If I weary you with a second letter, however, it is not only to remind you of your promise about the "Bibliotheque Universelle," but for another object still more important and urgent. The matter stands thus. Our academic courses have just opened under favorable auspices. The number of students is much increased, and, especially, we have a good many from Germany and England. This circumstance makes us feel more strongly the importance of completing our organization, and of doing this wisely and quickly. I will not play the diplomat with you, but will frankly say, without circumlocution, that you seem to me the one essential, the one indispensable man. After having talked with some influential persons here, I feel sure that if you say to me, "I will come," I can obtain for you the following conditions: 1st. A regular salary of three thousand francs, beside the student fees, which, in view of the character of your instruction, your reputation, and the novelty of your course, I place too low at a thousand francs; of this I am convinced. 2nd. The vacant professorship is one of geology and mineralogy, but should you wish it De la Planche will continue to teach the mineralogy, and you will replace it by paleontology, or any other subject which may suit you. . .Add to this resource that of a popular course for the world outside, ladies and others, which you might give in the winter, as at Neuchatel. The custom here is to pay fifty francs for the course of from twenty-five to thirty lectures. You will easily see that for such a course you would have at least as large an audience here as at Neuchatel. This is the more likely because there is a demand for these courses, Pictet being dead, and M. Rossi and M. de Castella having ceased to give them. No one has come forward as their heir, fine as the inheritance is; some are too busy, others have not the kind of talent needed, and none have attempted to replace these gentlemen in this especial line, one in which you excel, both by your gifts and your fortunate choice of a subject more in vogue just now than any other. Come then, to work in this rich vein before others present themselves for the same purpose. Finally, since I must make up your budget, the "Bibliotheque Universelle," which pays fifty francs a sheet, would be always open to you; there you could bring the fruits of your productive leisure. Certainly it would be easy for you to make in this way an additional thousand francs.
Here, then, is a statement, precise and full, of the condition of things, and of what you may hope to find here. The moment is propitious; there is a movement among us just now in favor of the sciences, and this winter the plan of a large building for our museum and library will be presented to our common council. The work should begin next summer; you well know how much we should value your ideas and your advice on this subject. There may also be question of a director for the museum, and of an apartment for him in the new edifice; you will not doubt to whom such a place would be offered. But let us not draw upon the future; let us limit ourselves to the present, and see whether what I propose suits you . . .Come! let yourself be persuaded. Sacrifice the capital to a provincial town. At Berlin, no doubt, you would be happy and honored; at Geneva, you would be the happiest, the most honored. Look at—, who shone as a star of the first magnitude at Geneva, and who is but a star of second or third rank in Paris. This, to be sure, would not be your case; nevertheless, I am satisfied that at Geneva, where you would be a second de Saussure, your position would be still more brilliant. I know that these motives of scientific self-love have little weight with you; nevertheless, wishing to omit nothing, I give them for what they are worth. But my hope rests far more on the arguments I have first presented; they come from the heart, and with you the heart responds as readily as the genius. But enough! I will not fatigue you with farther considerations. I think I have given you all the points necessary for your decision. Be so kind as to let me know as soon as possible what you intend to do. Have the kindness also not to speak of the contents of this letter, and remember that it is not the Rector of the Academy of Geneva, but the Professor Auguste de la Rive, who writes in his own private person. Promptitude and silence, then, are the two recommendations which I make to you while we await the Yes we so greatly desire. . .
More tempting still must have been the official invitation received a few months later to a professorship at Lausanne, strengthened as it was by the affectionate entreaties of relations and friends, urging him for the sake of family ties and patriotism to return to the canton where he had passed his earlier years. But he had cast in his lot with the Neuchatelois and was proof against all arguments. He remained faithful to the post he had chosen until he left it, temporarily as he then believed, to come to America. The citizens of his adopted town expressed their appreciation of his loyalty to them in a warm letter of thanks, begging, at the same time, his acceptance of the sum of six thousand francs, payable by installments during three years.
The summer of 1837 was a sad one to Agassiz and to his whole family; his father died at Concise, carried off by a fever while still a comparatively young man. The pretty parsonage, to which they were so much attached, passed into other hands, and thenceforward the home of Madame Agassiz was with her children, among whom she divided her time.
In 1838 Agassiz founded a lithographic printing establishment in Neuchatel, which was carried on for many years under his direction. Thus far his plates had been lithographed in Munich. Their execution at such a distance involved constant annoyance, and sometimes great waste of time and money, in sending the proofs to and fro for correction. The scheme of establishing a lithographic press, to be in a great degree at his charge, was certainly an imprudent one for a poor man; but Agassiz hoped not only to facilitate his own publications by this means, but also to raise the standard of execution in works of a purely scientific character. Supported partly by his own exertions, partly by the generosity of others, the establishment was almost exclusively dependent upon him for its unceasing activity. He was fortunate in securing for its head M. Hercule Nicolet, a very able lithographic artist, who had had much experience in engraving objects of natural history, and was specially versed in the recently invented art of chromatic lithography.
Agassiz was now driving all his steeds abreast. Beside his duties as professor, he was printing at the same time his "Fossil Fishes," his "Fresh-Water Fishes," and his investigations on fossil Echinoderms and Mollusks,—the illustrations for all these various works being under his daily supervision. The execution of these plates, under M. Nicolet's care, was admirable for the period. Professor Arnold Guyot, in his memoir of Agassiz, says of the plates for the "Fresh-Water Fishes": "We wonder at their beauty, and at their perfection of color and outline, when we remember that they were almost the first essays of the newly-invented art of lithochromy, produced at a time when France and Belgium were showering rewards on very inferior work of the kind, as the foremost specimens of progress in the art."
All this work could hardly be carried on single handed. In 1837 M. Edouard Desor joined Agassiz in Neuchatel, and became for many years his intimate associate in scientific labors. A year or two later M. Charles Vogt also united himself to the band of investigators and artists who had clustered about Agassiz as their central force. M. Ernest Favre says of this period of his life: "He displayed during these years an incredible energy, of which the history of science offers, perhaps, no other example."
Among his most important zoological researches at this time were those upon mollusks. His method of studying this class was too original and too characteristic to be passed by without notice. The science of conchology had heretofore been based almost wholly upon the study of the empty shells. To Agassiz this seemed superficial. Longing to know more of the relation between the animal and its outer covering, he bethought himself that the inner moulding of the shell would give at least the form of its old inhabitant. For the practical work he engaged an admirable moulder, M. Stahl, who continued to be one of his staff at the lithographic establishment until he became permanently employed at the Jardin des Plantes. With his help and that of M. Henri Ladame, professor of physics and chemistry at Neuchatel, who prepared the delicate metal alloys in which the first mould was taken, Agassiz obtained casts in which the form of the animals belonging to the shells was perfectly reproduced. This method has since passed into universal use. By its aid he obtained a new means of ascertaining the relations between fossil and living mollusks. It was of vast service to him in preparing his "Etudes critiques sur les Mollusques fossiles,"—a quarto volume with nearly one hundred plates.
The following letter to Sir Philip Egerton gives some account of his undertakings at this time, and of the difficulties entailed upon him by their number and variety.