AGASSIZ, Louis (1807-73). An American naturalist, buirn at Motier, in the Canton of Fri bourg. Switzerland. His father was a clergyman and his mother a woman of education and taste. Following a decided bent toward zoology, de veloped from childhood and fostered by his school preparation at Lausanne,he studied medicine and naturibl history at Zurich and Heidelberg. where he forilied a lifelong and influential friendship with the botanist Alexander Braun. Be studied also at Erlangen and at Munich, where lie became acquainted with Martins and Spix. and when Spix died (1826), Agassiz prepared a description of his Brazilian fishes which at tracted Cuvier's notice. After graduating in medicine and taking a degree in philosophy (1830), Agassiz studied in Paris under envier, whose ardent disciple he henceforth was. From 1832 to 1840 Agassiz was professor of natu ral history at Neneh5tel, and there completed his first great work: Recherches ma les poissons fossiles (5 volumes, 311 plates. 1833-4•). Sev eral visits to England, beginning in 1834, en larged his acquaintance and reputation. and gave material for his Fossil Fishes of the Old Red .Sandstone of the British Isles. Next he turned to echinoderms, which he studied in both living and fossil forms. Another product of his labors at this period was the Nomenclatoris Zoidogici Index (Soloduri, 1842-46). of which a practical revision, bringing the lists of genera up to 1882. was made by Scudder and published as Bul letin No. 19, United States National Museum ( Washington, 18821. From 1836 to 1845 Agassiz spent his summers in examining the glaciers of the Alps. often in company with A. Guyot, and illuminated and confirmed previous generalizations in respect to a former glacial epoch. In 1840 Agassiz was invited to the United States to give a series of lectures in the Lowell Institute course at Bos ton. These at once established his reputation as a lecturer• and led to his appointment, in IS4S. as professor of natural history in the Law rence Scientific School of Harvard University, which chair lie held, except a brief interval at Charleston, S. C., until his death, although he relinquished teaching long before that event. Agassiz came to America untrammeled, and un dertook the mission of teaching and advancing the cause of science in the United States with the utmost enthusiasm. His wife had (lied, but he presently remarried (see AGASSIZ, E. C.), and I Fs. Agassiz established in their house in Cam bridge a school for girls, with which Professor Agassiz was identified. He traveled widely and lectured in various cities. and in IS4S visited the Lake Superior region with a class of scientific students. This exploration was described in a narrative by Cabot, to which Agassiz contributed chapters on fishes. Similarly, he undertook. in 1850-51, a study of the Florida coral reefs, the results of whieh were set forth in lectures and in articles contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, and subsequently gathered into two popular books. Methods of Study in Natural History. and Ceological Sketches. He was everywhere and foremost a teacher, interpreting his facts and theories with such enthusiastic force and persuasive eloquence that be was in constant de mand. A series of lectures which he delivered in Brooklyn in 1862 were epoch-making, in this direction. They were republished in hook form
as The Structure of Animal Life (New York, 1874). Many of his views were in advance of popular knowledge and opinion and contravened some established religious tenets; yet he rarely excited serious opposition, and no educational in fluence of his time was so great as that exerted by him. He may be said to have realized at this period the ambition which he expressed in a letter to his father in 1829: "1 wish it may be said of Louis Agassiz that he was the first natu ralist of his time, a good citizen and . . . . be loved of those who knew him." In 1858, the plans were laid for the great Museum of Comparative Zo6logy at Cambridge, Mass.. now one of the most extensive and scien tifically useful in the world; and for many years his main efforts were directed to building it up. Ile secured public appropriations and private for it by his personal influence, and kept himself poor by his unselfish labors and liberality toward it. De gathered about him there and trained a body of men who have made for Amer ica a creditable record in biology—Alexander Agassiz, his son: J. A. Allen, H. J. Clark, S. Garman, Alpheus Hyatt, D. S. Jordan, E. S. Morse, A. S. Packard, F. W. Putnam, N. S. Shaler. A. E. Verrill. and others.
In 1805 lie visited Brazil with his wife and a body of assistants. The results of these re searches he published in his book, A Journey in Brazil (Boston, 1868). In 1872 he made a trip to California. In the slimmer of 1873 he held the first session of a summer school at the island of Penikese in Buzzard's Bay. This set an ex ample that has led to the many summer schools and seaside laboratories since established in all parts of the country. During all these years lie was prosecuting a continuous work on a great scale. entitled Contributions to the Natural His tory of the United States. of which four magni ficent quarto volumes were published. the first, An Essay on Classification, in 1857. the others (monographs of American turtles and acalephs) soon after. The doctrine taught in these was a liberal advance upon the "special creation" views previously in vogue; yet when the Darwinian school of evolutionists arose they found in Agassiz a most earnest opponent, and it was a peat grief to him to see that his scientific dis ciples were almost, without exception, becoming adherents to the new ideas. To stein this tide of scientific heresy, Professor Agassiz prepared and delivered in Cambridge, in the spring of 1873. a course of six lectures, which attracted very wide attention. This was his final public work, for late in 1873 he was attacked by brain disease, and died on December 14. He was buried with extraordinary honors in Mount Auburn Cemetery. His monument is a boulder brought from the glacier of the Aar. where he had made his most enlightening studies of gla cial phenomena. Consult: Agassiz, Life and Correspondence of Agassiz (Boston. 1886) ; Mar eon. Life, Letters. and Works of Agossiz (New York, 1896) ; Guyot. Mcnioir of L. .1 gassiz (Princeton. N. J., 1883). and Gilman and other eulogists, Proceedings California Academy of Sciences, Volume IV., 1873-74 (San Francisco, 1874).