-five hundred fathoms, so that we only tow
down to five to six hundred fathoms and sound, and

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351

that gives us quite a lot to do. We have found at one
hundred fathoms pelagic — a very queer fish with eyes
at the end of broom handles !

I had never seen anything like
it. [Dr.] Chun in the Valdivia
got it also, and he says it ’s
characteristic of very deep
water ! and that they get it
in their tow nets by sending
them way down. The only haul
wre have made thus far in 2368

fathoms we came upon bottom made up upon manganese
nodules, and brought up a lot of sharks’ teeth and whales’
ear-bones, hauls the like of which the Challenger made at
two or three localities in South Pacific and which Mur-
ray called my attention to especially ! We got half a
ton of these nodules, and from the character of the bot-
tom sample I fancy the whole bed of this part of the
Pacific is like that where we trawled. We shall see, I
hope soon, at least that is my idea of the nature of the
sea bottom in the open Pacific way off from land and in
the region of prevailing winds where there are but few
pelagic animals to drop upon the bottom. I fancy it
must be quite different in the region of calms and I
hope to settle this in a few days. . . .”

September 6. “We are now just on the edge of the
Great Equatorial current and to-morrow I expect to be-
gin towing and trawling in it. To-day we had in sounding
in nearly 2900 fathoms the first sample of Radiolarian
ooze bottom I have ever seen, and the Salpae we got at
150 fathoms in tow net were filled with specimens of
Radiolarians identical with those we got at the bottom
(dead) and which my friend Haeckel says live on the

352

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

bottom ! Since I wrote we have been sounding in pretty
deep water, nothing less than 2400 fathoms, and one
sounding 3088 fathoms. Our bad luck with the sound-
ing apparatus is continuing, and we are not having a
single cast such as it should be in all respects — this is
bad, and every day gets us further from the true oceanic
conditions and little by little we are sure to feel the in-
fluence of the plateau on which the Marquesas stand.
Still we have left a few days in which to make up — if
we lose them we shall have miscarried one very interest-
ing part of our work, all the deep sea oceanic (basin) far
from continents which might influence the bottom. We
are now just about twelve to fifteen hundred miles from
any land ! ideal conditions for what I wanted to do, but
thanks to the shiftlessness [of the Fish Commission] in
not testing their apparatus, it looks as if this my last
long expedition was going to be as much of a fizzle as
my Australian trip ! Not a pleasant prospect, but of
course the coral part still remains and the line from
Tahiti to Tonga, which is a good line but not an oceanic
line like the one San Francisco to Marquesas. . .

Albatross — Marquesas , September 15, TaiohaeBay .
“ Since I have written we have done quite a lot of work
and have made some interesting soundings developing
the plateau upon which the Marquesas unite at about
eight to nine hundred fathoms. One or two of our deep
hauls brought up some fine things, but outside the Great
Equatorial current there seems to be but little on the
bottom. The deep tow-net hauls have been interesting,
and we are gradually bringing up a lot of deep-sea
types of fishes and of Crustacea which live within a very
moderate depth from the surface. A great deal of the
value of our soundings is lost from the fact that there

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353

are no temperatures connected with them, for thus far
only one of the deep-sea thermometers on board has
been of any use. My only salvation is to drop all that
work and make up in work and soundings in atoll groups
where, of course, I have the whip handle.

It is very pleasant to be quiet again after such a
long trip without seeing a sail or an island. Since my
passage from Europe to United States when I was a
small boy, I have never taken such a long dose at one
time — 22f days since leaving San Francisco. As soon
as we approached the anchorage the Captain of the Port
came up to call and place himself at our disposal. He
is the chief of the local police also. Then came the Vice-
Administrator who is in charge here, his chief having
been called to Papeete. They had not yet got official
notice of our being expected, but I read him the letter
of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and that
quite settled it. The Administrator quite remembered
George’s [his son] being here ! It seems he spent a
month in the islands and went about a good deal. To-
morrow we begin to coal.

To-day everybody is on shore collecting and paying
calls and getting information. The native house is very
different from anything we have seen at Fiji, built upon
a paved platform of huge stones. The natives are fine-
looking, remind me more of the Hawaiians than of the
Polynesians. But they are beautifully tattooed — unfor-
tunately the tattooing being blue will not photograph.
We went to-day to see the old Queen, the wife of a
celebrated chief, Toana (who conquered all the Marque-
sas) ; she must be eighty years old. She is nearly blind,
and in charge of a native woman who looks after her.
She still has a splendid crop of hair and good teeth ! It

354

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

is said that not liking her first husband she ate him and
married the great chief. Would it not be a good recipe
for Newport Divorcees ? It would lessen the later scandal
so greatly and simplify matters. Of course the husband
might be allowed the same privilege ! The hands of the
old Queen are most beautifully tattooed, and they say
she had the most beautifully cut legs in the way of tattoo
in existence in her youth, and the Captain Commanding
has been trying hard to make her show her feet and
ankles ; but she would not understand, though we could
see her toes were well carved. The natives here are
going fast, dying off mainly by consumption ; the adja-
cent valley,1 which held once three thousand warriors,
has now fourteen inhabitants. It seems too bad. Chris-
tianity is fatal to the South Sea Islanders — they cannot
stand its restraints, and they die like sheep.”

Rangiroa , September 22. “ Here I am in my first
Paumotus atoll. Before we left Taiohae, the evening
before we sailed, the Acting Governor of the Marque-
sas gave us quite a dinner which I thought would never
end ; courses after courses followed one another served
by Marquesan servants who really acquitted themselves
well of their task. He wound up the performances by
giving us a most interesting native dance performed by
Marquesans of an adjoining valley. The whole took
place on a flat lawn outside the Governor’s house, illu-
minated by kerosene lanterns and huge torches of bag-
ging soaked in kerosene and kept full of kerosene, which
lighted up the whole space around the dancers. All
Taiohae was there in their best clothes, men, women,
and children, and while we were at dinner Woodworth
entertained the crowd by giving them selections from
1 The “ Typee ” of Melville.

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355

the phonograph, and you should have seen the astonish-
ment of the crowd — it was comical to see their amaze-
ment.

The following morning, while we were waiting for
beef and provisions to come on board before weighing
anchor, the whole lot of dancers came on board to see
the ship. We showTed them round the ship, cabin and
ward room. They were most happy, — the mirrors, elec-
tric lights and fans and the machinery and propeller,
which they had learned to know from looking at the
steam launch when she was going to and from the shore.
They wound up by giving us a dance and a song, such
as they had given us the day before. The song is quite
melancholy, very different from the usual Pacific mel-
odies I have heard before, and always ends rather
abruptly, much like the last sounding note of an organ ;
then we weighed anchor and off they set for shore, giv-
ing us a hurrah in reply to our steam whistles.

Two days ago we struck the islands of Manihi and
Ahe. As it did not look very profitable to tackle them,
we made for this place, Rangiroa, one of the largest, if
not the largest atoll of the group, forty-five miles by
sixteen! We lay off the entrance called Avatoru Pass
for an hour or so early day before yesterday, where the
chief and two men came out in a small boat and told us
we were all right, and in we steamed with their sanction
through a narrow pass, out of which the current was
rushing at the rate of four to five knots an hour, and
got safely to anchor a little way inside of a most unin-
teresting village consisting principally of broken-down
European houses inhabited by natives, who since they
have become Christians live like very low-down Chris-
tians. The men are a fine lot, tall, intelligent, living on

356

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

what they make by selling copra of which at one time
they exported a thousand tons a year, quite a profit for
the couple of hundred inhabitants of the place, but of
late the palm trees have not done so well and the natives
have had a hard time. Fortunately there are no end of
fish here, and they get plenty to eat.

The French flag was floating over “ the Palace” of
the Gendarmerie, occupied as we found by a single brig-
adier who has lived here five years and seems perfectly
satisfied with his lot and says so ! Yet he appears like quite
an intelligent person ; he is the only white man of the
place, and has no one to spend his time with. As usual
he has a native wife, and that ’s a bad chain for a man
to have round his neck here. If there are children, it
means he must end his days here in the South Pacific.

Yesterday and to-day I have been spending my time
examining this atoll, so different from any I had ever
seen, but still a fine specimen of the kind which had
always been thrown at me ; and though I have not yet
got through with this one, yet it looks as if I now would
have the chance to throw this kind of atoll at the other
side. I am beginning to see daylight, and hope to
get a sketch outline of the atoll to-morrow, which will
make everything very simple, to me at least. We have
been taking no end of photographs at this place, for
being my first shot I am bound to illustrate it fully.
You will find on the chart of the Paumotus a sketch of
this atoll which looks like a pear and is about sixteen
fathoms deep, full of rocks at the handle end. With
the exception of a few scrub trees there are only bushes
and palm trees and no water except what soaks through
the soil — that is very little. If the rest of the group is
as plain sailing a thing as this atoll, it will not be a

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357

long job to finish up, so that when there are two atolls
close together I can send a party to photograph and
take the adjoining atoll.

The tail end of this [part of the] trip is making up

for many disappointments on the way, and all told when
I look back I ought to be satisfied with what I’ve
accomplished.”

Off Rangiroa, September 24* “ Yesterday we took
a trip in the launch from Avatoru Pass straight across
the lagoon to the point B., about thirteen miles. This
same line the Executive Officer sounded out for me, so
that as to-day we are running a line of soundings out to
sea off the Avatoru Pass and are going to do the same
thing off the south side, it will give a magnificent sec-
tion across an atoll, and the rough plotting I have made
of the figures brings out an outline — as it should —
much like the elevated islands of which I have photo-
graphs in Fiji. Yesterday when we started we found, as
usual, that the Herreshoff launch was not in shape, and
we had to tinker for almost an hour before we could
start ; and I must say that during the whole trip the
Captain and I were somewhat nervous as to how long
she would run, but we managed to get through all right.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

We towed a dingey behind and took a native pilot with
us, the same who piloted us in, and who landed us on the
other side in the neatest little boat harbor imaginable. On
our way we passed an interesting little island composed
of elevated limestone (as it should be if my ideas are cor-
rect), and when about two miles off, the bare reef about
twelve to fourteen feet high, which connects the island
and islets, began to loom up and was soon in full view.

As soon as we landed we began to take photographs.
I rushed across the islet to examine the limestone ridge
which flanks the islets on the sea face, and which Dana
saw from shipboard and described as elevated recent
reef ! I was tickled to death when I got there to find
myself on familiar ground. I could imagine myself at
one of the elevated Fiji atolls like Ngele Levu, where
the land is, however, seventy-five feet high and only
fourteen in this place; but it is the same pitted, honey-
combed, eroded rock with which I had become familiar
in Fiji, and full of the same magnificent coral rock
fossils which it would take an age to collect by blast-
ing out, but I managed to chip off a few characteris-
tic fragments. I think I have the key of the Paumotu
coral reef problem, and it ’s only an expansion of
what I have seen in Fiji ; only this group is compara-
tively plain sailing and clear work, for Dana did not
examine his islands very closely ; as, for instance, the
greatest detail he gives of an island of the Paumotu
group is from what he saw sailing by ! As for Darwin, he
only sailed through and never stopped at all, so that I
am quite sure that unless something new and unfore-
seen turns up, I can chuck this group of atolls at the
heads of the Darwin-Dana party and ask them for the
next!”

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359

Off Tahiti , September 27* “ After leaving Rangiroa
we steamed west round the two adjacent atolls ; these
appeared to show nothing special or different from the
one we examined and fall into the line well. . . . After
leaving Matahiva we ran a line of soundings to Aurora
Island, which is a fine specimen of an elevated island
such as we had in Fiji, only finer perhaps. ... I got
the whaleboat and the dory, and in less than an hour
we were all ashore collecting and taking photographs.
The surf was no worse than it is on ordinary days on
Collins Beach,1 and you would have thought we were
trying to land in a hurricane ! All we got were wet
feet, and we got off perfectly well with all our collections
and photographs dry as chips. What we saw was just
as at Fiji, and now I feel that my views of the Paumo-
tus are settled. It ’s merely a question of reconnoitering
a dozen or more islands, and I hope we may get through
this in a month after we coal instead of six weeks or so,
as I had laid out. From here, Aurora Island, we shall
run a line of soundings to Tahiti where will end the
first part of our trip, and on whole very successful but
could have been better.”

After coaling at Papeete, the Albatross again made
for the Paumotus, calling on the way at the little islands
of Tetiaroa, about thirty miles to the northeast of
Papeete, which Agassiz was delighted to find composed
of limestone, as this fitted them nicely into his scheme
of coral reefs.

j Fakarava, October 11 . “We have been most suc-
cessful thus far. After leaving Makatea we went to
Niau, which was another island (elevated) according to
1 Now Bateman’s Beach, Newport.

360

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

my ideas. This island has a sink as lagoon not more
than twelve feet deep with mullet and a few sea-shells,
but no corals, and is just such a lagoon as I wanted to
prove how the Paumotu Lagoons have been made; and
at a little island (to the northeast) called Tikei, I found
a still smaller sink — just what might be expected of so
small a place. We stopped at the entrance of Apataki,
quite a large lagoon, just like the other lagoons we have
seen. In fact it now looks to me as if I had a sample of
all the kinds of atolls to be got in this archipelago. For
the past three days, since we left Apataki it has been
blowing very hard, so that our passages have been very
uncomfortable, just like the trade winds in the Carib-
bean — in fact a little worse. But this kind of weather
(as usual) is not expected and the natives don’t know
what to make of it. But it ’s no consolation to us, for
with such a wind there is no exploring to be made by
water in the lagoon, and we are helpless until the weather
changes and the sea goes down. This lagoon is fully
twenty miles long and ten wide, not so large as Ran-
giroa, nor so populous.”

While stormbound he writes Mrs. Agassiz : —

“ This is one of the islands where Stevenson exiled
himself for a few months. The more I see and read of
wThat Stevenson did in the Pacific, the more inclined I

am to look upon him as a . Certainly all he

writes may be good English, but it has neither common
sense nor accurate observation ; perhaps he did not fancy
that any one would walk in his tracks so soon. What
there is here to attract one 1 cannot see, unless it be
a cure for nervous prostration — it ’s sure to kill that
here ! When it comes to seeing such noble qualities in

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361

the natives of a place like this, I should say, Bosh !
That kind of talk always reminds me of commentaries
on Latin and Greek classics, written in the glare of
electric lights and other modern accompaniments.”

On board the Albatross , off Tahanea , October 16,
1899. “ The bad weather did not last very long at F akarava
and we were able to put in two excellent days in and on
the lagoon. I had a fine chance to look at the greater
part of the island under the lee of which we were an-
chored, both on the lagoon and on the sea face. The
sea face was wonderfully rich in invertebrates, so we
made a fine collection of shore things, some of them
very interesting, in addition to studying the conditions
of the shore for the coral reef problem.

To-day when off Tahanea we had a most interesting
time. This lagoon presents features quite different from
other lagoons. I never have read of any such structures
as I have seen ; we made no end of photographs, backing
and filling to get good views so that Mayer and Wood-
worth were kept going at a canter. We must have so
far at Jeast two hundred views from which to select, and
my notes are being filled out fast. If we could have had
only a good survey of these islands, how much simpler
it would have been to explain matters.”

Mcikemo, October 20. “We arrived here yesterday
noon, and are here awaiting the Southern Cross with
our coal. She was to be here yesterday or to-day, but
thus far no signs of her. Since leaving Fakarava we
have had most interesting visits to the atolls on the
northeast side of Paumotu : Takume, and Raroia, which
are slightly different from the others. The weather has
continued superb until last night when it has set in

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

regular hard trade and will, I presume, continue so now
for three or four days, when there will be a chance to
slip out again after coaling and do some work. Day be-
fore yesterday we steamed all round Takume (or Wol-
konsky, as map has it) ; it was as smooth as glass, and
we had an excellent opportunity to see the whole place,
for though the lagoon is sixteen miles long it has only
a breadth of two to two and a half anywhere and very
sharp points. This gave us a lot of good photographs
showing the two sides at once. ... We have made quite
a number of soundings between the islands, which go
to show that those atolls are not so immensely steep but
rise from a great plateau. I am gradually knocking out
a lot of superstitions about atolls, and it is really absurd
that Darwin and Dana should have written such a lot of
nonsense, all evolved from their own brains or reading
of what others have said and done. . . .

I am gradually getting the formation of these lagoons
into my head, and am not at all surprised that with the
limited experience of Dana he should have seen things
all twisted round as he describes them.”

After exploring the Paumotus, the Albatross again
touched at Papeete before visiting the other Society
Islands.

Anchorage , Hurepiti Bay , Tahaa , Society Islands ,
November 16 . “ You can’t imagine what a beautiful
little bay we are at anchor in — a deep bight with high
hills on each side looking out through the Barrier Reef.
The sea has all day been as smooth as a mirror and
now there is not the least breath. The moon has risen
and the scene is perfect. . . .

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Murea, the nearest of the Society Islands to Pa-
peete, is the most picturesque of all. Unfortunately,
what with our breakdown and rain squalls, we could get
no photos of it. . . . Huaheine, Raiatea, and Tahaa are
beautiful places and their barrier reefs are superb, tak-
ing on a development compared to which the Fiji reefs
are as nothing. The islands are as a whole (except the
two large Fiji ones) much larger, yet not so large as to
lose the unity — and that makes them so interesting.
They are thickly populated — the shore lines are edged
with houses all on piles and quite different from any
style of house we have seen in the islands thus far.
Bora Bora is a most striking island. The centre of the
lagoon of the island is occupied by a great twin peak
rising fully three thousand feet above the sea level and
the barrier reef is edged with little islets covered with
cocoanut trees in great contrast to the bare volcanic
sides of the central mass.”

Touching at the Cook group, the ship on November
25 made an isolated island about three hundred miles
northeast of Tonga, called Niue or Savage Island, be-
cause in old days the natives murdered any one who
dared land on its shores. Although the inhabitants are
still independent, having a so-called king elected by the
chiefs of the various villages, the spirit of “ civilization ”
has invaded the island. For when a landing party from
the Albatross reached the shore the natives rushed toward
them shouting, “ Give tabac,” and thrusting their hands
into the visitors’ pockets demanded, “ Mun! Mun ! ! ”

They were all supposed to be Christians, over whom
the missionary held despotic sway. Agassiz had an amus-
ing adventure with him. It was Sunday on the island,

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

so no one was allowed to trade with the ship, which was
sadly in need of fresh provisions. Now the Albatross,
coming from the east, had not yet dropped a day, and
it was Saturday on board. Going to the missionary,
Agassiz told him that unless he allowed the natives to
sell to the ship, he would explain to them that Sunday
was such an artificial thing that for two white men com-
ing from different quarters of the earth it existed on
different days. After a little reflection the Rev. Mr.
L removed the tabu.

Agassiz had but little sympathy for what he saw of
missionary life, of which he writes : —

u What I never like in the South Pacific is to see the
swell houses (comparatively speaking) of the mission-
aries. They always in all the islands have the very best
of everything, and certainly don’t show the natives any
example of plain living, for they are most comfortable
and have no end of servants. ... I have been reading

M n, and such twaddle passes my comprehension. It

is nothing but an apology to join the European band of
robbers in despoiling the barbarians, as we are pleased
to call them, and compelling them to buy our goods and
wares in addition to stealing their land — all in the
name of spreading civilization ! Just as the missionary
swindles in the South Seas, who trades with natives,
makes a lot of rules for them adapted to our uses, and
compels them to do as we think right, all in the name
of Christianity ! — and if they resist the missionary
claims the protection of a Man-of-War of his Country !
What fun it would be for a man of energy and pluck
to come among the islanders and help them to resist
such aggressions. . .

