cipal mines. In 1860 he returned to Cambridge and became assistant in zoölogy at the museum, taking charge of it in 1865 during his father's absence in Brazil. In 1865 he became engaged in coal-mining in Pennsylvania, and during the following year in the copper mines of Lake Superior, where he was engaged until 1869 as superintendent of the Calumet and Hecla mines. He developed these deposits until they became the most successful copper mines in the world, and from the wealth they have brought to him he has made gifts to Harvard amounting to over $500,000. During 1869-'70 he visited Europe and examined the museums and collections of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Scandinavia. On his return in 1870 he resumed his duties' at the museum in Cambridge, of which he was made curator, on the death of his father in 1874, and remained as such until 1885, when he resigned, owing to ill health. During the summer of 1873 he acted as director of the Anderson school of natural history, and in 1875 he visited the western coast of South America, examining the copper mines of Peru and Chili, and making an extended survey of Lake Titicaca and collecting for the Peabody museum a great number of Peruvian antiquities. He afterward went to Scotland to assist Sir Wyville Thompson in arranging the collections made during the exploring expedition of the “Challenger,” part of which he brought to this country. He wrote one of the final reports on the zoölogy of the expedition, that on Echini. From 1870 to 1881 his winters were spent in deep-sea dredging expeditions in connection with the coast survey, the steamer “Blake” having been placed at his disposal for this purpose. Mr. Agassiz was a fellow of Harvard college till 1885, and has served as an overseer. He is a member of the national academy of sciences, of the American association for the advancement of science, being its vice-president during the Boston meeting of 1880, of the American academy of sciences, and of numerous other scientific societies of this country and Europe. His publications, in the form of pamphlets, reports, and contributions to scientific periodicals and the proceedings of societies, are very numerous, and are principally on subjects connected with marine zoology. Most of these are to be found in the bulletins and memoirs of the museum at Cambridge. It has been said that he is “the best authority in the world on certain forms of marine life.” He is the author, with Mrs. Elizabeth C. Agassiz, of “Seaside Studies in Natural History” (Boston, 1865); of “Marine Animals of Massachusetts Bay” (1871), and of the fifth volume of “Contributions to the Natural History of the United States,” left incomplete by his father.
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AGASSIZ, Jean Louis Rudolphe, naturalist, b. in Motier, canton Fribourg, Switzerland, 28 May, 1807; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 14 Dec., 1873. His father was pastor of the Protestant parish of Motier, a profession which his forefathers had for six generations; his mother, Mlle. Rose Mayor, was the daughter of a physician residing in Cudrefin, canton de Vaud. His first studies at home were directed by his mother, who was a woman of high endowments and rare culture. At the age of ten years he and his younger brother were sent to the gymnasium at Biel, in the neighboring canton of Bern; here he acquired the ancient and modern languages, which later became so valuable to him in his biological investigations. Very early in life Agassiz showed a fondness for natural science, and in his boyhood days he began collecting specimens. His leisure time at the gymnasium was similarly occupied, and his first collection of fishes dates from this period. During the vacations spent at Orbe (Fribourg), whither his father had been transferred, he became intimate with a young clergyman named Fivaz, who encouraged his interest in natural history and led him to the active study of botany. He continued his education in the college at Lausanne in 1823, and in 1824 began the study of medicine in Zurich, in accordance with the earnest wishes of his parents. Thence he went to Heidelberg, where he devoted his principal attention to anatomy under the famous Tiedemann, and in 1827 to Munich, where he came under the influence of Schelling, Oken, Martius, Döllinger, Wagler, Zuccarini, Fuchs, and von Kobell. Döllinger, especially, at whose house he occupied a room, recognized the high talent of his pupil, and fostered his long-cherished plan of devoting himself exclusively to zoölogy. While at Munich, Agassiz organized the club called the “Little Academy,” and became its presiding officer. It was before this society that Born, Rudolphi, Michaelis, Schimper, and Braun first disclosed their latest discoveries, and even Döllinger made his new ideas known there before they were published. Martius, then lately returned from Brazil, where he had been sent on a scientific exploring expedition, intrusted young Agassiz, on the death of Spix, with the description of the fishes that had been collected. This work, completed when he had scarcely reached his twenty-first year, was dedicated to Cuvier, and published in Latin (Munich, 1829). The brilliant accomplishment of so arduous an undertaking at once gained him a reputation as one of the first ichthyologists. His attention was then directed to fossil fishes, and those at the museum in Munich, as well as such other paleontological collections as were available in central Germany, were carefully studied.
Meanwhile he had not neglected his medical studies, and in 1829 he received the doctor's degree in medicine from Munich, and in philosophy from Erlangen in 1830. His second great undertaking was the “Natural History of the Fresh-water Fishes of Europe,” in the preparation of which he was assisted pecuniarily by the publisher, Cotta, of Stuttgart. It was never completed, but was partially published in 1839-'40. After receiving his degrees, he spent some time in Vienna, attending the hospitals, and pursuing his studies of the fossil fishes by examining the collections in the imperial museum. By the liberality of his uncle, François Mayor, and of Christinat, a friend of Agassiz's father, he was enabled to continue his studies, and spent two years (1831-'2) in Paris. This city was then the great scientific centre of Europe, and its collections were the richest and most celebrated on the continent. Men who were eminent as specialists were attracted to the capital, and formed part of the brilliant circle under the leadership of the distinguished Humboldt. Cuvier, the great French naturalist, received the young Agassiz with
