CHAPTER 22.
1868-1871: AGE 61-64.
New Subscription to Museum.
Additional Buildings.
Arrangement of New Collections.
Dredging Expedition on Board the Bibb.
Address at the Humboldt Centennial.
Attack on the Brain.
Suspension of Work.
Working Force at the Museum.
New Accessions.
Letter from Professor Sedgwick.
Letter from Professor Deshayes.
Restored Health.
Hassler Voyage proposed.
Acceptance.
Scientific Preparation for the Voyage.
Agassiz returned to Cambridge to find the Museum on an improved footing financially. The Legislature had given seventy-five thousand dollars for an addition to the building, and private subscriptions had doubled this sum, in order to provide for the preservation and arrangement of the new collections. In acknowledging this gift of the Legislature in his Museum Report for 1868 Agassiz says:—
"While I rejoice in the prospect of this new building, as affording the means for a complete exhibition of the specimens now stored in our cellars and attics and encumbering every room of the present edifice, I yet can hardly look forward to the time when we shall be in possession of it without shrinking from the grandeur of our undertaking. The past history of our science rises before me with its lessons. Thinking men in every part of the world have been stimulated to grapple with the infinite variety of problems, connected with the countless animals scattered without apparent order throughout sea and land. They have been led to discover the affinities of various living beings. The past has yielded up its secrets, and has shown them that the animals now peopling the earth are but the successors of countless populations which have preceded them, and whose remains are buried in the crust of our globe. Further study has revealed relations between the animals of past time and those now living, and between the law of succession in the former and the laws of growth and distribution in the latter, so intimate and comprehensive that this labyrinth of organic life assumes the character of a connected history, which opens before us with greater clearness in proportion as our knowledge increases. But when the museums of the Old World were founded, these relations were not even suspected. The collections of natural history, gathered at immense expense in the great centres of human civilization, were accumulated mainly as an evidence of man's knowledge and skill in exhibiting to the best advantage, not only the animals, but the products and curiosities of all sorts from various parts of the world. While we admire and emulate the industry and perseverance of the men who collected these materials, and did in the best way the work it was possible to do in their time for science, we have no longer the right to build museums after this fashion. The originality and vigor of one generation become the subservience and indolence of the next, if we only repeat the work of our predecessors. They prepared the ground for us by accumulating the materials for extensive comparison and research. They presented the problem; we ought to be ready with the solution. If I mistake not, the great object of our museums should be to exhibit the whole animal kingdom as a manifestation of the Supreme Intellect. Scientific investigation in our day should be inspired by a purpose as animating to the general sympathy, as was the religious zeal which built the Cathedral of Cologne or the Basilica of St. Peter's. The time is passed when men expressed their deepest convictions by these wonderful and beautiful religious edifices; but it is my hope to see, with the progress of intellectual culture, a structure arise among us which may be a temple of the revelations written in the material universe. If this be so, our buildings for such an object can never be too comprehensive, for they are to embrace the infinite work of Infinite Wisdom. They can never be too costly, so far as cost secures permanence and solidity, for they are to contain the most instructive documents of Omnipotence."
Agassiz gave the winter of 1869 to identifying, classifying, and distributing the new collections. A few weeks in the spring were, however, passed with his friend Count de Pourtales in a dredging expedition on board the Coast Survey Steamer Bibb, off the coast of Cuba, on the Bahama Banks, and among the reefs of Florida. This dredging excursion, though it covered a wider ground than any previous one, was the third deep-sea exploration undertaken by M. de Pourtales under the auspices of the Coast Survey. His investigations may truly be said to have exercised a powerful influence upon this line of research, and to have led the way to the more extended work of the same kind carried on by the Coast Survey in later years. He had long wished to show his old friend and teacher some of the rich dredging grounds he had discovered between Florida and the West Indies, and they thoroughly enjoyed this short period of work together. Every day and hour brought some new interest, and excess of material seemed the only difficulty.
This was Agassiz's last cruise in the Bibb, on whose hospitable deck he had been a welcome guest from the first year of his arrival in this country. The results of this expedition, as connected with the present conformation of the continent and its probable geological history in the past, were given as follows in the Museum Bulletin of the same year.
REPORT UPON DEEP SEA DREDGINGS.*
(* "Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology" 1 Number 13 1869 pages 368, 369.)