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365

As the Albatross approached the deep hole, about
75 miles from Tongatabu, preparations were made with
care and considerable anxiety for what was by far the
deepest dredging ever accomplished ; and the trawl was
finally lowered in 4173 fathoms. When at last the net
was successfully hauled on board there was naturally
much curiosity to see what it contained. The first thing
to fall out was a small rubber frog. Agassiz looked at it
for a second in amazement, and then, glancing up with

a smile, exclaimed, “That d Rodman !” Much to his

surprise, as he had expected nothing but mud, the bag
contained a number of large fragments of a silicious
sponge, and the bottom was found to consist of light-
brown volcanic mud mixed with radiolarians.

When the Albatross was sighted approaching the
harbor of Nukualofa on Tongatabu, the king of the
islands called for his army of thirty-five men, wdio had
been peacefully digging yams, forced them into the
most uncomfortable European uniforms, and kept them
occupied firing a brass cannon by way of salute.

“We went to see his Majesty King George of Tonga,
with the British Consul. It was quite an opera bouffe
performance and reminded me of old times at Honolulu
with old King Kalakaua. The King was got up in his
uniform with stars and orders, and sat in a high chair
with a crown on the back of it. His cabinet surrounded
him and one of the missionaries acted as interpreter.
The Captain and a few officers were in their full toggings,
and Woodworth and I in white clothes. The palace is
a cheap tawdry American wooden house with gaudy
carpets. We were received at the gate by the King!
band playing ‘Hail Columbia,’ and the King’s army of

366

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

thirty-five men who presented arms as we passed in the
Palace yard. We sat and talked back and forth for an
hour or so and then took our leave, asking the King
if he wanted to come on board and see the equipment
of the Albatross.”

After a reconnaissance of the Tonga group the
Albatross was headed for the southeastern edge of the
Fijis.

“ We left Vavau day before yesterday afternoon with
a spanking trade and all sails set, going altogether too
fast, so we had to slow up and lay to for a part of the
night so as to make Yangasa early this a.m., and sure
enough the first island I saw looking out of my port
was Yangasa, which is most peculiar in outline and the
like of which there is not in the southern part of Fiji.
On going to the Pilot House I told the Captain what
it was, and he with great glee told me I was quite mis-
taken and that it was another island to the south. I
didn’t stop to argue, and after half an hour’s monkey-
ing with the chart to make it suit his views I noticed he
changed his course and said nothing! He then confronted
me with the sailing directions to show he was right, and
I confronted him with a photograph, which settled the
matter.”

Agassiz stopped at Kambara, which he had visited in
1897, in order once more to examine its cup-like summit,
so characteristic of the limestone islands of Fiji.

“ It was very funny to see how pleased the natives were
to see us again. The old chief and his wife greeted us

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367

in a most stately manner, and after our return from the
hill we called to bid him good-bye, and the Captain and
I wandered round to the huts and the houses to see
what they had. The officers got a lot of Kava bowls —
this is a great place for them and for building canoes,
the island being full of very large hard-wood trees. One
of the women we saw was really quite a type. She must
have been, from her frowsy look, the pattern after which
the native woman of the Fiji Group was depicted ! She
had red hair like a sheep’s-wool mat standing out at
right angles to her head, an arm big enough to kill an
ox if she struck him, and a sort of wild look in her face.
The chief’s wife came on board with us, and kept watch
of the whole crowd, and took the whole party on shore
again after they had given us one of their songs on
deck. It is really refreshing to get to a village again
where nobody can speak English, and where there are
no missionaries or traders and the natives run them-
selves. A cleaner and more attractive village we had
not seen.”

Passing his old anchorage, the crater harbor of To-
toya, Agassiz reached Suva on December 11, 1899.
“ You have no idea how much at home I feel here,” he
writes. “ It ’s really like getting halfway to Cambridge
when coming back from the mine ! Everybody from the
Governor down most attentive and I feel as if I owned
the islands. . . .”

The Albatross remained a few days in Suva to coal
and provision, and then started for the Ellice Islands.
Here Agassiz writes from the island celebrated as the
site of the boring of the Royal Society.

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Albatross, Funafuti, Dec. 25th, 1899.

“ Little did I expect when leaving Fiji two years ago,
to be spending Xmas at anchor in this atoll. We left
Suva the 19th and steamed among our old island friends,
and the following morning were bidding farewell to the
last outlying reefs and islands, and Ngele Levu was
the end of all Fiji Islands. Ever since leaving Suva the
weather has been superb, getting gradually hotter and
to-day is the warmest day we have had. The water in
the atoll is 89 and the air is about 104 — and as it ’s
pretty moist atmosphere, it is warm enough even for me.

I found Funafuti just as different from other atolls
as possible, and I have been here for three days mous-
ing round and getting the hang of the schoolhouse. I
have now got hold of the structure of the place and
understand it, and as far as I go it ’s all on my side.
But I begin to see how useless it is to discuss coral
islands between people who have not seen the same
thing. I could not make out what David, Sollas, and
Gardiner meant until I had seen Funafuti — it’s so dif-
ferent from all other atolls, and unless I had my ex-
perience to go upon it would be hopeless for me to give
a natural explanation, and I should be groping round
and talking in the air. It was very funny going round
the shores to find the tracks of the David and Sollas
party where they had broken off samples of the reef
ledges ! two years ago. I go off at six a.m., get back at
eleven, and off again at four till night. . . .

The people here are very primitive, wearing grass
skirts, and their houses very different from any we have
seen, all open except mats which they drop like rattan
mats against rain or sun. They raise a floor, upon which
they sleep, about two feet. They live on chicken, pigs,

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369

eggs, bananas, and cocoanuts, and go fishing, and their
canoes are very primitive. The population seems abso-
lutely in the hands of native missionaries of the London
Society, which rule them with a rod of iron, fine them
on all possible occasions. Why they stand it I can’t see
— compel them to wear clothes from which they get
skin diseases, consumption, and children all dying ! Yes-
terday was Sunday, and women all came out in mother
hubbards and bonnets and hats ! ! You never saw such
guys and they went to church five times ! To-day they
have again cast off their fine clothes and gone back to
a more scanty rig.

It ’s a pity there can’t be a little common sense in-
fused into this religious cant. As it is now, it ’s sheer
cruelty and enforcing of arbitrary rules against health
and decency as the people understand it. There are three
Catholic priests here who are trying to make converts
by bribing them with tobacco, the other sects just now
being out of that article. Do the missionaries really
imagine in their heart of hearts that the native can
draw the line between Episcopalians, Methodists, W es-
leyan, Mormons, and Catholics, etc. It ’s really too
disgusting, and we go on spending lives and money to
save souls, or rather to make Christians of them. I should
like nothing better if I had time to enter into a crusade
against such barbarism and show up the mission fraud.
Well meant, I have no doubt, but — ! ”

Upon leaving the Ellice group, Agassiz examined the
principal atolls of the Gilberts. Dr. Mayer complains that
“ going ashore in this group was not an unmixed pleas-
ure, for the natives insisted upon opening our jaws in
order to admire the gold fillings in our teeth.” Here

370

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

Agassiz obtained what was probably the last complete
suit of cocoanut fibre armor on the islands. Always on
the watch for anything of this character, he writes, “I
have got quite a number of mats, axes, weapons, from
the different islands which are getting very valuable,1
as the advent of civilization spoils their habits for this
old-fashioned work, and they forget their own arts in
the care of buying cotton cloth and all the cheap stuff
which they now buy from the traders in exchange for
their copra and fruit.”

The Albatross reached Jaluit, the capital of the Mar-
shalls, early in January.

TO MISS E. H. CLARK

Jaluit, Jan. 10, 1900.

We had a fair passage from Taritari, but how slow,
240 miles in two days and only delayed three hours by
soundings. This is a fair sample of the speed and how
it interferes with all work. We ought to have in that
time made a passage and spent the greater part of the
day trawling, etc., but we should never get anywhere
did I do anything but coral work and the necessary
soundings.

I have found all the coal I had ordered here and in
excellent condition. . . . The Germans here in charge
are most pleasant people; the agent for the Jaluit
Company, Mr. Hiitter, is an educated man who has been
in charge of the Marshall Island business since 1885, at
the time when the Company which practically owned the
islands passed them over to the German Government.
W e dined with him and the Commissioner in charge of the
German Government interests who has a very pleasant

1 This collection is now at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge.

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371

wife, an American, who speaks all possible languages.
The Doctor of the colony is also an excellent represent-
ative, and I could not help contrasting the small num-
ber of officials, who run the Marshalls at a profit in true
commercial German style, and the pomp of the Fiji with
its huge staff eating away all the revenues. . . .But
this is terribly isolated — a mail about once in three
months and a Man-of-War twice a year — since they
have bought the Carolines and Ladrones I fancy they ’ll
have to do more, as their possessions are now quite well
concentrated and extend from New Guinea to Marshall,
a pretty well unbroken series of islands. But why they
want them I can’t imagine — the more of that sort of
possessions they have the worse off they will be !

The Albatross spent nearly a month exploring the
huge atolls of the group, which are remarkable for the
relatively small area of their land rims, when compared
with the vastness of the enclosed lagoons. The chiefs
still reigned supreme there, and owned all the land, so
that the other natives were little better than their slaves.
Of the atolls of Menschikov and Rongelab, Agassiz
writes: “ Neither of these places has many genuine
natives left — civilization has crept in too far and gal-
vanized iron has replaced thatched roofs, and clothes,
their beautiful mats. At Rongelab we found one of the
few native chiefs got up to kill in his grass skirt and
bits and necklaces in hair and feather top-knot. W ood-
worth took his picture and then we bought his whole
dress suit for $1.25 ! ! ”

“ The islands are very fertile, but the natives make
little of them, and really live very poorly and have

372

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

nothing in their huts, which are mere sheds on posts
to keep the rain out, but they do make beautiful mats
and fans and the finest canoes in the Central Pacific.
The poor devils are all round the ship to-day sitting in
their shirts in their canoes quietly catching the rain and
their death-cold, while if they were bare-skinned they
would pass scot free. One mail specially was a fine
specimen of missionary dress ; he had on his customary
mats, and in addition had put on a long mother hub-
bard gown in which he looked most comical and might
have been exhibited as a bearded woman ! and his photo-
graph sent round to all religious papers as one of the
finest examples of the success of missionary work in
converting a naked savage to a clothed Christian ! It ’s
sickening were it not so comical.”

Agassiz was always fascinated by the skill with which
these natives handled their great outriggered sailing
canoes. Unlike the superb men of Tonga and Fiji, the
Marshall Islanders are small, thin, and stooping, with
sullen, forbidding countenances. They are, neverthe-
less, the most daring navigators of the South Seas, sail-
ing long distances by the aid of their curious “ charts,”
made of sticks lashed together. A number of these,
brought back from the expedition, are now at the Pea-
body Museum.

After again coaling at Jaluit, the Albatross proceeded
westward through the Carolines, touching, among other
places, at Kusaie, Ponapi, and the Archipelago of Truk.
On leaving Truk the expedition headed northwest,
bound for Guam, our new possession. There the Alba-
tross anchored off the old-fashioned stone fort which
commands the harbor. At the height of the Spanish

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373

War, not many months before, the U.S.S. Charleston,
so the story goes, appeared from the unknown world
and fired upon this bulwark of defense. The Spanish
Governor, mistaking the attack for a salute, sent out a
boat to apologize for not returning it, as he was out of

“ The [present] Governor is Captain , of the

Navy, who is a half-religious crank and keeps issuing
proclamations which I fancy are all illegal, as he under-
takes to do a lot of things which Congress has most
distinctly forbidden in any part of the United States.”

On their arrival in Japan on March 4, 1900, Agassiz
and his party were most hospitably entertained by the late
Professor Mitsukuri,of the Imperial University of Tokyo,
who worked on some of Agassiz’s collections. After
giving an address at the Japanese Geographical Society,
and being the guest of honor at a Japanese dinner at
the famous Maple Club in Tokyo, Agassiz sailed for
San Francisco, where he arrived early in April.

He was now approaching sixty-five, and the pace was
telling. “I am beginning to realize,” he writes, “that I
am too old to go on such expeditions as this — it ’s too
hard for me to have such a long pull — a couple of
months’ work in the field is all I can carry now, and I
ought to have started on these expeditions fully ten
years ago when I was younger and stronger and had
more go to me than I can possibly expect to have here-
after. It ’s too late ! ”

This chapter would be incomplete without a short
summary of the conclusions that Agassiz reached, after
the tremendous labor of examining- the almost endless
groups of atolls and islands through which the Alba-
tross threaded her way. In the Paumotus he was able

374

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

to show that the formation of the atolls is due to very
much the same causes which have shaped the limestone
islands of the Fijis, namely, to elevation and a subse-
quent eating away of the elevated islands. The fact that
the Paumotus are all of nearly the same height he ex-
plained by supposing them to have been (before erosion)
only slightly and about equally elevated. In most of the
atolls of this group the Tertiary limestones have been
cut down to the water’s edge. The appearance of the
old Tertiary ledge and of the modern reef rock is so
strikingly different, that it was a comparatively simple
matter to distinguish the two, even where only relatively
small fragments were found.

Whereas in the Fijis the islands on the atoll rims are
the remnants of an elevated island that once covered
the entire area of the atoll, in the Paumotus the orig-
inal islands have been, in most cases, completely cut
away, and the land rim has been formed by the refuse
of the old ledge, combined with the fragments of the
coral that has established itself upon it, which gradually
build up small islands on the reef flat ; these slowly
grow, become fused, and form a more or less connected
rim about the lagoon.

The reef shelves of the Paumotus, far wider than
those in the Fijis, supply great masses of material from
the breaking up of the outer and inner edges of the
Tertiary limestone platforms. These, together with the
fragments of coral growing upon the flats, are thrown
up on the reef flats and form a pudding stone or brec-
cia. This pudding stone or beach rock is found on all
the atolls of the group. It forms great bars, generally at
right angles to the shore line. The sea and wind usually
follow the trend of the shores, and the bars of beach

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375

rock act like buttresses and collect coral shingle, and
thus are built up little by little, at first small sand bars,
then larger bars or islets, which gradually form islands.
In the larger atolls, with lagoons many miles across, the
trade wind creates a very considerable sea inside the la-
goon, and the process goes on in the lagoon as well as
on the sea side of the reef flat. Gradually the islands
become covered with vegetation, and when the refuse
material is very abundant, the land rim becomes more
or less solid, forming a series of islands with passages
between them. The formation of these land rims can be
traced from an atoll like Fakarava, where the islands,
especially on the lee side, are widely scattered along the
rim of the reef ; or at Rangiroa, where the islands are
rather less scattered, until as the process of filling in of
the islands continues, there results such an atoll as Pinaki,
with a continuous land rim, and one shallow passage into
the lagoon. One step further, and we may imagine this
atoll entirely enclosed like Niau (which, however, was
never planed down to sea level), when it would be merely
a question of time for the sand to blow in and fill the
lagoon.

Niau is the only one of the larger atolls of the Pau-
motus whose lagoon is entirely cut off from the sea ; in
general, all the atolls are now in a condition which allows
a vast amount of water to be forced into the lagoons ;
this scours them out in the manner described in the pre-
ceding chapter. Dana and other writers on coral reefs
mention a great number of lagoons as being absolutely
shut off from the sea : such descriptions must have been
taken from charts, where many atolls are indicated as
closed because they have no boat passages. For nothing
would be easier than to pass unnoticed, even at a short

376

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

distance, the wide or narrow cuts which allow in many
cases the freest access of the sea to the interior of their
lagoons.

Pinaki (Whitsunday) is perhaps the most interesting
atoll of the group historically. It was discovered by Cap-
tain Wallis in 1767 ; it is about one and a half miles in
diameter, is nearly circular, and the continuous land
rim has but one narrow entrance, too shallow for row-
boats even in a smooth sea. The somewhat diagram-
matic sketch of this atoll by Beechey has been so fre-
quently reproduced in text books, that it has come
to be looked upon as the typical atoll. While it is un-
doubtedly an interesting phase in the history of atolls,
its constant reproduction has given it a celebrity out
of all proportion to its importance, and has gone far
to disseminate a very erroneous impression of what
an atoll is. In reality, Pinaki, instead of being typical,
is quite exceptional.

The larger of the Society Islands are volcanic peaks,
surrounded by barrier reefs, which owe their existence
to precisely the same process of denudation and erosion
that has taken place in the very similar volcanic islands
of the Fijis — Kandavu, Mbenga, Nairai, etc. There is
one point, however, in which the barrier reefs of the
Society Islands and Fiji differ. In the Fijis, the barrier
reefs are generally merely reef flats upon which the sea
breaks, with an occasional rocky island or negro head;
only rarely are sand keys found there. On the more ex-
tensive reef flats of the Society Islands, on the contrary,
the barrier reefs are well indicated by long lines of nar-
row islets formed from the debris of the reef platform,
debris piled up exactly as the land rims of the atolls of
the Paumotus. The peculiar aspect of these well-wooded

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377

barrier reefs may be seen, at the Cambridge Museum,
in the beautiful model of the Island of Bora Bora, by
Mr. G. C. Curtis, who was sent by Agassiz to the island,
and passed some time there making notes, measurements,
drawings, and soundings.

Tetiaroa and Motu Iti, two atolls of the Society group,
are from their position probably volcanic, and represent
the final denudation of such an island as Bora Bora. The
first stage in this process is well exemplified in Maupiti,
consisting of a smaller and less lofty central island, and
a proportionally more extensive barrier reef flat.

Like the Fijis, the Tonga group is partly volcanic and
partly elevated Tertiary coralliferous limestones, here
developed on a scale far beyond those of the Fijis.
Agassiz was able, from the examination of the Tonga
Islands, to satisfy himself that' recent corals had played
no part in the formation either of the masses of land or
the plateau of the Tonga Ridge, where they are a mere
thin living shell, or crust, growing at their characteris-
tic depths, upon either limestone or volcanic platforms,
the formation of which has been independent of the
growth of recent corals.

The existence of the archipelago of Truk in the Carol-
ines, one of the volcanic formations of the group, he
was convinced could be accounted for by the same agen-
cies instrumental in creating similar formations in the
Fijis. He concluded that some of the atolls in the Carol-
ines had probably volcanic and others limestone found-
ations, but in none of them did he find the bases exposed.

Nor in the atolls of the Ellice, Gilbert, or Marshall
Islands, was Agassiz able to observe the character of the
underlying base which forms the foundations of the
land areas of these groups. In this respect these archi-

378

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

pelagoes are in striking contrast to the Paumotus, the
Society Islands, the Tonga, and the Fiji Islands, where
the character of the underlying foundations of the land
rims is readily ascertained. But on the other hand, the
first groups gave him the means of studying the forma-
tion of the land rims in a most satisfactory manner. He
was nowhere else able to trace so clearly the results of
the various agencies at work in shaping the endless
variations produced in the islands and islets of the
rims of the different atolls by the incessant handling
and rehandling of the material in place, or of the fresh
material added from the disintegration of the faces of
the rims, or of the corals on the slopes.

In many of these atolls he wTas also able to observe
how the luxuriant growths, on the reef flats, of such
corals as Porites, are gradually changed into dead reef
flats, writh a surface cemented by Nullipores; they thus
become the base upon which a land rim of bars or islands
is gradually thrown up.

In concluding, Agassiz mentions his opinion that thus
far no observer has given sufficient weight to the action
of the trade winds in modifying the islands within their
limits; or has noticed that the coral-reef areas are,
with few exceptions, situated within the limits of the
trades, both north and south of the Equator.

In 1839, Wilkes, wishing to give some future voy-
ager an opportunity of measuring the growth of a coral
reef, set up a monument at Point Venus on the island
of Tahiti. A bench mark showed the height above a
certain point on the adjacent Dolphin bank. Agassiz
was naturally anxious to avail himself of this chance
to measure the growth of coral in sixty years. After all
the misinformation that had been published about coral

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379

reefs, lie was not so completely surprised to find that
the point selected was not over a bank of growing corals
at all, for the bottom was covered with broken frag-
ments of dead coral coated with Nullipores. As he very
justly remarks, “a more unfortunate selection could not
have been made.”

CHAPTER XVII

1900-1902
THE MALDIVES

As usual in his later years, Agassiz spent the summer
of 1900 at Newport, busy working over the reports of
his previous expeditions.

TO ERNST EHLERS

Castle Hill, Newport,
Sept. 1, 1900.

I am hard at work on my Report of my last expedi-
tion to Pacific, and hope soon to issue a short prelimi-
nary Report on the final results of the trip with charts
of the route, and next will come I hope my Report on
the Coral Reefs of the Pacific, wThich should be one of
my best things, for the amount of material I have col-
lected for that is colossal both in way of photographs
and in the way of ground covered by the Albatross.
But I fear it will take about two years of the hardest
kind of work, and I find I do not work quite so readily
now as I did twenty years ago. The side issues of the
expedition will take a good deal of time also, but I hope
with the help of the collaborators I have to get out the
results in due time, and there is still a good deal left of
the Blake and of the 1891 Expedition of Albatross, and
before all the Reports are out my own share of laying
out the results as a whole must remain in abeyance. The
Echini of the 1891 Expedition are now well under way

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381

and this ought to make an interesting Report. I have some
thirty Plates of that done and am pushing it fast. Some
of the Plates by Westergren are very beautiful, and I
really wish I could have got hold of him long ago for
my Challenger and Blake Plates. It is a real pleasure to
work with such an artist, who knows so much of the
subject himself and is perfectly enthusiastic on the sub-
ject. I expect next winter to pass a few weeks in Lon-
don and Paris to look at some Echini, and if I can man-
age it I shall try and run over and see my German
friends.

Agassiz passed the winter of 1900-01 in Europe.
Most of his time he spent in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and
Leipzig, examining the collections of the more recent
deep-sea expeditions of the Travailleur, Talisman, Val-
divia, and Pola. While in Paris, he found time to allow
Jules Lefebvre to paint his portrait, for wliich some of
his friends had given a fund to the Harvard Corpora-
tion. This picture now hangs in the main entrance hall
of the Museum. Agassiz is represented standing, clad in
the scarlet robes of a doctor of Cambridge, England.
The portrait is academic and stiff, and hardly suggests
his character; it is, however, not out of harmony with
its surroundings, and is perhaps a more fitting memento
than a less formal likeness. Shortly after the picture
was hung in its place, an old German retainer of the
Museum was seen to pause before it a few moments,
and exclaim scornfully as he proceeded on his way :
“ Hum ! — the Professor looks as if he had been speak-
ing French ! ”

382

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

Paris, March 9, 1901.

Quite a long letter from you to-day and am sorry to
see that the summing-up of the winter has been such a
long housing for you from cold, etc. My wrist is all
right again, but I use it a little carefully, as you will
see from my new chirography.

I bought a second Rosa Bonheur to-day, a splendid
Royal Tiger — it is really superb. I don’t know where
I shall put it in Cambridge any more than the Lion.
The two will not do in the same room. Each is fine of
its kind, and what is good especially is the character-
istic landscape. Usually this is anything — in both cases
the beasts are in their lair and as they live. Perhaps you
know she had lions on her place and used to live at the
Jardin des Plantes when she was painting the tiger.
I never saw such movement as the beast has — he is
superb. Max quite approves of my purchases in way of
pictures, and as the boys are to have them they had
better be to their taste also.

There are some of the modified impressionist land-
scape painters here whose things I like very much also,
so I indulged in a couple. There was one by Monet I
would have bought, but Max could not stand it, though
he acknowledged it was the best of its kind he had seen.
I dare say Ida would have appreciated it, but Quin feels
about them much as I do — he would not give them house
room. The only way to have them is about a mile off —
then they are superb. They suggest anything and every-
thing you can fancy. It is astonishing what a lot of pic-
tures are sold here to go to America. W e seem to be clean-
ing up the picture market as fast as they are produced.

THE MALDIVES

383

On his return to America, Agassiz completed his pre-
parations for an expedition to the Maldives, a curious
group of composite atolls which lie about four hundred
miles to the southwestward of Ceylon. Previous to
his visit, there had been two memorable expeditions
to these islands. In 1834-36, Commander Moresby
made a survey of most of the group, upon which
the Admiralty Charts are based. The accuracy of this
work is marvelous when it is remembered that it was
done in the days of handlines, row-boats and sailing
vessels. The other explorer, Dr. J. Stanley Gardiner,
had lately returned from a prolonged study of the
group, mostly accomplished in a small sailing boat; but
the results of this expedition had not yet been pub-
lished.

Darwin, who never visited the Maldives, considered
their peculiar formation due to the disintegration of
ordinary atolls. Agassiz had always intended, after fin-
ishing his explorations of the atoll and coral regions of
the Pacific, to make an expedition to these islands,
especially as they were the only great group of atolls
he had not visited. For this purpose he chartered the
steamer Amra of the British India Steam Navigation
Company. The vessel was equipped with a Lucas sound-
ing machine, built especially for the voyage, a modifica-
tion of the type used by the English cable companies,
which Agassiz found simpler and easier to handle than
the Sigsbee machine he had used on his previous expe-
ditions. She was also furnished with a Bacon winch and
a drum large enough to hold eight hundred fathoms of
wire dredging rope. This equipment was to be used for
deep towing, and such few hauls of the dredge as there
might be time to make. As usual, the minutest details of

384

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

the trip were carefully thought out and arranged for far
in advance.

On his way to Ceylon, where he was to join the Amra,
he spent three weeks in Paris, busy seeing his friends,
having his portrait by Lefebvre finished, and as usual
mulling over all sorts of projects for the future.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Paris, Oct. 26, 1901.

I am very glad you are likely to pass through Paris
while I am here. Let me know beforehand, if you can,
so I may be sure to be on hand.

I begin to feel as if I might have taken Gardiner’s
say on the Maldives and not go there ; still I fancy it ’s
just as well to have a look at them. From his prelimi-
nary Report, he must have worked very hard there. If
I can make up my mind, I want next winter to explore
Lake Nicaragua. I ’ve had it in mind for quite a while.
It is said there are sharks and skates and other marine
fishes and things ! “ Quien sabe?” anyway, it is prob-
ably a remnant of the sea, elevated in 1 ? times, and

one might bring up something of interest by dredging,
and collecting there. It ’s quite accessible via Panama,
and in winter the climate there is fine, hot but not
unhealthy, and I believe there are a number of small
steamers available for the depths of the Lake, which is
said to be not more than 130 to 150 fathoms.

Agassiz sailed from Genoa on November 26, on the
Prinz Heinrich, taking with him as assistants his son
Max, Dr. Woodworth, and Dr. H. B. Bigelow.

1 Left blank in original.

THE MALDIVES

385

TO HIS SON RODOLPHE

Colombo, Dec. 21, 1901.

We are off this p.m. ; we got here the 16th — three
days late, owing to endless delays from freight accumu-
lated at intermediate ports going to China. We found
the Amra quite as far ready as I expected. They had
made all the alterations I had asked for — the sound-
ing machine and the dredging winch were set in place,
coal on board, most of the provisions, and there only
remained a few little changes and additions and sup-
plies to lay in to have her 0. K.

The British India people, from whom I charter the
Amra, have been most attentive and thoughtful. The
Captain (W. Pigott) is one of their best men, commands
one of their largest passenger steamers, is a really nice
chap, very gentlemanly, and full of interest in the trip.
He has been to the Maldives several times, and is a
great friend of the Sultan’s. The Amra is about as big
as the Albatross. We all have excellent cabins, a fine
place to work on the upper deck, amply protected by a
wooden awning from rain and sun, where we have a
huge table to sort our specimens. We expect also to
dine on deck in ordinary weather, as saloon below may
get a little warm ; electric lights, punkas, bath-rooms.
The officers are nice young chaps, also engineers, and
we take ten additional men as boat’s crew and for carry-
ing photographic apparatus, in place of a steam launch !
We have no end of drinking stuff, wine, soda, etc. Of
course our ice will give out first, but we shall get used
to going without, as we have had to do on other expedi-
tions. She is provisioned for three months, and carries
coal for two months. So I expect to be able to stay out

386

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of Colombo long enough to do all I want without hav-
ing to come back for supplies. The Amra is fully as
comfortable as the Albatross, and it makes me sick to
think I might ten years ago have built such a boat for
my work and have had no complications with Govern-
ment officials. Still I have had my work, if not exactly
as I might have had it — owning a boat would not have
cost me a bit more in the long run. But it ’s too late
now to begin.

Agassiz had letters from the English government to
the officials in Ceylon, who notified the Sultan of the
Maldives (an independent protectorate of Ceylon) of
the proposed expedition. The Amra made directly for
the capital of the group, the small island of Male on the
southeast rim of the atoll of that name. Most of the
little island, perhaps a mile long and nearly half a mile
broad, is covered by an old ruined fort, all that remains
of the attempted occupation of the Maldives by the
Dutch and Portuguese. On the northwest face of the
island is a breakwater enclosing a little harbor which
affords shelter for native boats. An open space leads up
from the landing to a solid wall of coral limestone that
surrounds the Sultan’s palace, a rambling structure of
the same material, half bungalow and half castle, with
overhanging eaves and a corrugated iron roof. The rest
of the island is covered with the native village ; its neat
streets shaded with magnolia, banana, bread-fruit, and
other tropical trees, under whose shade the bamboo-
framed houses, covered with thatch, rest each in its
little courtyard carefully fenced off with cocoanut
leaves.

After lunch on the day of their arrival the whole

THE SVI/TAX OX BOARD THE A\IRA

THE MALDIVES

387

party went ashore to pay a visit to the Sultan. They
were shown into the throne room paneled with polished
teak, and furnished with a few teak chairs, and a gor-
geous gilded armchair. The walls were decorated with
a number of phonographs on shelves, and a quantity of
cheap clocks ! Presently the Sultan came in, a striking
and intelligent figure, dressed in embroidered green
satin, with a green brocade turban crowned with a gold
aigrette. Agassiz presented his letters and offered some
presents that he had brought especially for the occasion.
The Sultan asked a few questions, through his Prime
Minister and interpreter, in regard to the objects of the
expedition. When the audience was closed, and the rest
of the party had left, the rigors of court etiquette were
relaxed, and the Sultan consented to defeat Agassiz at
a game of chess. In the evening the party again went
on shore and entertained the court with a display of
fireworks and some lantern slides !

The next day the Sultan with his brother came on
board in full state in the court barge. She was manned
by twenty oarsmen ; on a raised poop in the stern the
Sultan and his brother stood under white umbrellas,
surrounded by their suite. Attended by two fan-holders,
and a man carrying his shield and another his sword,
the Sultan inspected the ship, and showed a most intel-
ligent interest in the sounding machine and the appa-
ratus for towing and dredging. At the end of the visit,
Agassiz gave him a copy of “ Three Cruises of the
Blake ” and a revolver !

Before the Amra left, the Sultan gave Agassiz a cir-
cular letter to all the chiefs of the group, and furnished
him with an interpreter, and a representative in the per-
son of one of his ministers. The latter proved a doubt-

388

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

fill blessing, developed a taste for alcohol, and caused
trouble among the natives because he fancied they were
not treating him with sufficient consideration.

A small chart, in the corner of Chart 1, gives an idea
of the ship’s course through the group.1 The archipel-
ago consists of a chain of atolls, which is double along
its central portion, and extends from Lat. 7 N. to about
fifty miles south of the Equator. The group is said
to contain 10,000 islands, though this is probably an
exaggeration. A glance at the diagram, on the opposite
page, of a so-called composite atoll of the region will
show that navigation through such lagoons is by no
means easy. A good deal of planning was necessary to
lay out the voyage to advantage. In order to explore a
lagoon, the sun must be in certain positions to detect
the shoals from the color of the water. One cannot
steam east in the morning or west in the afternoon.
To take photographs successfully the eastern face of
an atoll must be explored in the morning and the
western in the afternoon. Finally the programme must
be so arranged as to reach an anchorage before sunset,
so selected that the sun will be in a favorable position
the next morning to continue observations without loss
of time.

The inhabitants of the Maldives are all Mohamme-
dans ; it was the season of the Ramadan, but no religious
austerities could greatly interfere with such a wonderful
event as the arrival of a European steamer : indeed, in
some of the islands at which they touched the natives
had never seen a white man. Everywhere the explorers
were received with friendly curiosity by the men, who,

1 This chart is of earlier date than the larger scale charts used on the
expedition, and the spelling of most of the names is different.

6 Miles

COMPOSITE DIAGRAM SHOWING TIIE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF
MALDIVE ATOLLS

The blue portions represent reefs and flats anywhere from barely or nearly awash
to a few fathoms under water.

THE MALDIVES

389

mindful of the religious obligations of their womenkind,
kept them as much out of sight as possible.

The geological conditions found in the Maldives re-
minded Agassiz of those existing on the Yucatan Bank,
except that in the latter region the shoals are far less
numerous and the coral formations fewer and less de-
veloped.1

Far from being in a region of subsidence, Agassiz
wras able to detect from the position of the modern con-
glomerate beach rock in the Maldives traces of a slight
elevation in many widely scattered parts of the groups.
Another objection to the theory that these atolls have
been formed by subsidence would appear to be shown
by the uneven nature of the bottom developed by the
soundings in the vicinity of the atolls, which show that
there are great differences in the depths of the banks.
This, on the theory of subsidence, would mean a very
improbably great and uneven difference in the subsi-
dence within short distances, while Agassiz always main-
tained that the theory demands a gradual and even
subsidence. The topography of this great Maldivian
Plateau is, however, no more irregular than that of any
mountain plateau that has not been elevated above sea
level.

Agassiz found the Maldives to be situated on a sub-
marine plateau on whose secondary plateaus corals have
established themselves wherever the bank is sufficiently
shallow to permit of their growth. The colored plate
shows the general appearance of a characteristic Mal-
dive atoll. It will be noticed that the rim is composed

1 Agassiz considers that the reason the Alacran Reef is the only real
atoll on the Yucatan Plateau is because the locality is not in the region of
regular trades or monsoons.

390

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

of a number of small atolls, called “ faros ” by the
natives, while the interior is studded with faros, shoals,
and islands. The peculiar conditions found in the Mal-
dives are probably due chiefly to the alternating north-
east and southwest monsoons, which convert a weather
into a lee shore, and vice versa, and set up alternating
currents in the lagoon ; thus creating forces which con-
tribute in a great measure not only to the shape of
the shoals upon which the corals have started, but
to the growth of the corals themselves. This view is
strengthened by the fact that in the southern part of
the archipelago, which is outside the region of mon-
soons, the atolls are very similar to some of those in the
Pacific. In the Maldives, however, the corals have grown
up from banks at a suitable depth, while in the Paumo-
tus, for instance, the foundations for the corals have
been cut from ledges of a once greater height. That
corals grow with unusual luxuriance within the lagoons,
in marked contrast to the scanty growths in atolls of
the Pacific, accounts for the many faros and flats found
in the Maldives. The numerous wide passes between
the faros on the rim of the lagoon allow a very free
circulation of water, which renders the conditions within
the lagoon more favorable for coral growths than in
most lagoons elsewhere ; the immense bodies of water
that the monsoons force across these lagoons are also a
very considerable factor in tbe formation of the com-
posite atoll.

From his anchorage at Male, Agassiz had his first
view of those remarkable rings which form such a char-
acteristic feature in the coral reef scenery of the lagoons
of the Maldives. These rings, bands of shallow, light-
colored water, stand out from the deep-blue water

THE MALDIVES

391

surrounding them like ghosts of an atoll, and enclose a
lagoon, light blue or emerald-colored, according to its
depth. These faros are not necessarily circular ; they
vary greatly and are indirectly controlled by the topo-
graphy of the bottom. When nearly circular, there have
probably been no agencies to interfere with the symmet-
rical growth of the coral. Some of the inner faros are
elliptical, pear-shaped, or crescent-shaped, but as a rule
they are much more symmetrical than the faros of the
outer rim, which are distorted by the full force of the
monsoons.

The ring-like faros are apparently formed by the up-
ward growth of circular or elliptical patches of corals
occupying slight elevations above the general level of
the surrounding plateau. These patches may grow up
uniformly to form a bank, or they may grow up as rings,
the corals of the outer face only rising toward the sur-
face, those in the centre being killed by want of clean
water and food, or choked with sand that is washed into
the interior, which is filled more slowly than the growth
of corals on the rim. When the rim reaches the surface
it may develop in two ways. In one case, the lagoon
may gradually fill in and be changed into a flat with an
islet or islets forming on its rim ; these may slowly grow
to cover the whole reef flat. The islets become covered
with scant vegetation from the adjacent faros ; with the
growth of the land, large trees will obtain a foothold,
till at last what was once a submerged faro will be trans-
formed into a densely wooded island. In the other case,
a sand bar may form a little islet or islets on the rim of
the lagoon ; these islets are gradually joined together
and become crescent-shaped, the horns throw out spits
(much as the horn forming Provincetown Harbor has

392

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

grown on Cape Cod), until there is only a narrow pas-
sage between them ; finally both horns unite and form
a land rim completely enclosing a lagoon and there re-
sults the so-called ideal atoll, so rarely seen but so often
described. The growth of the land rims appears to be
fairly rapid, for several changes could be observed during
the seventy years since Moresby’s surveys. Some faros,
shown on the chart as entirely submerged, were found
to have little islets on their rims ; islands were found
to have grown into crescents, and in one case a crescent
was found to have completely closed about its lagoon.

In like manner the faros forming the rim of the com-
posite atolls have grown up on the edge of the second-
ary plateaus of the great Maidive Plateau ; here the
faros, owing to their favorable position, have obtained
a more extensive development, the unusually free circu-
lation of water permitting an abundant growth of coral
on their inner faces. Some of the lagoons of the faros
of the outer rim have been formed by the growth of
coral patches or lines of corals rising parallel to the
outer reef flat a short distance lagoon ward. These
patches become joined and thus form elongated lagoons
on the outer reef flats.

A number of tows were made in the lagoons, and as
might be expected from their open character, the life
there was found to be abundant. A number of inter-
mediate hauls were also made off some of the principal
passes. Several of the hauls 1 seem to have been richer
in masses of varied material than any Agassiz had
brought over a ship’s side since the old days in the

1 Intentionally somewhat limited, as Agassiz could not expect to add
much to the extensive collections made by Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner during
his prolonged stay in the Maldives.

THE MALDIVES

393

Blake when he worked along the edge of the Gulf
Stream. No attempt was made to collect any plants.
But Agassiz calls attention to the fact that the flora of
the Maldives must have been much modified by the
activity of the inhabitants, who maintain a consider-
able trade with the Malabar Coast and Calcutta. This,
rather than the effect of oceanic currents, is probably the
direct cause of the introduction of many Indian and
even Arabian species.

On the way north the Amra again stopped at Male.
It was the end of the Ramadan, and the party arrived
just in time to witness a curious procession to celebrate
its close. Prominent in the line were grotesque dancers,
primitive spearmen and the gorgeous royal palanquin
supported on the shoulders of twelve men, and sur-
rounded by twirling umbrella bearers. A feature of
the parade was a horse, the only one on the islands,
imported by the Sultan from Colombo. He was led by
two men, as nobody dared to ride him.

The Sultan seemed much interested to hear of the
results of the expedition, and before the ship left gave
Agassiz a fine collection of the implements, tools, uten-
sils, cloths, and dresses of the islands. His Highness,
Muhammadu Imadudin, evidently retained a pleasant
memory of the visit of the Amra, for the Christmas after
Agassiz’s death a card arrived at the Museum, from the
“ Ex-Sultan of the Maldives” in exile in Cairo.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Off Nalandu, SS. Amra, Miladummadulu Atoll,
Jan. 18, 1902.

Two days more and I shall head for Colombo where
I mail this letter on arrival. We are due there the 23d.

394

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

This will be the end of a most successful expedition,
perhaps to me the most interesting visit to a coral reef
group I have made — for certainly I have learned more
at the Maldives about atolls than in all my past experi-
ence in the Pacific and elsewhere. I should never have
forgiven myself had I not seen the Maldives with my
own eyes and formed my own opinion of what they mean.

Such a lot of twaddle as has been written about the
Maldives. It ’s all wrong what Darwin has said, and the
charts ought to have shown him that he was talking non-
sense. I am afraid Gardiner also came down with a theory
and saw much that he wanted to see. But Gardiner’s
and Cooper’s patience and endurance to accomplish
what they did are beyond praise. At any rate, I am glad
that I always stuck to writing what I saw in each group
and explained what I saw as I best could without trying
all the time to have an all-embracing theory. Now, how-
ever, I am ready to have my say on coral reefs and write
a connected account of coral reefs based upon what I
have seen, and it will be a pleasure to me to write such
a book and illustrate it properly by charts and photo-
graphs. But it will be quite a job with my other things
on hand. I hope to live to 100 ! — or rather I don’t
hope but ought to ! — to finish all.

The Captain was a regular trump, full of interest in
all that was doing, an excellent photographer, a good
mechanic, and he has now become an expert coral reef
navigator, as good as any man I have sailed with as pilot
in the South Seas. He took special charge of the sound-
ing machine, and attended to everything and became an
expert ; he often sounded when I should have hesitated
to do so ; he only lost forty fathoms of wire making
eighty soundings, quite a number near fifteen hundred

THE MALDIVES

395

fathoms. I paid special attention to sounding all the
channels and a few lines at right angles to the Plateau
of the Maldives.

The weather has been superb — we lost only one day.
Taking all our meals on deck, we were driven below only
one day in the South Maldives at Addu, where it always
blows and rains pitchforks. The Sultan was most atten-
tive and so were all the natives.

Agassiz had now visited practically all the important
coral reef regions of the world, and in no single instance
had he seen an atoll or barrier reef whose formation he
thought could be satisfactorily explained by subsidence.
It naturally followed that his final conclusion was a
total dissent from Darwin’s theory on the subject.

It had always been Agassiz’s intention to embody his
coral reef investigations in a semi-popular summary ;
somewhat such a treatment of the subject as the 66 Three
Cruises of the Blake ” was of oceanography. This un-
finished book caused him much trouble ; he never took
kindly to semi-popular work, and although in the last
few years of his life he was constantly returning to it,
he was not convinced of its utility. He used to say that
all his views on the subject could be found in his vari-
ous reports ; he did not realize that those interested in
such matters wrere waiting for him to summarize his
work.

He is thought to have recast the book more than
once. The material he left furnishes an excellent ex-
ample of his method of carrying his work in his head
until the last moment. At his death nothing could
be found but a vast collection of extracts from the
literature of the subject marked and scored, and a few

396

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

rough notes, of no use to any one but himself. Even
though this book can never be written, the splendid
volumes describing his coral researches will remain as
a lasting monument to his widely extended and ex-
haustive study of the question in the field, such as has
not been even approximated by any other man.

CHAPTER XVIII

LATER YEARS

In later years Agassiz spent but little time at Cam-
bridge, for in the winter when not on an exploring
expedition he took his work with him to Europe, which
he always felt offered a much more congenial atmo-
sphere for a man of science, or he made a journey to
some milder climate. In spring and fall he paid his
regular visits of inspection to Calumet, while his sum-
mers were passed on his place at “ Castle Hill.” As the
years went by, he spent more and more of his time at
Newport. The climate agreed with him, he was devotedly
attached to his place, and seemed to get a contentment
and peace there that he did not find elsewhere. As the
span of his life drew toward its close, he lived there
somewhat less strenuously, and delighted, with the free-
masonry that exists between the young and the old, in
the companionship of his two little grand-daughters who
paid him long visits.

His mornings were spent in attending to any business
matter that might turn up, and in working on the reports
of his expeditions. In the latter part of his life he rarely
worked much in the afternoon when at Newport. Until
the trouble with his knee prevented it, he usually went
out on horseback ; when he was obliged to give up this
exercise, he took to golfing on a little course that he had
set out on the place. He often spent an hour or two prun-
ing his trees, in which he took much interest, for he had
transformed the bare little peninsula into a miniature

398

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

forest. Occasionally he would drive into town to call on
a friend.

In the evening, when he did not have a few people
to dinner, he usually dined elsewhere, for his never-
failing charm, a dominant trait, as universally recognized
as it is impossible to describe, made him a welcome
guest at many boards. Once at some social gathering in
Newport, when a vote was taken as to who was the most
agreeable man at a dinner, the overwhelming majority
was for Mr. Agassiz.

The giving of little dinner parties became one of his
chief recreations in later life. He took the greatest inter-
est in seeing that all the details were as complete as
possible, and always brought the wine up from the cel-
lar and decanted it himself. On special occasions, the
table was lighted by two magnificent candelabra, said to
be copies of a pair by Benvenuto Cellini, which he had
bought as a souvenir of a scientific prize.1 As he pre-
sided with evident pleasure over one of these festive
little feasts, at a table set with old silver, which it was
one of his hobbies to collect, an attractive woman of the
world on either hand, he sometimes referred to the little
chap who used to trudge between Neuchatel and Frei-
burg because he was too poor to pay the stage-coach fare.

There was nothing of the ascetic about him ; he en-
joyed a good dinner and cultivated, congenial society.
Both his Newport and Cambridge houses were models
of comfort filled with the choicest collections of the
best art of China and Japan, collections begun in the
days when such treasures were less appreciated than now
and more easily acquired.

1 The Prix Serres, awarded to Agassiz in 1879, by the French Academy
of Sciences, for his embryological work.

CASTLE HILL, NEWPORT

LATER YEARS

399

Perhaps the hardships of his youth enabled him more
fully to appreciate the comforts of his later life. But not
one cent did he ever spend for ostentation, nor did his
surroundings ever in any way affect the simplicity of his
life or the efficiency of his work.

Money to him was chiefly valuable in that it enabled
him to grasp wider scientific opportunities, and build
up in the Museum a great institution for study and re-
search in science. His ample fortune he poured out
lavishly for science. He would hesitate over the price
of a horse, while he bought without a thought, for
many times the sum, the fossil bones of its remote
ancestor.

During his life his contributions to the Museum and
the University amounted to over a million and a half
dollars, and a further very considerable sum will even-
tually revert to Harvard University for the use of the
Museum. His attitude on the question of his expendi-
tures for science is well shown in a few lines from a
letter to Murray: “ While the sum total seems a large
expenditure and one which appeals to the public and to
the University officials, I hope that my influence on
science at Cambridge will not always be measured by the
dollar standard, as it is so apt to be. What I care for
far more is the recognition of the fact that having the
means I have backed up my opinion of what was worth
doing by a free expenditure of funds, and furthermore,
that I have since 1870 devoted my time as completely
to the interests of the Museum as if I had been working
on a salary of 1500 a year. And that since that I have
published the results of my work continuously and hope
to be judged by that and not by the total I may have
spent for the same. I want to go down as a man of

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

science and not to be temporarily known by a kind of
cheap notoriety as an American millionaire.”

While pouring out his fortune for science with one
hand, he was generous almost to a fault to his children
with the other, when he had once satisfied himself that
they were not likely to abuse his liberality. If they some-
times laughingly expostulated at some piece of parental
extravagance in their behalf, he always replied with his
irresistible smile that he wanted to be sure his sons were
not waiting for him to die.

On his way home from the Maldives he spent several
weeks in Paris. “ I have worked like a beaver while
here,” he writes, “and have practically finished my re-
port on the Maldives — it now only needs reference to
literature, and the getting up of charts and photographs
to have it ready for the press. I am mighty glad to
have it off my hands while it is fresh in my mind.” In
another letter he writes : “ Somehow I am feeling the
reaction of this trip. I have no appetite and have lost
fourteen pounds since reaching Paris, but the doctor
says there is nothing out except that I have worked a
little too fast.”

On his way home, via England, he ran up to Edin-
burgh to deliver an address on Coral Reefs before the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. From his plans for that
event, as sketched in the following letter, it does not
appear that he contemplated working less strenuously.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

Paris, March 3, 1902.

I returned here a couple of days ago and find your
letter of February 12. It ’s too bad about the condition

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401

of the Manganese Nodules. I warned the Fish Commis-
sion specially about the labels and the danger of their
being rubbed to pieces. But they are hopeless there,
nobody to care for anything. I may help you from my
original notebook when I get home. At Edinburgh all
I can do is to guess with the assistance of the list of
soundings where nature of bottoms is mentioned.

I am getting cables daily from Boston — things look
pretty squally in copper line. My chief stay in the office
has just been ordered off South, and I don’t yet know
if they can hold their breath till middle of April or
thereabout. I don’t want to go home if I can help it,
for I feel the reaction from the warm weather and am
pretty well used up. I could not stand one of our bliz-
zards.

My youngest son, Rodolphe, just telegraphed me he
is to be in London the 27th, with all the figures and
facts and suggestions, so that if nothing unforeseen
occurs before he sails, the 17th, I can stay here till then
and then take the first steamer for New York. In that
case I should meet him in London the 28th, 29th, go
to Edinburgh Sunday night , the 30th, give my Address
the next afternoon at 4, go to the dinner at 7.30, and
return if possible by the night train to London. I think
there is one at 11 p.m.?

If you will kindly drop me a line if that is possible,
I might by time I got your reply be able to say yes or
no. Glad to hear from you that my Preliminary Report
of Pacific pleases you and looks well. Hope you got the
little Maidive pamphlet I sent from Ceylon.

On his return to America he paid his usual spring
visit to Calumet, from whence he writes : —

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ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO HIS SON RODOLPHE

Since I wrote you I have had two additional inter-
views with MacNaughton [the general manager]. I like
him, and I now feel as if my orders would be carried
out promptly and not appear year after year on my list

of things to be attended to. He is only 37 and gets

a year to begin on. This is three times what I was get-
ting when I left Calumet at 33, after having opened and
developed it. Such is the difference between men and
times now ; I little dreamed I should ever offer my suc-
cessor here such a salary.

To-day is a fair sample of the work I do, though it is

perhaps a little mixed — talked with W an hour —

went to smelting works — saw head clerk there who
wants to go to Congress — saw the superintendent of
the stamp mills — had a confab with the Lake Linden
School Board — another with the village authorities of
the Lake — inspected the new timber mill — made a
visit to the Assay Office — came up to mine to have an
interview with the Catholic Bishop of Marquette — got
up contract for Electric Street Railroad — had a long
session with MacNaughton — another with Electric peo-
ple — one with aid fund superintendent, and then went
to take a long walk before dinner to visit adjoining
mines.

One interesting result of Agassiz’s periodic sojourns
at Calumet was a series of experiments on underground
temperatures, undertaken with the assistance of the
engineer of the mine, Mr. P. C. F. West. Ever since
mining had meant more than a mere scratching of
the surface of the earth, men must have realized that

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the temperature of the earth increases as we dig into it.
From hitherto recorded observations Lord Kelvin had
assumed that the temperature increases 1° F. for every
51 feet of depth ; while observations in the St. Gotthard
Tunnel gave an increase of 1° for 60 feet. From these
observations it had been calculated that the crust of the
earth would be about 20 miles thick for Kelvin’s gradi-
ent, or about 26 miles for the other.

The deepest point in the Calumet Mine at the time of
this investigation was 4712 feet (vertical depth). Holes
ten feet deep wrere drilled in the rock at various points
from 150 feet to 4580 feet, standard slow-registering
thermometers were inserted, the holes plugged with
wrood and clay ; and the thermometers were left from
one to three months. The temperature of the rock at
4580 feet proved to be only 20° F. hotter than that at
150 feet. This gives an average of 1° F. for 223.7 feet,
which by the same reasoning as that based on former
experiments would give a thickness of the earth’s crust
of over 80 miles, instead of 20 and 26 miles. Agassiz
never offered any explanation to account for the extra-
ordinary difference in his temperatures from those ob-
tained in other parts of the world, though it has been
suggested that it might be due to the cooling effects of
the neighboring waters of Lake Superior. He once said,
however, that the article had given rise to more annoy-
ing correspondence than anything else that he had ever
written.

In the fall of 1902 the friends of Mrs. Louis Agassiz
arranged for the celebration of her eightieth birthday
by subscribing to a building for Radcliffe College, of
which she had long been President. A concert was also
given in her honor at the theatre in Memorial Hall. As

404

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

she entered on the arm of her son, the audience rose in
a body as a mark of respect for her. In speaking of the
event afterwards she said that she felt rather nervous
on entering the hall, but when she saw everbody getting
up to do honor to Alex, it put her completely at her
ease !

TO MRS. G. R. AGASSIZ

Cambridge, Dec. 17, 1902.

W e were all glad to hear that you were safely settled
in your new quarters, and we imagine you sitting out
while we are wading through the snow, a regular old-
fashioned snowstorm which has badly complicated the
coal question and made the delivery of the little coal
there is all the more difficult. I am just beginning to
get ready for Saturday’s sailing per Ivernia. It will be
quite a new experience for Max and me to sail from
Boston in a Cunarder and in a slow boat. But there
was nothing better till after New Year except a French
liner and I have distinct prejudices against them.

Last night I read the proof of the last page of the
index of my Report on the Pacific Coral Reefs, so I shall
have everything in good shape to be published as soon
as practicable in my absence.

Mother will have written you about the concert at her
birthday; it was a great success, the finest thing being
A. Ag. sitting through the whole because he could not
get out! and surviving the ordeal. The public raised
$65,000 for the building, to be called after mother, so
that with the $50,000 of the family they can put up
something creditable, but will have little to run it with.
The elite of the beau monde came to the house after the
concert and stayed well on towards midnight. Mother

ELIZABETH C. AGASSIZ

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405

is none the worse for all this, in fact would like a second
festival, provided it could be as lucrative as the first.

TO SIR JOHN MURRAY

On Board the Ivernia,
Dec. 29, 1902.

Here I am off Queenstown, due in London Tuesday
night. I only expect to be there very few days and run
south. Have you come across any very good sounding
machine for moderate depths? say 20 to 30 to 100
fathoms, with a cup to collect a good lot of stuff from
the bottom? I want to make a lot of soundings on our
pile of tailings (at Calumet) which has accumulated for
thirty years and more, and find out where the valuable
part has been deposited off our mills in from 10 to 50
fathoms, and want a good cup or clasper. My idea was
a Thomson machine such as yachts use and a telegraph
company clasper. What do you say ? I ’ve brought with
me a number of the most interesting of the Plates of
my Pacific Report, as well as of the maps, which I hope
to show you before I turn back to the United States,
though my Report ought to be out March 1, unless the
printer is delayed by the paper, and I have told them
to mail you a copy at once on its issue. I shall be in
London at Long’s Hotel, as usual, and at Athenee in
Paris, my stay at each depending on the copper people
I have to see — and I hope to get to Sicily later and
then out.

My chirography is worse than usual, thanks to the
rolling of the ship. Drop me a line to Long’s regarding
the sounding machine, as I want to send one home at
once to use while our Lake is frozen.

406

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

TO MRS. G. R. AGASSIZ

Paris, Feb. 2, 1903.

Max and I have been here since the first days of
January, most comfortably settled in our old quarters
at the Hotel de l’Athenee. It looks very much as if we
should stick here. The weather has been superb, with
the exception of a short cold snap lasting only a couple
of days. There can’t be much more cold here, and as I
am getting on well with my new work here I ’ll stay and
do all I can to it here so as to get rid of it next summer.
For though I ’ve got out — or it ’s getting out — - my
Pacific Report, I always keep something of the kind on
tap. What I am at is the Maidive Report, which will not
stagger my friends with its bulk, as will undoubtedly
the Pacific book ; and besides that there are quite a lot
waiting. With good care, husbanding my resources,
there is enough material to last long enough for me to
know that I had better stop and say no more.

I don’t know if you have seen the Louvre since they
have rearranged it. It ’s a very great improvement and
one can see well all the good things there are in it. The
great objection to going on rainy days, as I do, is that
all the loafers of Paris do the same to keep warm, and it
makes it pretty uncomfortable for ladies. All the settees
are occupied by the dubious crowd and they cover the
floors with mud.

The other day when at the Frangais, one of my friends
who knew the Director took me all over the artists’
foyer to see the relics and pictures, etc., of the theatre
from the days of Moliere to the present time. It is queer
that for a man who wrote as much as Moliere there
should only be left a single letter, but then they have his

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407

lower jaw ! in a case. The portraits are most interesting,
a fine one of Rachel which recalled the days when I was
a Supe in college, at the Old Howard, as the only method
available of seeing her act. I quite remember her chaffing
me for my looks as a “ sacre le natif romain ! ” ’T is a
wonder that when they had the fire a few years ago they
were able to save all this stuff undamaged.

I have been to dine with several of my friends of the
French Professors. I feel quite at home with some of them.

I wish you and George were here — what a nice quar-
tette for theatre parties we would make.

I envy you your warm weather, but I ought not to
complain. I shall need heat so much if I don’t get a little
cold occasionally, that nothing but the infernal regions
will satisfy me next.

TO ERNST EHLERS

Paris, Feb. 2, 1903.

I heard incidentally the other day that you are com-
ing to Paris to see Darboux about some matters con-
nected with the International Association of Academies,
so I write this to let you know that I am here and to say
how much I hope the report is true, and that I may have
the pleasure of seeing you again after so long a while.
But if you are not coming now, perhaps you will be one
of the delegates of the Gottingen Academy at the London
meeting next year (1904). I think I shall appoint my-
self1 as one of the delegates of the National Academy
of Sciences of Washington, so as to see my German
friends and colleagues. I also intended before leaving
Cambridge to ask you for the address of your son-in-

1 As President of the National Academy of Sciences.

408

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

law — is he still at Heligoland? I wanted to write to him
and ask him in regard to his Report on the Comatulae
he has in hand from the days of Carpenter.

A few days before leaving Cambridge I completed
my big Report on the Coral Reefs of the Pacific and
copies of it ought to be sent out by the end of March,
of which you will get one in due course. This leaves
me only my Report on the Maldives and a general
resume of the whole Coral Reef question, both of which
I hope to get out within the year, and then I shall go
back again with renewed vigor to my Deep-Sea work.
I have a huge Report on the Echini of the Albatross
(1891 Ex.), of which nearly ninety Plates are completed,
and I hope to go off on another and last expedition to the
Pacific to explore the great gap of unknown territory
left from Panama to Paumotus and Paumotus to Peru,
after which I shall be getting too old to run off in
that way, and I shall have to be satisfied with shorter
expeditions nearer home, to the West Indies where there
is still much to be done. I am hoping to interest the
new Carnegie Institution, of which I am one of the
Trustees, to join me in this last great Pacific Expe-
dition, but the great trouble is to get efficient assistants,
and then to have the mass of material obtained worked
up by competent naturalists.

On his way home he delivered a lecture, before the
Royal Society, on Coral Reefs — and in the discussion
afterwards it was clearly brought out that he had not
in all his wanderings seen a single atoll or barrier reef
whose formation he could explain by subsidence. Agas-
siz was, however, disappointed that there was not more
discussion, as most of the members of the Royal Society

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409

who knew about corals were connected with the editing
of the report on the boring at Funafuti, which had not
yet been published, and could not be anticipated.

In the spring of 1903, Agassiz proposed to Professor
H. L. Clark that he should collaborate with him in his
work on the Echini. This proposal was accepted by
Professor Clark, who became a member of the Museum
staff, and most of the Echini collected on Agassiz’s
trips after 1891 were studied in collaboration, and pub-
lished with those collected by the Albatross in Japan
and Alaska under the title of : “ Hawaiian and Other
Pacific Echini;” several parts of this series of reports
were in preparation at the time of Agassiz’s death. In
1908, Agassiz published an elaborate memoir with forty-
nine plates on the Genus Colobocentrotus ; and a pro-
posed memoir on Echinoneus and Micropetalon, pre-
pared for publication by A. M. Westergren, appeared
in 1911. The condition in which the material for the
last-named publication was left, illustrates well Agassiz’s
methods of work; for although he had been contem-
plating it for some time, and the illustrations were near-
ing completion, yet not a scrap of text was to be found.
Nevertheless, it was probably nearly ready for the press,
for Agassiz, like his father, had the habit of carrying his
work in his head, indeed, he often carried along in this
way and at the same time several pieces of work.

He was greatly bothered in the summer of 1903 by
the old trouble in his leg, brought on again by over-
exertion at Calumet that spring, while on his tours of
inspection underground. About the middle of June he
writes from Newport: —

“ While out West early in May I managed to badly

410

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

sprain my leg and have been in bed for nearly three
weeks and am just out now, past week, on crutches.
This is going to be a slow job and will greatly inter-
fere with my work this summer. It will postpone the
Maidive Report if I don’t get better quicker than of
late, and the doctor does not encourage me greatly. I
had the other day an offer from the Carnegie Institute
to undertake an Expedition to survey the Tropical
Pacific — Geology, Botany, Anthropology, Zoology,
including the sounding of the great Eastern Pacific
triangle, Acapulco, Manga Reva, Callao, with interme-
diate lines Manga Reva to Galapagos : Galapagos to
Easter Island: Easter Island to Callao, on supposition
I could get the Albatross, the Carnegie giving me
$50,000 to equip her and $100,000 a year for the Ex-
pedition for five years ! Had this come five years earlier
I would have jumped at it. But I shall be nearly sixty-
nine in November, 1904, which is earliest time we could
start, and I fear I must say no, though I feel greatly
tempted to do the Eastern Pacific work and leave to
others the rest, such as sounding and dredging round
each oceanic group and carrying on the shore biological
matters, though it would be mighty interesting to dredge
each group into deep oceanic water adjoining, judging
from the Echini I have just received from the Hawaiian
Islands, which cover that ground.”

Agassiz again passed the greater part of the winter
of 1903-04 in Paris; he was already busy over the pre-
parations for his next expedition, nearly a year away ;
much of his time was spent in working on his Panamic
deep-sea Echini, which had been delayed for over ten years
by his coral reef work. These occupations were lightened

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411

by other distractions : “ I have been to see most of my
friends/’ he writes, “and am quite in the swim.” The
Panamic Echini was published the following November :
it contains a description of the Echini collected on the
Albatross Expedition of 1891, and a comparison of the
Echini found on both sides of the Isthmus of Panama.
From the similarity of the species at moderate depths
on each side, he concludes that there must have been a
free communication across the Isthmus in comparatively
recent geological times down to a depth of about one
hundred fathoms, while the species of the continental
slopes are so similar to the genera of the Cretaceous
period that one can assume a depth of at least two
hundred and fifty fathoms in Cretaceous times. Fur-
thermore the abyssal genera are so closely allied to those
of the Jurassic period that a still greater depth seems
probable at that time.

Towards the end of February, 1904, he writes from
Paris : —

“In about ten days I expect to cross over to Lon-
don with Max, and spend a few days browsing round
in the British Museum over some of the deep-sea speci-
mens I want to see again. I ’ve got a few things to attend
to in relation to my next expedition, see the Admiralty
people and get all the information possible as to the
weather, etc., of a region which is practically unknown.”

Writing from London about the middle of March, he
says : —

“I have just come back from the British Museum
where I had a few chores left in the way of examining
some specimens : that ’s now done and I ’ve really fin-

412

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

ished all that I possibly hoped to get through with while
on this side. I have seen most of my old friends in Lon-
don and dined out galore and lunched and clubbed.,,

One morning in London he was pleasantly surprised
to hear that he had been elected, by a very handsome
majority, one of the eight foreign associates of the
French Academy of Sciences. This is generally consid-
ered the greatest honor the scientific world has to bestow,
an honor also conferred on the elder Agassiz. With one
exception it is the only case where father and son have
both been foreign associates.

When, on the death of Bunsen in 1900, there was a
vacancy among these foreign associates, Agassiz’s name
was proposed, but Sir Joseph Hooker was elected, an
event of which Agassiz characteristically remarked that
Sir Joseph was an older man and a more suitable choice.
Again, in 1903, at the death of Virchow, Koch defeated
Agassiz by one vote, two of the latter’s sponsors being
sick. At this election, the Academy appear to have
been much influenced by the fact that while Newcomb
was the only American Associate, four were Anglo-
Saxon, and they did not want another; rather an amus-
ing situation, as Agassiz was born a Prussian.1

Among the many honors that he received, his mother-
land gave him the order of “ Pour le Merite,” the high-
est mark of recognition she had to bestow on a man of
science. The foreign membership of this order, so named
by Frederick the Great, is limited on its civil side to
thirty men chosen from the world of Science, Literature,
and Art. It had, since its foundation, been awarded to
but nine Americans, including the elder Agassiz. This

1 It will be remembered that in 1835 Neuchatel belonged to Prussia.

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413

was the only decoration that Carlyle would accept. It
is especially appreciated by men of the learned and
artistic world, because a vacancy in the foreign member-
ship is virtually filled by their peers; for the German
knights of the order send the Emperor three names, one
of which he chooses.

In the spring of 1908, the Royal Geographical Society
awarded Agassiz the Victoria Research Medal. In his
absence, the United States Ambassador represented him
at a meeting of the Society and received the medal from
Major Leonard Darwin, the President. This medal is
perhaps the most beautiful of any of its kind. Agassiz
delighted in its exquisite workmanship, and with the sim-
plicity of a child would call on his friends to admire it.

At one time President of both the National Academy
of Science and the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, with every honor that the learned world of
Europe had to offer, honors that were all the more re-
markable in that they were never in any way sought by
Agassiz, he was undoubtedly better known in America
as the head of a great mining industry than as one of
the most distinguished scientific men of his generation.
He walked unrecognized through the streets of Cam-
bridge, and shared with other men of science in the
land of his adoption the fate of being more appreciated
abroad than at home, for most Americans seem singu-
larly incapable of weighing at its true value anything
that does not lead directly to material ends.

Surely no two American laborers could have filled the
roles of a couple of recently arrived French emigrants,
who were once overheard, on a wharf at Newport, com-
miserating each other on the barrenness of the desolate
waste in which they found themselves; one of them

414

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

closing the conversation with the consoling reflection, —
“ Oh ! well, anyway, Mr. Agassiz lives here, and he is
thoroughly well known in the civilized world.”

Agassiz had resigned the direction of the Museum in
1898, giving his collections and library to the University
on the condition that he should retain his work-rooms
and certain other privileges at the Museum, including
the right to control (and pay for) the publications
relating to his expeditions and the collections made on
them, which constituted the bulk of the volumes issued.

While his resignation was in part due to his wish
to be able to devote more time to his own work, it was
also in a degree because of the somewhat strained
relations that had crept into his connection with the
University. It is unfortunately true that his feelings
toward the great Museum, which his efforts and re-
sources had created, were in his later life not untouched
by bitterness and sorrow. For years he had carried its
development on his own shoulders alone, and in mo-
ments of depression and gloom, wrhich were charac-
teristic of his temperament, he would dwell on his lack
of support from the outside public, and on the want of
sympathy and encouragement from those highest in
authority in the administration of the University ; till
in the end he almost grew to regret the time and energy
he had devoted to the realization of his father’s dreams,
and wished that he had spent his funds in an ampler
development of his own scientific work.

In 1900, Agassiz and his sisters, Mrs. Shaw and Mrs.
Higginson, presented the University with the funds
necessary to build the southwest corner piece of the
Museum, completing, with the exception of a portion
of the south wing, which will be an extension of the

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415

Peabody Museum of Archaeology, the building originally
hoped for by the elder Agassiz.

In speaking of this event, one of his scientific col-
leagues, in close touch with the Museum, writes Agassiz : —

“You are always exciting surprise and admiration.
Your stupendous scientific achievements are recognized
as equal in amount to many men together, and you
have achieved these results of the highest order under
conditions of peculiar difficulty. Besides this, you have
conducted successfully one of the greatest of the indus-
tries on our continent, in itself a work demanding the
energy and undivided attention of many men. And yet
you have carried on this work in the midst of your
scientific research.

“Now comes the greatest surprise of all, namely, that
you have laid aside the memory of slights and annoy-
ances and antagonisms, and have decided to complete
the museum. This seems to me unrivalled magnanimity.
I regret that my absence prevents me from going down
to Newport to say so in person, and to assure you that
this action appeals to me as exhibiting the highest type
of character.”

The corner piece of the Museum was finished in 1902 ;
when Agassiz accepted the honorary directorship of the
entire University Museum. The opening of the new
addition was celebrated by a gathering, at the invitation
of the University authorities, of all those who were for
any reason interested in the Museum, every one in any
way connected with its development, old pupils of the
elder Agassiz, and a large collection of the friends of
the younger. Agassiz gave a short account of the his-
tory of the Museum from the days when his father kept

416

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

his specimens in a shanty on the hanks of the Charles.
It was all told in so impersonal a way, that one who
knew nothing of the facts would have supposed he had
no hand in the matter. The celebration concluded with
a pleasant and informal tea in some of the larger rooms.

PLAN OF UNIVERSITY MUSEUM!

Museum of Comparative Zoology. Botany, Mineralogy.

IWWWYI Geology. Peabody Museum ofArchaeology and Ethnology.

The above little plan gives an idea of the develop-
ment of the building. One can gather something of
its size from the fact that the fagade is almost four
hundred feet long and the plan one of five stories
and a basement. What Agassiz accomplished within is
far more remarkable than most people realize ; alongside
of the systematic collections, and the ample facilities for
research in the convenient storing of vast collections,

TIIK UNIVERSITY MUSEUM FROM TIIE NORTHWEST

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417

accessible to all able to make a proper use of them, he
built up a Geographical exhibit. The difficulties of such
an exhibition are so well known that none of the other
great museums of the world have attempted to have one.
There are but two in Europe, one in Dublin, and the
other in Dresden, both on a comparatively small scale.
Writing on this subject in the first Museum Report
after Agassiz’s death, Mr. Henshaw the present Direc-
tor, says : “ And yet so successfully and with so true a
sense of proportion did Mr. Agassiz develop the whole
Museum, that the distinguished English naturalist,
Wallace, stated in 1887 that as an educational institu-
tion for the public, for students, and for the special
investigator, the Museum of Comparative Zoology was
superior to the British Museum and ‘ probably equally
in advance of every other European museum.’ ”

In the northwest entrance hall are two tablets that
will stand till it crumbles with our civilization into dust:
one to the father by the son whose filial care embodied his
ideals —

LYDOYICI

AGASSIZ

PATRI — FILIYS

ALEXANDER

MDCCCLXXX

418

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

the other, after Agassiz’s death, set by loving hands in
the opposite wall —

IN MEMORY
OF

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ
1835-1910

OMNIA QVAE HIC YIDES MONVMENTVM

CHAPTER XIX

1904-1910

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

Now that he had visited all the principal coral regions
of the world, Agassiz planned to return to the more
purely biological investigations, to which he had de-
voted his attention in his cruises on the Blake, and
on the first Albatross Expedition in 1891. Wishing to
inquire further into the conditions existing in the regions
of the ocean far from land, he selected for his next voy-
age an almost unknown portion of the surface of the
world, the Eastern Tropical Pacific. This vast expanse
of water stretches from the South American coast to
Manga Reva, or Gambier, the southeastern extension
of the Paumotus. It is broken only by Easter Island,
and offers a better opportunity for the study of the
open ocean than anywhere else on the surface of the
globe.

In 1904, he again obtained the Albatross, for the
third and last time. In preparation for the voyage the
equipment was thoroughly overhauled, and a Lucas
sounding machine substituted for the Sigsbee, which
had not proved entirely satisfactory on the 1899-1900
Expedition.

The problem of a sufficient coal supply, a most diffi-
cult one in those out-of-the-way regions, Agassiz finally
solved by chartering, in Sydney, the Tagliaf erro, a steamer
considerably larger than the Albatross. Arrangements
were made that the boat should proceed with a cargo of

420

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

coal to Easter Island, to await the Albatross there, and
after she had filled the latter’s bunkers she should go
to Manga Reva, and again supply the Albatross on her
arrival. Agassiz hoped when he reached Callao to com-
plete arrangements for sending a sailing vessel with coal
to the Galapagos, so as to include a line to them from
Easter Island. This was finally done, so that the Albatross
covered the following lines — Panama to the vicinity of
the Galapagos, from there to Aguja Point on the north
coast of Peru. The ship then ran about southwest for
some seven hundred miles, when she headed east for
Callao. The next line was from Callao to Easter Island,
and afterward to the Galapagos. On leaving the Gala-
pagos the steamer made for Manga Reva, and the last
line run wras from there to Acapulco, making a total
distance of more than thirteen thousand miles.

The Albatross was this year in command of Lieuten-
ant Commander L. M. Garrett, who was drowned the fol-
lowing year in a most unusual accident. Early one even-
ing, while the Albatross was steaming from Yokohama to
San Francisco, he was alone on the poop-deck, lying in
a long chair. He must have fallen asleep there, for hours
later it was discovered that some sudden lurch of the
ship had capsized the chair and thrown him clean through
the rope rail into the sea.

The Albatross left San Francisco early in October,
1904, to join Agassiz in Panama. On board were Pro-
fessor C. A. Kofoid, an assistant of the expedition, and
Mr. F. M. Chamberlain, of the Fish Commission ; these
gentlemen made a number of hauls on the way down and
collected a large amount of pelagic material.

Towards the end of October, Agassiz sailed from New
York for Colon, taking with him Dr. Bigelow as assist-

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

421

ant and Mr. Westergren as artist. The Isthmus, which
had now become familiar ground to Agassiz, had lately
fallen into the possession of the United States, which were
just beginning to lay out the work on the canal. Pana-
ma, however, was still enjoying its pristine filth, so the
party was glad to get on board the Albatross. Here
Agassiz took up his abode in the new quarters he had
built for himself on the spar-deck, in which he took much
satisfaction. On heading to the eastward, after reaching
the neighborhood of Chatham Island, the Albatross got
well into the Humboldt Current. This mighty river, of
which little was previously known, sweeps north off the
coast of South America, and veers to the westward south
of the Galapagos. Its breadth in many places cannot be
much less than nine hundred miles : the western limit
of its lower course appears to be about 90° W., wrhile
the southern limit of its western extension seems to lie
between 10° and 15° S.

When once within the sweep of this great current, on
heading in to the eastward after reaching the neighbor-
hood of Chatham Island, the collections became extraor-
dinarily rich. Agassiz was among the first to call atten-
tion to the fact that the great currents of the ocean teem
with animal life, swept along by these mighty rivers in
their journeys through the open sea. The abundance
of life at the bottom, in the path of such currents, he
explained by the amount of dead animal matter that fell
from the surface to the bottom, and served for food to
the animals living there.

Agassiz in his report of the expedition has described
the richness of animal life within the limits of the
Humboldt Current. Whenever the ship was in this vast
body of water the tow nets were crowded and brought

422

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

up vast quantities of fishes, Salpae, Medusae, Crustacea,
and other forms of pelagic life. On one occasion the
mass of the pelagic hauls consisted entirely of small
brown copepods, the contents of the nets looking like
sago soup. Sometimes they came across such masses of
Salpae, Cytaeis, or Cybulia as to make a thick broth of
the water. In other places the surface fairly swarmed
with Globigerinae, radiolarians, and diatoms. Indeed,
one characteristic of the Humboldt Current seems to be
that it contains within the three hundred fathom line
nearly every variation of Radiolaria and diatoms. Nor
was the trawl less prolific in the material it scraped
from the sea bottom, which included quantities of deep-
sea fishes, Crustacea and holothurians, many of them
old friends collected in the Expedition of 1891. Some
interesting genera of worms were brought up and a
few mollusks ; compared with 1891, however, but few
star-fishes and brittle stars were obtained, and fewer
sea-urchins.

One interesting result of the hauls of the tow nets
from three hundred fathoms to the surface was the great
number of fishes caught, many of which had previously
been considered true deep-sea fishes, caught only by
dredging from one thousand to fifteen hundred fathoms
or more. On one occasion the tow net brought up no
less than twelve species of fishes in a total of nearly
one hundred and fifty specimens, and on other occa-
sions it was not uncommon to find eight or ten species
and from fifty to one hundred specimens.

Whenever the plunder from a tow or trawl reached
the laboratory, Agassiz’s remarkable knowledge of
marine fauna was a fresh source of astonishment to
his assistants. He would begin a rapid enumeration of

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION 423

the catch, and jot down the results in his notebook.
Nothing ever seemed to puzzle him. Not only was he
deeply interested in every new and unusual creature, but
he recognized everything at a glance, naming them all at
first sight with amazing rapidity and almost unfailino-
accuracy, while he also knew where all were described!
Only on the rarest occasions was he obliged to consult
a reference book to confirm his opinions.

TO MBS. G. R. AGASSIZ

On Board the Albatross,
Nov. 18, 1904.

A couple of days ago we finished our work to sea-
ward of Callao and are now not more than three hun-
dred miles from that port. I expect to dredge in a deep
hole there is off that part of the coast; and if it is good
ground for beasts, shall spend there two or three days
scraping the bottom, and then run into Callao for coal
and provisions. Thus far we have done very interesting
work — not much new in the way of plunder. I seem to
have got almost everything collected thus far in my 1891
Expedition in the Panamic District. Mr. Westergren
is making a lot of good colored sketches, and Bigelow
is drawing a lot of jelly-fishes of which we seem to have
got even thus far more than in any other expedition of
mine. We have been having very queer weather thus far.
boon after leaving Panama the thermometer began to
drop as we went southland when under the tropics at
the Equator we got quite frozen with a temperature of
b5 , all owing to our getting into the cold southern
current which skirts the South American coast and
strikes the Galapagos. We did not waste much time at
Panama. We got there about half-past twelve Tuesday

424

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

a.m., had lunch at the hotel and dinner on board and
all unpacked and tucked away in my cabin by 9, thanks
to an excellent Jap boy who was got for me at San
Francisco, and who is to devote himself to me during
the trip. I am afraid that after three months of coddling
I shall find it hard work to go back to do my own
chores.

Everything thus far has worked most harmoniously
and we are putting in daily a good amount of work.
The Assistant sent me by the Fish Commission is a good
man, as is also the Assistant I got from the University
of California, Professor Kofoid, who is a very hard
worker and keeps at it from morning till night. We
all turn in early, breakfast at 7.30, and thus far I ’ve
not had time to read anything. I heard by cable at
Panama that my collier had left Australia for Easter
Island the 29th of October, so that part of the trip is
safe I hope. The Captain, Garrett, is a very nice chap,
always ready for work. We shall not be sorry to spend
a few days at Lima while the ship is docking and coal-
ing, and sleep in a good square bed and tramp on shore,
though I cannot complain of my quarters which are
most comfortable ; my cabin is nine feet by twelve feet
with plenty of room for a writing-table and to stow
away all my clothes.

W e are all wondering what has happened in the past
three weeks and hope to find that the American Consul
has a lot of telegraphic news of the war in the East and
politics at home. I should find cables from Miss Clark
telling1 me last news from Cambridge. We are sure to
be in port the 22d or 23d, as we want, of course, to
give the officers and crew a chance to celebrate Thanks-
giving and let them have a good shore dinner after their

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

425

three weeks of sea grub. I have turned out this time
an excellent sailor and have been most comfortable all
the way from New York here.

We ’ve got quite a menagerie on board, — a monkey,
a parrot, three cats, a puppy* and a huge goat, which in
1899 was given the Albatross by one of the chiefs at
the Marquesas. He brought us then about a dozen kids,
all most diminutive. We kept two, ate all the others.
Of the two, one was carried off the deck by a heavy sea
off the Gilbert Islands, the other is now on board, a
huge hairy and horny beast which feeds mainly on shav-
ings and blotting-paper, and is full of mischief. The
goat was a great friend of the former executive officer
who occupied my room, so “ Billy” comes and sees me
every morning when I am having coffee and toast to see
what he can pick up.

After waiting a few days in Callao, Agassiz started
for Easter Island on December 3, without having been
able to clean the ship’s bottom, for a vessel already in
dock proved to be so badly injured that she seemed
likely to remain there indefinitely.

The line from Callao to Easter Island first disclosed
the fact that west and south of the Humboldt Current,
a vast tract of desert sea stretches uninterruptedly over
a husre area of the Pacific Ocean. Until about 90° W.
the hauls continued much as they had been on the pre-
vious line, but after this as the ship left the current
matters changed rapidly, and the expedition found itself
in a region almost barren of pelagic fauna, while the
trawl brought up from the bottom nothing but quanti-
ties of manganese nodules, sharks’ teeth, and whales’
ear-bones.

426

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

As this condition, which Agassiz had previously sus-
pected, became apparent, he took a greater and greater
interest in the work, which was continued with unfail-
ing regularity, to develop the extent of the desert. As
each successive haul of the trawl was swung on board
he would, after examining its contents of mud and nod-
ules, exclaim with a smile, “ Not a thing,” and while in
this region was most pleased when he got least.

These desert tracts of the ocean’s bottom can be ac-
counted for by the fact that they exist in regions where
there are no great currents to transport life over the
upper layers of the sea. As there is little or no life on
the surface, no food falls to the bottom, and there is
nothing to support life there. In such places for various
reasons there is but little accumulation of any deposit,
and on this account the teeth of the huge Tertiary
sharks, and the ear-bones of the whales, which must
once have frequented these waters in large numbers,
have not been covered up. Other portions of the skele-
tons of these animals are not found because they are
more easily dissolved, and have disappeared.

While in this desert region, it seemed impossible to
avoid manganese nodules. Sometimes the trawl would
come up so heavily loaded with these concretions, which
looked much like irregular potatoes, that as the bag left
the water, after a few labored turns of the engine, the
net would give way, and only its remnants would be
swung on deck. Later in the voyage Mr. Chamberlain
contrived a support by which this danger was very much
lessened.

Murray, the authority on such matters, accounts for
these nodules somewhat as follows. He considers them
secondary formations derived from the decomposition of

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

427

volcanic rocks and minerals, principally pumice, the pro-
ducts of both aerial and submarine eruptions. In desert
regions, where little else accumulates on the bottom,
these volcanic products are exposed for a long time to
the action of sea- water and thus undergo alteration. The
manganese contained in them is converted into bicar-
bonate of manganese, which is deposited as manganese
dioxide upon coming into contact with the overlying
water. The deposition usually takes place around a
nucleus, which may be a shark’s tooth, an ear-bone of a
wdiale, or a decomposing fragment of volcanic glass,
though in some cases no nucleus can be detected.

As the Albatross neared Easter Island, Agassiz be-
came very anxious about meeting his collier, supposed
to be approaching this isolated spot from the other end
of the world. Any failure on her part would, indeed,
have proved a very serious matter, for there is no com-
munication with the island except about once a year,
when a Chilian man-of-war calls there. As the ship
approached Cook Bay, every one was eagerly looking
ahead. On rounding the promontory, not only did the
collier come into view, but to their intense surprise a
Chilian man-of-war, whose captain Agassiz suspected
had somehow got wind of the expedition and turned up
there to see what was going on.

TO MRS. G. R. AGASSIZ

On Board the Albatross,

Easter Island, Dec. 17, 1904.

Little did I think that on my 69th birthday I should
be writing you from such an out-of-the-way place ! We
arrived here the 15th after an excellent trip from Callao;
the Captain of the collier was on board almost before

428

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

we dropped anchor, and we arranged to coal at La Pey-
rouse Bay, on the south side of the island, where the swell
interferes less with coaling alongside another steamer.
By 9 o’clock we were anchored there and at work in full
blast. While we were coaling we went on shore to col-
lect plants and insects and to examine some of the plat-
forms on which the natives of former days used to erect
their stone images — a more desolate-looking place I
don’t know except the great lava flows of the Sandwich
Islands. But this island is perhaps worse for its weak
attempts to grow grass on which the owners try to raise
sheep and cattle. The walking about all day was most
tiresome; we were glad, indeed, to get on board again
where you could put your foot down without fear of
twisting your ankle in a hole between two pieces of rock.

To-day we started off early to see the quarries where
the stone images are made. We got some nice little
ponies, most sure-footed beasts, and a great improve-
ment over walking. The stone images are found in all
stages of finish in the interior slopes of a volcano at the
east end of the island, Rana Koroka, as well as at those
of the outer face. They are cut out of a comparatively
soft volcanic ash which hardens with exposure. They
cut all round them and when free stand them up on
end to finish them, and then carry or slide them by main
force to the platforms which line the seacoast of the
island.

One of the finest of all the platforms is near the cra-
ter, but the images are no longer on their base. They
are all flat, lying at the back of the platform. They must
have been knocked down by an earthquake or some
cataclysm, as it looks as if the whole work on the island
was suddenly put a stop to.

EASTER ISLAND IMAGES, ABANDONED ON THE MOUNTAIN SLOPES

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

429

I am sending this by a Chile man-of-war we found
here ; she leaves to-morrow for Valparaiso, twenty days'
passage. As the Chilians only send the vessel once a
year, it was quite a hit to enable me to give signs of
life.

During the five days that the Albatross lay off Easter
Island, Agassiz was as eager in the study of the myste-
rious images and the remnant of the native population
as in collecting the fauna and flora of this isolated
oceanic island.

The origin of these colossal statues is an unsolved
mystery, though it seemed probable to Agassiz that the
immediate ancestors of the present inhabitants were the
sculptors of the images. Some of the natives pretend
that the carvers were their great-great-grandfathers. If
so, the unambitious and indolent natives must be a great
contrast to their sturdy and industrious ancestors, who
somehow accomplished the Herculean, if somewhat mis-
guided, task of encircling the island with a series of
massive platforms surmounted by these rude Goliaths.

He found that the natives had long abandoned the
houses of their ancestors, built of stone slabs against
the hillside, for steep-roofed thatched huts. These in
their turn had of late years been replaced by rude hovels
of rough boards, built under the direction of a Danish
carpenter, from a shipload of lumber wrecked on the
island. A number of families often occupied one of these
shanties, where at night men, women, and children would
lie down like dogs in a kennel, with about the same
ideas of the comforts of life.

Agassiz concluded that the population of this island
in 1860, shortly before a large number of them were

430

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

kidnapped by the Peruvians, must have been about three
thousand. Since then the inhabitants have been afflicted
with that mysterious blight which settles on all Pacific
Islanders at the slightest contact with civilization. Ten
years later the population was reduced to nine hundred ;
and at the time of his visit there were less than one
hundred and fifty inhabitants.

The largest indigenous animal on the island proved
to be a small lizard, but this did not dampen the ardor
of the collectors, who greedily gathered whatever they
could lay their hands on in the way of flies, lizards,
earthworms, and cockroaches, much to the amusement
of the simple-minded natives. Doubtless they would
have appreciated the comment of a stage-driver in the
White Mountains, who remarked of the elder Agassiz
and a party of his assistants, — “ They said they was
‘ naturals/ and I should think they was ! ”

On leaving Easter Island the ship ran into a two days’
blow, the first gale of the trip, and although the Alba-
tross was tossed about in the liveliest way, Agassiz was
pleasantly surprised to find that on this occasion he was
not seasick. Any one who has experienced the distress-
ing effects of even a short period of seasickness will real-
ize his enthusiasm for his explorations by the fact that
he persisted so ardently in this work in the face of his
great susceptibility to this malady.

Until they again ran into the Humboldt Current
in about 12° S. latitude, the barren condition of the
ocean continued; north of this they once more found
the same richness of life as in other portions of the
current. This lasted till they reached Chatham Island
in the Galapagos. Here they found the schooner with
their coal waiting for them in Wreck Bay, which she

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

431

had reached from Callao six days previously. It was the
height of the dry season, and the great gray slopes of
the island, covered with dry bushes and shrubs, were
quite as uninviting in appearance as Darwin described
them. When the Albatross visited the island in 1891,
during the wet season, everything was green, and Agas-
siz, as previously noted, was much struck with its luxuri-
ant appearance as contrasted with Darwin’s impression
of its general desolation.

On shore the party found the convict settlement tem-
porarily abandoned, and the island held by a small
Ecuadorian garrison. For Mr. Cobos, the former lessee
of the island, who in 1891 was farming his plantation,
had been killed some years previously in an insurrection
of the convicts hired from the Government.

On leaving Chatham Island for Manga Reva, the ship
again ran into the desert region at about 15° S., and
remained in it until a short distance from Manga Reva.
On reaching the port of Rikitea it became evident that
if the ship were ever to reach Acapulco with the coal she
could carry from Manga Reva, something must be done
to clean her bottom, which had become excessively dirty
from long exposure to tropical seas. Agassiz, remem-
bering that pearl-divers were half-amphibians, solved
the problem by distributing wire brushes to a number
of natives, who succeeded in diving under the ship and
scrubbing her clean from stem to stern.

While this process was going on and the ship was
coaling, Agassiz spent his time exploring the Gambier
Islands, of which Manga Reva is the largest. Darwin,
from an examination of the charts, had called attention
to the similarity of this archipelago to Truk in the Caro-
lines. Agassiz, after having examined them both, was

432

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

struck by the same likeness. He considered that the
Gambier Islands represented what was left from the
erosion of a much larger island with a number of vol-
canic craters. It appeared to him to be an intermediate
state, of wasting away from atmospheric agencies, be-
tween Truk and such a barrier-reef island as Bora Bora
in the Society Islands.

On February 4 the Albatross, her deck loaded with
coal, left the archipelago for Acapulco, some three thou-
sand three hundred miles to the eastward. Agassiz had
calculated that by carefully husbanding his coal he
could manage to visit Clipperton Island, as well as con-
tinue his sounding and dredging operations. All wrent
well for some days, but when still several hundred miles
within what was supposed to be the region of southeast
trades, the ship unexpectedly struck a strong and con-
tinuous head wind. The visit to Clipperton Island was
given up, and all work abandoned except the morning’s
soundings. As the head winds continued with increased
violence, it became evident that every ton of coal would
have to be watched to enable the ship to reach port.
During the last few days the situation became so ex-
tremely critical that Agassiz and the Captain consulted
as to the possibility of reaching some island to leeward,
under what little sail they were able to spread. As the
Albatross under these conditions would have behaved
much like a raft propelled by a pocket handkerchief,
the merest landlubber can, from a glance at the chart,
easily imagine the feelings of the leader of the expedi-
tion and the commander of the ship. When, at length,
with only a few hours’ coal in the bunkers, the chain
rattled through the hawse-pipe in Acapulco Harbor, it
lifted a great weight from two very anxious men, who

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

433

during the last few days must have more than once
thought of such conditions as are pictured in the “ An-
cient Mariner.”

On the way to San Diego all hands were busy putting
the collections in order and packing them for shipment ;
hut though Agassiz and his assistants worked from
daylight till dark, the work was not half finished when
they reached port. Here the expedition disbanded, Dr.
Bigelow being left to superintend the packing and ship-
ping of the collections, and attend to the hundred and
one loose ends that are the necessary accompaniment
of so long an expedition. Part of the collections was
sent to W ashington and part to Cambridge, whence they
were distributed for study to specialists in all parts of
the scientific world. The collections sent to Cambridge
filled half a freight car.

In writing of Agassiz some years later, Professor
Kofoid says : “ Throughout the whole Expedition, and
even more so as I now look back at it, I was impressed
by the fact that he viewed the whole in a large way ;
although the whole was planned and executed with great
attention to the minutest details, it was nevertheless
carried out with certain larger ends definitely in view,
and these were never for an instant lost sight of amidst
the mass of detail that inevitably envelops such an enter-
prise. His work revealed a master mind, great in its com-
prehensive conception of the problems of the sea, and its
executive efficiency.”

One of Agassiz’s characteristic traits was the care with
which he planned for future engagements at the other
end of the earth, and the punctuality with which he met
them. An extract, written from the Galapagos to his son
in Santa Barbara, is a good illustration of this quality.

434

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

“ As far as I can guess from the past dispatch of the
work and speed of the Albatross, we are due at Manga
Reva the last of January and should arrive at Acapulco
the last day of February and at San Diego the 12th of
March and at Santa Barbara two or three days later. I
must be back in Cambridge the 26th or 27th of March
to clear the decks and get ready for the Washington
meeting of the Academy, the 17th of April.1 So that
when I telegraph you my movements from Acapulco,
engage for me a stateroom or a compartment by the
Santa Fe to Chicago for the &2d of March ; if you can’t
get via Santa Fe, get the same accommodation via Rock
Island to Chicago. If that does not work, telegraph to
San Francisco for the same via Central and Union Pa-
cific. I take it Max will be there and will probably share
my quarters.”

As usual, Agassiz had returned on time to the day,
after having explored one of the least known portions
of the earth’s surface. His short journey in the cars to
Santa Barbara was an amusing contrast, for the local
train was delayed for three days in a washout.

This was the last of Agassiz’s expeditions devoted to
zoological work. His cruises in the Blake had made the
Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and certain portions
of the Atlantic, as well known oceanographically as any
regions of the world. In his first Albatross Expedition
he had extended his investigations to the regions to the
westward of Panama, and in this last voyage he had
explored a vast extent of unknown ocean and discovered
a huge desert area.

One of the chief ultimate objects of his oceanic inves-

1 To preside as President of the National Academy.

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

435

tigations was the amount of variation from type that
may be expected in a given period of geological time, as
illustrated by the difference in the fauna on the two
sides of the Isthmus of Panama since the days when
the Caribbean was virtually a bay of the Pacific. The
reports of the specialists on his material collected on
both sides of the Isthmus were to be made with this end
in view ; while the preliminary geological studies, carried
on in connection with his study of West Indian coral
reefs, had been extended under his direction by Hill
and others, so that he felt that he had an approximate
idea of the period.

When he was chosen president of the International
Zoological Congress of 1907, he first selected this ques-
tion as the subject of his presidential address. But feel-
ing that he had not yet received the reports of a suffi-
cient number of his collaborators to make as complete a
study of the subject as he desired, he finally abandoned
it in favor of a summary of American oceanography.

It is one of the tragedies of a full life that so much
must be left unfinished. His “ Panamic Report,” so long
looked forward to, was never written. Thus the great-
est quantitative study of the progress of evolution ever
attempted was left without the final touch of the master
hand.

The following winter of 1905-06 he spent on the
Nile, where he had passed a winter just twenty years
before. At Luxor he was much interested in visiting,
in the Valley of the Kings, the excavations of his New-
port neighbor, Mr. Theodore Davis. The archaeological
treasures which that gentleman has unearthed are now
well known to every one who has heard anything of
Egypt, and it may be worth noting that his first interest

436

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

in the land of the Pharaohs was excited by a little book
by Mr. Martin Brimmer, lent him by Agassiz.

On his way through France, Agassiz stopped at Monte
Carlo to see the Prince of Monaco, and the boat the Prince
was using for his oceanographic work, to which he had
been devoting for a number of years a large part of
his royalties from the gambling-tables. Thus those who
throw their money away at the Casino can have the
consolation of knowing that they are really supporting
scientific research.

TO MRS. G. R. AGASSIZ

Paris, March 3, 1906.

I am glad to be in Paris again and will try and settle
down and begin to work on the address I have to give
in August, 1907, as President of the Zoological Con-
gress, which meets in Boston in August. I tried hard
to get out of it, but could not manage it. I hate to give
that sort of thing ; one has to spend no end of time in
saying nothing of any value and yet accuracy is needed
and requires endless quotations and looking up people’s
views. I never but once delivered such an address, to the
American Association for the Advancement of Science,
ever so long ago at Cambridge, and if I remember rightly
it cost me six months of hard work. I infinitely prefer
to write a large monograph or a report on an expedition,
where there is something definite, and when you have
done, something of value remains. Though it is true that
for the short time of a month or so the address calls for
a lot of notoriety and discussions, neither of which is to
my taste. I tried while loafing at Cairo to make a start,
but could not get going. It seemed hopeless. I hope to
succeed better while here and in London. I am here for

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

437

a couple of weeks and the same in London, to sail the
28th by the Kron Prinz Wilhelm, reaching New York
the 3d of April. Max and I both wish we had kept
on in our steamer from Naples to Marseilles and gone
back to Monte Carlo. The Italian railroads are simply
infernal and filthy and crowded to death. Being Gov-
ernment railroads, complaints are of course useless, and
yet that is what Theodore the First wants to do. I should
like to condemn him to a week of travel there — he ’d
change his views.

W e had an excellent sight of the lava flow of V esu-
vius ; it was really very fine at night to see the great
river of red lava flowing down the slope and occasionally
reinforced by an explosion and flow from the crater. It
was quite cold in Italy; the snow was halfway down
Vesuvius, and going north of Rome came to within a few
hundred feet of the plain from the summits. The few
days we had at Monte Carlo were beautiful, and I greatly
enjoyed seeing the Riviera again. I dropped into the
Casino, and a more disgusting sight I can’t imagine, to
see the old men and women with their claws reaching
out for the little they make, while the bank is raking
it in, and young and old sitting there all day long*
I should think a couple of visits would cure any gam-
bler. There must have been twelve to fifteen hundred
people in the Casino at a time and a flood going in and
out.

I lunched with the Prince, where there were a lot of
people I did not know, but found the members of his
household whom I had met in Paris and the Captain of
his yacht, who was an old acquaintance. As soon as we
could get away he took me to see his Oceanic Museum ;
it is a large and very handsome building to be finished

438

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

in two years, where he proposes to put on exhibition
everything pertaining to marine life, etc., and to have
laboratories for studying the ocean in all its aspects.
We then wTent on board his yacht, the Princesse Alice, a
boat of somewhat larger size than the Albatross, about
two hundred tons more. She is a splendid boat and
admirably equipped for all the kind of work I have been
doing. Her only defect is she is not a twin screw and
that too much space has been taken for the Prince’s
quarters and servants, at the cost of coal space and labo-
ratory quarters. But she is just the kind of vessel I
ought to have built in ’79 when I came back from my
second Blake Expedition. I think it would have paid
me to have been absolutely independent for twenty-five
years and not to have been obliged to use the Albatross,
though I had her on admirable terms, and to charter
tramps and keep transferring my equipment from one
boat to another. However, I ’ve done my share of work
of that kind and somebody can go ahead now. The
Prince had arranged to make a short cruise with me to
Marseilles and let me see the working of the ship; unfor-
tunately he had to give it up, as part of his necessary
equipment had not got on board and was side-tracked
somewhere on the way.

Feeling that he would like to visit the West Indies
again, Agassiz chartered the steam yacht Virginia for
the winter of 1907. After his study of coral reefs in the
Indian Ocean and the Pacific, he wished to see some-
thing more of this region and to check some of the geo-
logical work that had been done for him there. Two of
his sons, a daughter-in-law, and the wife of one of his
assistants were included in the party, so that the expedi-

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION 439

tion resolved itself into the combination of scientific
review and yachting cruise.

The yacht’s track is not shown on the chart, for it
covers much the same ground as the second cruise of
the Blake : along the Windward Islands to Grenada and
back to the south of Porto Rico and Haiti, around the
east end of Cuba and through the Old Bahama Channel.

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ

On Board the Virginia,
Roseau, Dominica, March 5, 1907.

I have not given any signs of life for quite a while,
though I have cabled from every island to Dolph and I
presume you heard of my progress. We have had excel-
lent passages thus far, though the boat being small she
is pretty brisk in her movements, and we have all at
different times succumbed to her motion. I had forgot-
ten how beautiful the islands were, for when I was here
in ’78 the interest in the deep-sea dredging was my
first care and land interests were relegated to the rear.
Now it is the reverse. Some of the days we spent going
round Montserrat, St. Kitt’s, and specially Guadeloupe
and Dominica were within reach of beautiful landscape,
ever-changing mountain scenes and superb vegetation.
Geologically the country is very interesting, and I am
checking to a great extent the work of one of my assist-
ants who has been here in past years, and just sent in his
Report in time for me to read it before starting. A Mr.
Spencer has also written a good deal on the subject, but
he had preconceived ideas which warped his views of all
he looked at. I have never been on an expedition in such
a princely way. Comfort does not express the state of
things existing on the Virginia. There is everything

440

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

you can think of on board for comfort, servants without
end, an excellent stewardess, a capital head steward who is
indefatigable, a chef whose cooking is simply first-class.
The Captain, officers, and men are all old hands on board,
most of them have been on board the Virginia since she
was built, and take the greatest possible interest in all
that is going on. I am greatly disappointed at the
poverty of the towing. I expected full nets in all the
passages, instead of which I find nothing or almost
nothing. I cannot explain it as yet, but hope on the way
home to get some clue to such a queer state of things.
The assistants and machinery are all working well.

About this time a number of events combined to sap
the vigor of Agassiz’s old age. Calumet had recently
acquired control of a number of neighboring mines. A
small coterie of the minority stockholders of an adjacent
property, with whom there had been a feud since the
early days of Calumet, attempted by every trick known
to the law to exclude the majority from the management.
Agassiz was ultimately victorious, but the attack was so
viciously ill-natured and so gratuitously insulting that
it exasperated, distressed, and depressed him to an ex-
tent that would have been scarcely possible had he pos-
sessed the buoyancy of a younger man.

When Mr. Schuyler was killed in a distressing rail-
way accident in the south, Agassiz was so broken by the
shock that he felt unequal to going to the funeral, and
sent one of his sons to represent him. He and Mr.
Philip Schuyler had been the warmest of friends for
upwards of fifty years. It was a very unusual and touch-
ing friendship ; the admiration of the genial man of the
world for the learned man of science was only equaled

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

441

by Agassiz’s attachment and affection for Mr. Schuyler.
During the latter’s frequent visits to Cambridge they
would spend days together at the Museum in the most
complete sympathy and understanding ; Agassiz at work
on whatever he had on hand, and Mr. Schuyler quietly
reading.

In the early summer of 1907, his stepmother died
after a trying invalidism of several years. As she was
tenderly laid beside the great boulder from the glacier
of the Aar that, under the shade of Swiss pines, marks
the grave of her husband, one felt that Agassiz had
suddenly become an old man ; the last threads binding
him to the past had snapped.

A few words from a letter written that summer may
suggest better than anything else the very unusual place
which Mrs. Agassiz held in her stepson’s life.

“I can’t realize that when I go back to Boston I am
not going to see mother again. I do not associate her
in any way with Newport, as she always clung to Nahant ;
but when Max and I go back to Cambridge, the Quincy
Street house will seem very empty. Fortunately I am
well and can look forward to work to fill the gap which
has been made. But the associations of nearly thirty-
five years are not easily changed, and our relations were
so peculiar that I don’t know what to style them. She
was my mother, my sister, my companion and friend,
all in one. She carried her unspoken sorrow with a
brave front, and was only too glad to be at last released.
The like of her we shall not see again. From the time
that I first saw her at Mr. Felton’s house as Miss Cary,
and I only a small boy of thirteen, there never was a
word of disagreement ; she belonged to me and I to

442

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

her ; it could not have been otherwise : she learned to
know me through and through and placed in me the
most unbounded confidence, and entrusted me with the
keeping of her sorrows.”

The winter of 1908 found Agassiz headed for East
Africa in search of warm weather.

TO WOLCOTT GIBBS

Cambridge, Dec. 25, 1907.

I am off again to-morrow, sailing Friday per Baltic for
Liverpool, to stop a few days in London and Paris, and
thence to Marseilles, where I sail the 18th January for
Mombasa, the terminus of the Uganda Railroad lead-
ing to Victoria Nyanza. I am taking with me Max and
Woodworth. This is a lazy loafing trip merely to get
into a good warm region ; no work except to keep my
eyes open to see the many tribes of darkies which occupy
that part of East Africa. Besides that the scenery is
fine and game in way of elephants, giraffes, and ante-
lopes, to say nothing of hippopotami and rhinoceros
plenty ; lions have a way of picking passengers out of
their sleeping-cars : otherwise everything is most com-
fortable. I expect to be back early in April in time for
the Academy meeting. I see the American Philosophi-
cal Society is still insisting on holding its annual meet-
ing at the same time as the Academy, which will cut out
a good many members. It is too bad there should be
this antagonism and duplication of meetings and attempt
on the part of Philadelphia to cut out the Academy by
superior food attractions.

He appears to have been fascinated by the presence
of the herds of wild animals which seem to have been

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

443

plentiful in the neighborhood of the Mombasa and Lake
Nyanza Railroad, and his letters are full of descriptions
of them. 66 The presence of these large mammals gives
to the scenery a decidedly Tertiary look, and one can
readily reconstruct, if not the mammalian and reptilian
fauna, even of an earlier period, at any rate build up the
conditions under which they lived as contrasted to the
Tertiary period. The areas which still contain these huge
monsters of the present day are becoming more and
more restricted, and soon our imagination alone will be
left to draw upon and build up these prehistoric times.”

He used to tell of some amusing observations he
made of the giraffes. This animal is supposed to be a
fine example of the survival of the fittest, the fittest
in this case being those who possess the longest necks
and front legs, which enable them more readily to
reach the high boughs upon which they are supposed to
feed. He was interested to notice that all the giraffes
he saw were feeding upon low bushes !

Of his trip in the little steamer that plies around the
shores of Lake Nyanza he writes : 66 Equally interesting
are the natives but little removed from utter barbarism,
living huddled in reed huts and dressed in shields,
spears, and necklaces. But they are fine specimens of
humanity, in great contrast to the wretched type of
West African Congo negro, who has been imported to
the United States during the days of slavery. The natives
are thickly settled around the shore of Lake Nyanza.
Their villages are clean, well built, and orderly, and in
our cruise around the Lake we enjoyed nothing more
than our visit to these primitive settlements. We made
a few hauls of the tow net, but did not get anything of
importance.”

444

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

He escaped the New England winter of 1908-09 by a
visit to southern Italy. While in Naples he tripped on
a curbstone, fell headlong on his face, and knocked out
his front teeth. It was a painful accident, but what
appears to have bothered him most was that he should
have spent his life in roaming about safely to the ends
of the earth, only to meet disaster on the sidewalk of a
European city.

He had intended to spend the winter of 1909-10 in
wandering about Java and the East Indies. Ever ready
for new work, he had also meant to look about with a
view to seeing what arrangements he could make for
chartering a steamer for an exploration in those regions
another year. But that fall a persistent and severe
attack of the old trouble with his leg warned him that
it was wiser to keep within touch of doctors, and he
decided to pass another winter in Egypt.

He appeared to enjoy his winter on the Nile, and to
be in his usual health and in good spirits. It was not
till afterwards that his son Maximilian realized how
often he had found him asleep ; still his last few months
seem to have been quiet and happy ones.

On the way home there was some question of passing
around Paris on account of the recent floods which had
been causing such distress in that city.

TO MRS. G. R. AGASSIZ

Hotel Athenee, Paris,
March 10, 1910.

As you see, after all we got to Paris. On further
inquiry I found the doctors thought Paris cleaner than
it had ever been, and that with all the disinfection that
had been going on it was really as safe as at any time

EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION

445

in the winter. So we came and are in our old quarters,
somewhat in a mess, as the manager is taking advantage
of the boycott against Paris by strangers to revamp the
whole house. I have seen a few of my Paris friends ;
those at the Jardin des Plantes fared badly, and the
menagerie worse than its keepers. They lost but one
beast, one old lady giraffe who had seen her best days.
The basement of the buildings where the duplicates are
kept fared badly, and I fancy those collections suffered
greatly. The great wine-sheds along the Seine were
swept clear of thousands of hogsheads of wine that
have gone down the Seine to — — ? It is even now
quite a sight to see the Seine rush against the arches
of the bridges ; a few only of them are fully opened.
They must have been well built to stand the enormous
pressure thrown against them — not one was carried
away. But the damage done to Paris, and especially to
the suburbs, is stupendous. It is a catastrophe. All the
small workmen who owned their houses in the banlieux,
who came to Paris every day to work, are cleaned out,
their houses and all cleared away, ruined from one day
to the next, nothing left after having provided a home
and for the future of their families. It is amazing how
the people have recovered their bearings. Everything
goes on as usual ; all the theatres, cafes, etc., are opened
in full blast as usual. The recuperative capacity of the
French is amazing, — the Franco-German war forty
years ago, and then such a calamity as this flood on
the top. They ought to be crushed, but they rise to the
occasion and get ready for the daily work, wThich, after
all, has carried many a man over calamities which seemed
unbearable.

W e had an excellent passage to Naples, stopped there

446

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ

a couple of days — on to Rome ditto, and have engaged
our passage for New York on the Adriatic to sail the
23d.

I expect to be a few days in Cambridge before the
meeting of the Academy in Washington the 19th of
April, then back to Quincy Street, then to Calumet
early in May, and then to Newport so as to be there
last part of May ready for business. What are your
plans? Love to George.

On his way home he passed through London, where
he dined with Murray and a number of his scientific
colleagues just before sailing. He took passage in the
Adriatic on March 23 ; a few days out he spent the
evening chatting in the smoking-room with a few
friends, and went to bed apparently cheerful and con-
tented. Sometime early the next morning, on Easter
Sunday, March 27, he died quietly in his sleep. Fit-
tingly upon the ocean, in whose mysteries he had so
deeply delved, his mother Nature whispered to him her
great secret, and led him peacefully and painlessly into
the unknown. He lies beside the wife of his youth,
whom he had buried thirty-six years before in Forest
Hills.

ENVOI

HENRY ADAMS TO H. L. HIGGINSON

Washington, Apl. 2, 1910.

I wish I were there to show what respect I could for
Alex. If I showed all I felt, it would be worth while to
go far. He was the best we ever produced, and the only-
one of our generation whom I would have liked to
envy. When I look back on our sixty years of life, and
think of our millions of contemporaries, I am pacified
when the figure of Alex occurs to me, and I feel al-
most reconciled to my own existence. We did one first-
rate work when we produced him, and I do not know
that, thus far, any other country has done better. I feel
as though our lives had become suddenly poor — almost
as though our generation were bankrupt by his loss.
He stood so high above any one else in my horizon that
I can no longer see a landmark now that he is gone.
To any one else except you I should have to explain all
this feeling, but you know how true and natural it is
and I can leave it so.

INDEX

Abbot, E. H., 19.

Acalephs, 47, 116, 273, 345.

Acapulco, 259-61.

Adams, Henry, 447.

Adams, J. Q., 241.

Africa, East, 442-43.

Africa, north coast, 232-33.

Africa, South, 346-47.

Agassiz, Alexander, birth, 6; life at
Neuchatel, 6-8 ; at Freiburg, 9-13 ;
leaves for America, 13 ; arrival in
America, 14 ; goes to Cambridge High
School, 15 ; life at Cambridge, 15-18 ;
visits Charleston, 18 ; college life, 19-
23 ; Scientific School, 23 ; teaches in
his father’s school, 23-24 ; Coast Sur-
vey assistant in Cal., 25-27; appointed
agent of Museum, 28 ; marriage, 28 ;
life at Museum, 32-44 ; early zoolog-
ical research, 44 ; summer work at
Nahant, 45 ; embryology of Echino-
derms, 45-46 ; study of Annelids, 46-
47 ; of Acalephs, 47 ; first views of evo-
lution, 48-52 ; manages coal mines in
Penn., 53 ; visits Calumet, 57 ; opinion j
of Calumet, 58-60 ; sent to take charge
of Calumet, 61 ; life at Calumet, 62-
85 ; later development of Calumet,
86-89 ; resumes scientific work at Mu-
seum, 91; study of beaver, 94-96;
illness, 97 ; visit to Europe, 97-114; I
work on “ Revision,” 114 ; rents
“Shady Hill,” 115; study of Torna-
ria, 115; embryology of jelly-fish,
116; visits Challenger at Halifax,
121 ; publication of the “ Revision of
the Echini,” 122 ; on evolution, 122- j
23 ; death of his father and wife, 124 ;
takes charge of the Museum, 128-29;
continues school at Penikese, 129-31 ;
visits Chile and Peru, 131-41 ; ex-
ploration of Lake Titicaca, 142-49;
collects South American antiquities,
149 ; selects Newport as best place
for marine studies, and builds a
house, 151 ; his dislike of automobiles,

152- 53 ; the Newport Laboratory,

153- 56 ; studies in embryology, 156 ; |

of flounders, 156-57 ; helps sort the
Challenger collections, 157-58; the
Challenger Echini, 158-61 ; on evolu-
tion, 162-64 ; early interest in ocean-
ography, 165, natural aptitude for,
167 ; liability to seasickness, 167 ;
broader aspects of work, 168 ; in-
vited to take charge of Blake, 169 ;
adopts wire rope for dredging and
other improvements, 169-71 ; first
cruise of Blake, 172-79 ; on wire rope,
173-75 ; second cruise of Blake, 178-
82 ; third cruise of Blake, 183-85 ;
distribution of collections, 185 ; Gulf
Stream, 185-86 ; Panamic studies, 186 ;
on survival of Archaic types, 186-87 ;
on the depths of the ocean, 188-89 ;
unable to winter in New England,
191; mining ventures, 191-92 ; visit to
ruins of Yucatan, 194-203; Mexico,
203-04; visits India, 208-10; visits
Hawaiian Islands, 213—16; on early
Americans, 216-17 ; offered charge of
Coast Survey, 219-20; Egypt and
Eastern Med., 221-23 ; fires in Calu-
met, 225-26 ; honorary degree at
Cambridge, Eng., 227 ; Cor. memb.
of French Academy of Sc., 227 ; win-
ter in northern Africa, 232-33; his
development of Museum, 235-37 ;
other University interests, 237-38 ; in
re undergraduate education, 238-40 ;
resigns from Corporation, 241 ; First
Albatross Expedition, 244-63 ; bathy-
metrical range, 263-66 y Panamic
studies, 266-68 ; Japan, 269-71 ; Cal-
amocrinus, 272 ; young fishes and
jelly-fish, 273 ; scientific correspond-
ence, 273; Florida reefs, 277-78;
Coral theories, 279; Tortugas, 280-
82 ; to Darwin on coral reefs, 284-
86 ; Hawaiian reefs, 286-87 ; Baha-
mas, 288-95, coral formations, 296-
98; Bermudas, 300, structure of, 301
-05 ; Florida reefs, 306-09 ; Great
Barrier Reef, 311-19, formation, 319
-21 ; Mexico, 322 ; the Fijis, 324-35 ;
Hawaii, 335, reefs of, 335-36; for-

450

INDEX

mation of Fijis, 336-43; Funafuti
bore, 343-44 ; South Africa, 346-47 ;
Second Albatross Expedition, 348-73 ;
Tropical Pacific reefs, 373-79 ; Eu-
rope, 381; portrait by Lefebvre, 381;
Maldives, 383-95, formation, 389-92 ;
popular book on coral reefs, 395-
96 ; life at Newport, 397-98; contri-
butions to Museum and Harvard
University, 399; Calumet, 402 ; under-
ground temperatures, 402-03 ; Eu-
rope, 405-08; Royal Society lecture
on Coral Reefs, 40S-09; “Hawaiian
and other Pacific Echini ” in collab-
oration with Prof. H. L. Clark, 409 ;
Colobocentrotus, 409 ; methods of
work, 409; offered charge of Car-
negie Institute Exp., 410; Panamic
Echini, 411 ; elected Foreign Associ-
ate of the French Academy of Sci-
ence, 412 ; other scientific honors,
412-13 ; later relations with Museum,
414-18 ; Eastern Pacific Expedition,
419-33; Panamic Report, 435 ; Egypt,
435-36 ; Monaco, 436, 437-38 ; Vir-
ginia Exp., 438-40 ; East Africa, 442
-43 ; accident in Naples, 444 ; Egypt,
444 ; death, 446.

Agassiz, Anna Russell ; marriage, 28 ;
68, 73, 98, 100, 102, 105, 113, 119;
death, 124.

Agassiz, C^cile Braun, 3, 4, 9, 10, 12.

Agassiz, Elizabeth C. ; marriage, 15 ; 16,
23, 44, 100, 103, 106, 107, 110, 113,
125, 126, 132, 138, 142, 151, 194, 197,
200, 204, 360, 382, 403 ; death, 441-42.

Agassiz, Louis, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14,
15, 16, 18, 23, 28, 31, 32, 36, 97, 119 ;
death, 124; 128, 129, 277, 412, 417,
430.

Agassiz, L. B. R., 1.

Agassiz, Rose Mayor, 2.

Albatross, the, 244 ; First Expedition,
244-63 ; Second Expedition, 348-73 ;
Third Expedition, 419-33.

Alexander, A. B., 348.

Ampere, A. M., 17.

Amra, the, 383, 385.

Anderson, John, 129, 131.

Andrews, E. C., 341.

Arago, D. F. J., 185.

Archaeology, American, 131, 141, 143,
144, 145, 146, 149, 199, 200, 202, 216,
217.

Archaic types, 186-87.

Argyll, Duke of, 227, 228.

Atacama desert, 137-38.

Athens, 221-22.

Bache, A. D., 25.

Baer, Karl von, 163.

Bahamas, 288-95 ; formation, 297-98.

Bandai San, 269, 270-71.

Barlow, F. C., 19.

Bartlett, J. R., 178, 183, 186.

Bathymetrical range, 184-85, 252, 263-
66, 299.

Bavois, 1.

Bazaine,A. C., 111.

Beavers, 94-96.

Belknap, G E., 243.

Bell, F. J., 236.

Bermudas, 301-05.

Bibb, the, 166, 181.

Bigelow, H. B., 384, 420, 423, 433.

Bismarck, Prince, 109.

Blake, the ; equipment, 169-72 ; first
cruise, 172-78 ; second cruise, 178-82 ;
third cruise, 183-85 ; 188.

Bololo, 328,345.

Bonney, T. G., 228.

Booth, Edwin, 17.

Bora Bora, 363 ; formation and model
of, 377 ; 432.

Bowers, G. M., 348.

Braun, Alexander, 3, 9, 163.

Braun, Carl, 3.

Braun, Maximilian, 3.

Brewster, E. T., vii.

British Museum, 94, 98, 114, 158, 411,
417.

Brooke, J. M., 172.

Brooks, Phillips, 19.

Brown-S^quard, 235.

Bunsen, R. W. von, 412.

Burkhardt, Jacques, 15, 19.

Calamocrinus, 272.

Calumet and Hecla Mine ; discovery of,
53-55 ; Mr. Shaw obtains control of,
56 ; Agassiz sent to, 61 ; Agassiz’s
early development of, 62-85 ; later
development of , 85-89; 115, 129,224
-25; fires in, 225-26; 238, 402; un-
derground temperatures in, 402-03 ;
tailings in Torch Lake, 405.

Cambridge, 14 ; early life at, 15-18.

Capellini, Giovanni, 101.

Caroline Ids., 372 ; formation, 377.

Carpenter, W. B., 93, 167.

Cary, Thomas, 119.

“ Castle Hill,” Newport ; first mention
of, 151.

Challenger, the; A. A. guest of, at
Halifax, 121; 167, 173,174, 176, 181,
247, 263, 351.

Chamberlain, F. M., 420, 426.

INDEX

451

Chamisso, A. von ; theory of coral reefs,
274.

Chanaral, mines of, 136-37.

Charnay, D4sir4, 196, 197, 198, 199.

Chichen, ruins of, 196, 197-200.

Child, F. J., 16.

Chile and Peru, 131-41.

Christinat, M., 15.

Chun, Carl, 263, 264, 266, 351.

Clark, Elizabeth H., 221, 314, 370, 424.

Clark. H. L., 409.

Cleveland, Grover, 219, 312.

Clyde, the tug-, 306-07.

Cocks, R., 325.

Columbus ; landing of, 290 ; 293,

“ Conspiracy of Silence,” 227.

Cook Ids., 363.

Cooke, J. P., 20, 152, 235.

Copacabana, Virgin of, 145.

Coral Reefs, 273-74 ; Chamisso’s theory,
274 ; Darwin’s theory, 275-76 ; con-
firmation by Dana, 276; not supported
by later investigations, 277-80 ; Flo-
rida reefs, 277-78 ; Agassiz’s views,
279; growth of reef on talus, 279;
Tortugas, 280, 281 ; Florida reefs,
282 ; Darwin to Agassiz, 282-83 ; de-
posit of pelagic shells, 283-84 ; Agassiz
to Darwin, 284-86 ; Hawaiian Islands,
286-87 ; Hog3ty Reef, 292, 305 ; of
Cuba, 296-97 ; Bahamas, 297-98 ;
Bermudas, 302-04 ; Florida reef,
306-09 ; Tortugas, 307 ; Great Bar-
rier Reef, Jukes on, 310—1 1, Agas-
siz’s views, 319-21 ; Wailangilala
bore, 330-31, 333, 335; Hawaii,
335-36; Fijis, 336-42; Funafuti
bore, 330, 333, 342-44; Paumotus,
373-76; Pinaki Id.. 376 ; Society Ids.,
376-77 ; Tonga, 377 ; Caroline Ids.,
377 ; Ellice, Gilbert, and Marshall
Ids., 377-78 ; effect of trade winds,
378 ; Wilkes’s bench mark, 378 ; Mal-
dives, 389-92 ; popular book, 395-96 ;
Royal Society lecture, 408-09 ; 431-32.

Corwin, the, 91, 166.

Croyden, the, 311.

Culia, elevated limestones of, 296-97.

Curtis, G. C. ; model of Funafuti, 343 ;
model of Bora Bora, 377.

Dali, W. H., 341.

Dana, J. D., 276, 280, 322, 324, 329, 333,
335, 336, 358, 362, 375.

Darwin, Charles, 5; “ Origin of Species,”
47; 48,49, 50, 51, 97, 98, 113, 118,
119, 120, 123, 136, 141, 227, 228, 255 ;
theory of coral reefs, 275-76; 277,

279, 280, 281 ; on coral reefs, 282-83 ;
284, 286, 298, 310, 319, 324, 329, 333,
346, 358, 362, 383, 394, 395, 431.

David, T. W. E., 330, 341, 342, 368.

Davis, Theo., 435.

Derb&3, Alph., 45.

Desert of Pacific, 425, 426, 427, 430,
434.

Dolomites, 306.

Dolphin Bank, 378.

Easter Id., 427-30.

Echini, 45-46 ; first work on “ Revis-
ion,” 47 ; Agassiz goes abroad to study,
97, 99, 103 ; printed photographs of,
104 ; 107 ; work on “ Revision,” 114 ;
“Revision of,” 121; publication of
the “Revision,” 122; of Challenger
Ex., 158, 159, 160, 161 ; 162, 167, 182,
193 ; of Blake Exps., 193 ; Albatross,
346, 380, 408 ; “ Hawaiian and Other
Pacific Echini,” 409; Colobocentro-
tus, 409 ; Echinoneus and Micropeta-
lon, 409; Panamic Echini, 411.

Echinoderms, embryology of, 45-46,
156.

Eclipse Expedition of Pensacola, 234.

Egerton, Sir Philip, 98.

Egypt, 221, 435-36, 444.

Ehlers, Ernst, 107, 205, 217, 380, 407.

Elevated limestones ; of Cuba, 296-97 ;
of Florida, 307-08 ; slight elevation
of Great Barrier Reef, 321 ; Fiji, 340-
42.

Eliot, C. W., 22, 61, 241.

Ellice Ids., 367-69; formation, 377-78.

Embryology ; of Echinoderms, 45-46,
156; of jelly-fish, 116,. 273 ; and early
development of fishes, 156, 208, 219,
242, 273 ; Prix Serres for work on,
398.

Emerton. J. H., 289.

Enniskillen, Lord, 98.

Evolution, 5, 48-52, 116, 119, 122-23,
140, 162-64, 434-35.

Failly, P. L. C., de,lll.

Fakarava, 359-61, 375.

Fauntlerov, the, 25.

Felton, C. C., 16.

Fiji, 324-35 ; formation, 336-43 ; 366-
67, 374, 376.

Florida Reefs, 277-78, 281-82, 284-86,
306-09.

Flounders ; early development of, 156;
protective mimicry, 156-57.

Flower, Sir W. H., 218.

Forbes, Edward, 113, 165, 166.

452

INDEX

Forbes, Henry 0., 277.

Forbes, J. M., 53, 288.

Forel, F. A., 211.

Franco-Prussian War, 110-12.
Franklin, Benjamin, 185.

Freiburg-, 9-13, 105.

French Academy of Science, 227, 398;
Agassiz elected Foreign Associate,
412.

Fulanga, 338.

Funafuti; Royal Society boring, 330,
333, 342-44 ; 368-69, 409.

Galapagos Ids., 255-58, 430-31.
Gardiner, J. S., 368, 383, 384, 392, 394.
Garman, S. W., 131, 142, 144, 145, 146,
172, 173, 178.

Garrett, L. M., 420, 424.

Georgia, Gulf of, 25.

Gibbs, Wolcott, 130, 146, 152, 332.
Gilbert Ids., 369-70 ; formation, 377—
78.

Girls’ school, 23-25.

Godkin, E. L., 220.

Gogebic Iron Range, 192.

Goodale, Geo. L., 235.

Gray, Asa, 16, 228.

Gray, Francis C., 31.

Great Barrier Reef ; Jukes’s views, 310-
11 ; Agassiz’s visit to, 311-19 ; forma-
tion, 319-21.

Griswold, L. S., 308.

Guam, 372-73.

Haeckel, Ernst, 21, 108; Gastrasa the-
ory, 116; 126, 158, 351.

Haleakala, 215, 340.

Hardie, George, 80, 83, 84, 85.

Harvard University, 9, 13, 19,229, 237-
42.

Hassler, the, 119, 120, 132, 181, 251,

258.

Hawaiian Ids., 213-16 ; reefs, 286-87 ;

formation, 335-36.

Hecker, Friedrich, 12.

Hector, Sir James, 43.

Helmholtz, H. L. F. von, 106.

Henshaw, Samuel, vi, 417.

Higginson, H. L., 58, 191, 447.
Higginson, Ida Agassiz, 18, 58, 382, 414.
Hill, R. T., 267, 296, 297, 435.

Hogsty Reef ; formation of, 292, 305.
Hooker, Sir Joseph, 98, 228, 412.
Horsford, E. N., 23.

Hotel des Neuchatelois, 6.

Hughes, Tom, 98.

Hulbert, E. J., 54-56, 57, 60, 63-65, 66,
67, 83, 84.

Hulbert, John, 67, 84.

Humboldt, Alexander von, 8, 185.
Humboldt Current, 252, 254, 421-22,
425, 430.

Huxley, T. H., 21, 92, 98, 124,206,207,
219, 223, 227, 228, 230, 234, 278, 299,
349.

Hyderabad, 208-10.

India, the Durbar at Hyderabad, 208-

10.

Jackson, A. C. ; discovers Viviparous
“Perch,” 27.

Jaluit, first mention of, 370.

Japan, 269-71.

Jardin des Plantes, 32, 99, 116, 117, 382,
445.

Jeffreys, Gwyn, 167, 217.

Jukes, J. B. ; on Great Barrier Reef,
310-11 ; 319, 320.

Kambara, 366-67.

Kaup, J. J., 35, 37, 38, 39.

Keeling Atoll, 276, 277.

Kemble, Fanny, 17.

Kent, W. S., 310, 316, 317, 318.
Kimberley, 346, 347.

King, Clarence, 191, 192, 204.

King, Edward, 15.

Koch, Robert, 412.

Kofoid, C. A., 420, 424, 433.

Komo, 339.

Krohn, August, 45.

Laboratory, Newport, 153-56.
Lamarck, Jean, 49.

Lawrence, James, 97.

Leavitt, E. D., 87, 88, 259.

Lefebvre, Jules, 381, 384.

Lepidoptera (first publication of A. A.),
44.

Longfellow, H. W., 16-
Lovln, S., 187.

Lowell, Mrs. Charles, 18.

Lowell, John Amory, 9.

Lowell, J. R., 16.

Lubbock, John, Lord Avebury, 98.
Lyell, Sir Charles, 9, 98.

Lyman, Theodore, 19, 20, 28, 29, 40,

211.

McCandless ; borings at Hawaii, 335.
MacDonald, M., 243, 246, 254.
MacNaughton, James, 87, 402.

Makemo, 361.

Maldives, 383-95 ; formation, 3S9-92.
Male Id., 386, 390, 393.

INDEX

453

Manga Reva, 431 ; formation of, 431-
32.

Manganese nodules, 351, 425; Mur-
ray’s explanation of, 426-27.

Marcel, Felix, 14.

Marquesas Ids., 352-55.

Marshall Ids., 370-72 ; formation, 377-
78.

Matuku, 339.

Mayer, A. G., 289, 312, 314, 334, 345,
361, 369.

Mayor, Charles, 14.

Mbenga, 325, 334.

Meiggs, Henry, 131.

Menschikov, 371.

Mexico, 203-04 ; 322-23.

Meyer, Heinrich A., 105.

Milne Edwards, A., 42, 116, 165, 183,
324.

Missionaries, 364, 369, 372.

Monaco, Prince of, 436, 437, 438.

Moore, H. F., 348.

Morgan, Lewis H., 94, 96.

Moseley, H. N., 187, 216, 230.

Moser, J. F., 348.

Motu Iti, 377.

Muller, Fritz, 48, 51, 91, 228.

Muller, Johannes, 45, 46.

Muller, 0. F., 46, 165, 170.

Murray, Sir John, 121, 125 ; memorial
address to Agassiz, 158; 204, 210,
227, 228, 235, 266, 272, 277,278, 279,
282, 283, 285, 298, 300, 301, 317, 323,
324, 328; Funafuti bore, 343; 351,
384, 393, 399, 400, 405 ; on manga-
nese nodules, 426-27 ; 446.

Museum of Comparative Zoology, 27 ;
early history, 31-32 ; first Memoirs of,
47; receives $150,000, 93; 103, 127,
128-29, 161, 188, 206, 217-18, 235-
37 ; Agassiz resigns the directorship,
345, 346 ; Agassiz’s contributions to,
399 ; 414-18.

Nahant, first mention of, 14-

Nansen, Fridtjof, 311.

Neuchatel, 6-9.

Newcomb, Simon, 412.

Niau, 359, 375.

Nicaragua, Lake, 384.

Niter District, 139-40.

Niue (Savage Island), 363-64.

Norton, Charles E., 115, 196, 203,
238.

O’Brien, Sir George, 324.

Ocean bottom; permanence of, 169;
survival of Archaic types on, 186-87 ;

appearance of, 188-89 ; iu desert re-
gions, 426-27.

Oneata, 326.

Owen, Sir Richard, 98.

Pacific, Eastern, 419-33.

Pacific, Tropical, 348-73 ; atolls of,
373-79.

Packard, A. S., 130.

Palikao, Charles, Comte de, 111.

Panama, Isthmus of, first visit to, 25.

Panamic Report, 186, 243, 247, 256,
266-68, 411, 435.

Papeete, 359, 362.

Patterson, C . P., 169, 180.

Paumotus, 354-62 ; formation, 374-
76.

Peabody Museum, 131, 149, 370, 372,
415.

Peirce, B., 16, 20, 93, 114.

Peirson, Mrs. C. L., 260.

Perrier, E., 187.

Penikese School, 127, 129-31.

Pickering, E. C., 237.

Pigott, W., 385, 394.

Pinaki (Whitsunday), 376.

Porcupine, the, 98, 113, 166.

Pourtal&s, L. F., Comte de, 18, 93, 96,
98, 165, 166, 167, 176, 178, 181.

Putnam, F. W., 130.

Rand, the, 192, 346-47.

Rangiroa, 354-58, 375.

Ravenel, Mrs. St. Julien, 18.

Reid Haven, 338.

Richard & Bros., 34.

Rodman, H., 348, 365.

Rongelab, 371.

Ross, Sir John, 166.

Royal Society, 98, 208 ; Agassiz made
foreign member of, 212; Funafuti
bore, 342-44, 367 ; A. A.’s lecture on
Coral Reefs, 408.

Russell, H. S., 73.

Sahara Desert, 232.

Schuyler, Philip, 440, 441.

Semper, Karl, 106, 277.

Serpula atolls, 302-04.

Sharks’ teeth, 351, 425, 426, 427.

Shaw, J. B., 33.

Shaw, Pauline Agassiz, 17, 29,414.

Shaw, Quincy A., 29 ; obtains control of
Calumet, 56; 57, 59, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71,
72,73, 75, 77, 80, 86, 128, 151, 191,
205, 382.

Sherlock, R. L., 341.

Siebold, C. T. E. von, 9, 94.

454

INDEX

Sigsbee, C. D., 1G9, 172, 173, 178 ; gravi-
tating trap, 184-85.

Sillern, Wra., 161.

Simpkins, John, 73.

Skeats, E. W., 341.

Society Ids., 359, 362-63; formation,
376-77.

Sollas, J. W., 342, 368.

Stevenson, R. L., 360.

Sultan of Maldives, 385, 386, 387, 393,
395.

Suva, first mention of, 324.

Tahaa, 362.

Talianea, 361.

Tahiti, 359.

Tamaya mines, 134-35.

Tanner, Z. L., 244, 251, 252, 262, 264,
312.

Tetiaroa, 377.

Thayer, Nathaniel, 37.

Thombia, 339, 340.

Thomson, W., 322.

Thomson, Wm., Lord Kelvin, 172,
173.

Thomson, Sir Wyville, 98, 121, 125; in-
vites Agassiz to distribute Challenger
collections, 157 ; 158, 167, 175, 176,
181, 185, 193; death, 204.

Thurston, Sir John, 325.

Titicaca, Lake ; Agassiz’s exploration
of. 142-49.

Tonga, 365-66 ; formation, 377.

Torell, O. M., 165, 166.

Tornaria, 115.

Tortugas, 280, 281, 307.

Totoya, 326, 339, 340, 367.

Townsend, C. H., 251, 257, 258, 348.
Truk, 372, 377, 431, 432.

Uxmal, 200, 201, 202.

Vaillant, J. B. P., 111.

Victoria Nyanza, 442, 443.

Virchow, Rudolph, 104, 412.

Virginia, the, expedition of, 438-40.
Viviparous “ Perch,” 27.

Wailangilala ; Agassiz’s boring at, 330-
31, 333; 335, 338.

Wallace, A. R., 98, 417.

Warren, Wm., 17.

Watling’s Island; landing of Columbus,
290.

Weismann, Aug., 229.

Wendell, Barrett, vi.

West, P. C. F., 402.

Westergren, Magnus, 244, 250, 251, 253,
346, 381, 409, 421, 423.

Whales’ ear-bones, 351, 425, 426, 427.
Wharton, Sir W. J. L., 317, 318, 322.
Whitman, C. O., 208.

Wild Duck, the, 288 ; voyage of, 289-
95.

Wilkes, Cbas., 276, 326, 332; bench
mark at Point Venus, 378.

Wire rope for dredging, 169, 173-75.
Woodworth, W. McM., 312, 314, 333,
334, 335, 345, 361, 365, 371,384,442.
Wyman, Jeffries, 6, 16.

Yangasd, 366.

Yaralla, the, 322.

Yucatan, 194-203.

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