Several interesting medusae have been already observed; among others, the entire metamorphosis and alternate generation of a new species of my genus tiaropsis. You will be pleased to know that here, as well as at the North, tiaropsis is the medusa of a campanularia. Mr. Clark, one of my assistants, has made very good drawings of all its stages of growth, and of various other hydroid medusae peculiar to this coast. Mr. Stimpson, another very promising young naturalist, who has been connected with me for some time in the same capacity, draws the crustacea and bryozoa, of which there are also a good many new ones here. My son and my old friend Burkhardt are also with me (upon Sullivan's Island), and they look after the larger species, so that I shall probably have greatly increased my information upon the fauna of the Atlantic coast by the time I return to Cambridge.
In town, where I go three times a week to deliver lectures at the Medical College (beside a course just now in the evening also before a mixed audience), I have the rest of my family, so that nothing would be wanting to my happiness if my health were only better. . .What a pity that a man cannot work as much as he would like; or at least accomplish what he aims at. But no doubt it is best it should be so; there is no harm in being compelled by natural necessities to limit our ambition,—on the contrary, the better sides of our nature are thus not allowed to go to sleep. However, I cannot but regret that I am unable at this time to trace more extensively subjects for which I should have ample opportunities here, as for instance the anatomy of the echinoderms, and also the embryology of the lower animals in general. . .
This winter, notwithstanding the limitations imposed upon his work by the state of his health, was a very happy one to Agassiz. As mentioned in the above letter his wife and daughters had accompanied him to Charleston, and were established there in lodgings. Their holidays and occasional vacations were passed at the house of Dr. John E. Holbrook (the "Hollow Tree"), an exquisitely pretty and picturesque country place in the neighborhood of Charleston. Here Agassiz had been received almost as one of the family on his first visit to Charleston, shortly after his arrival in the United States. Dr. Holbrook's name, as the author of the "Herpetology of South Carolina," had long been familiar to him, and he now found a congenial and affectionate friend in the colleague and fellow-worker, whose personal acquaintance he had been anxious to make. Dr. Holbrook's wife, a direct descendant of John Rutledge of our revolutionary history, not only shared her husband's intellectual life, but had herself rare mental qualities, which had been developed by an unusually complete and efficient education. The wide and various range of her reading, the accuracy of her knowledge in matters of history and literature, and the charm of her conversation, made her a delightful companion. She exercised the most beneficent influence upon her large circle of young people, and without any effort to attract, she drew to herself whatever was most bright and clever in the society about her. The "Hollow Tree," presided over by its hospitable host and hostess was, therefore, the centre of a stimulating and cultivated social intercourse, free from all gene or formality. Here Agassiz and his family spent many happy days during their southern sojourn of 1852. The woods were yellow with jessamine, and the low, deep piazza was shut in by vines and roses; the open windows and the soft air full of sweet, out-of-door fragrance made one forget, spite of the wood fire on the hearth, that it was winter by the calendar. The days, passed almost wholly in the woods or on the veranda, closed with evenings spent not infrequently in discussions upon the scientific ideas and theories of the day, carried often beyond the region of demonstrated facts into that of speculative thought. An ever-recurring topic was that of the origin of the human race. It was Agassiz's declared belief that man had sprung not from a common stock, but from various centres, and that the original circumscription of these primordial groups of the human family corresponded in a large and general way with the distribution of animals and their combination into faunae. * (* See "Sketch of the Natural Provinces of the Animal World and their Relation to the Different Types of Man" included in Nott & Gliddon's "Types of Mankind".) His special zoological studies were too engrossing to allow him to follow this line of investigation closely, but it was never absent from his view of the animal kingdom as a whole. He valued extremely Mrs. Holbrook's thoughtful sympathy, and as the following letter connects itself with the winter evening talks by the "Hollow Tree" fireside, and was suggested by them, it may be given here, though in date it is a little in advance of the present chapter.
TO MRS. HOLBROOK.
CAMBRIDGE, July, 1852.
. . .I am again working at the human races, and have opened another line of investigation in that direction. The method followed by former investigators does not seem to me to have been altogether the best, since there is so little agreement between them. The difficulty has, no doubt, arisen on one side from the circumstance that the inquirer sought for evidence of the unity of all races, expecting the result to agree with the prevailing interpretation of Genesis; and on the other from too zoological a point of view in weighing the differences observed. Again, both have almost set aside all evidence not directly derived from the examination of the races themselves. It has occurred to me that as a preliminary inquiry we ought to consider the propriety of applying to man the same rules as to animals, examining the limits within which they obtain, and paying due attention to all circumstances bearing upon the differences observed among men, from whatever quarter in the study of nature they may be gathered. What do the monkeys say to this? or, rather, what have they to tell in reference to it? There are among them as great, and, indeed, even greater, differences than among men, for they are acknowledged to constitute different genera, and are referred to many, indeed to more than a hundred, species; but they are the nearest approach to the human family, and we may at least derive some hints from them. How much mixture there is among these species, if any, is not at all ascertained; indeed, we have not the least information respecting their intercourse; but one point is certain,—zoologists agree as little among themselves respecting the limits of these species as they do respecting the affinities of the races of men. What some consider as distinct species, others consider as mere varieties, and these varieties or species differ in particulars neither more constant nor more important than those which distinguish the human races. The fact that they are arranged in different genera, species, and varieties does not lessen the value of the comparison; for the point in question is just to know whether nations, races, and what have also been called families of men, such as the Indo-Germanic, the Semitic, etc., do not in reality correspond to the families, genera, and species of monkeys. Now the first great subdivisions among the true monkeys (excluding Makis and Arctopitheci) are founded upon the form of the nose, those of the new world having a broad partition between the nostrils, while those of the old world have it narrow. How curious that this fact, which has been known to naturalists for half a century, as presenting a leading feature among monkeys, should have been overlooked in man, when, in reality, the negroes and Australians differ in precisely the same manner from the other races; they having a broad partition, and nostrils opening sideways, like the monkeys of South America, while the other types of the human family have a narrow partition and nostrils opening downward, like the monkeys of Asia and Africa. Again, the minor differences, such as the obliquity of the anterior teeth, the thickness of the lips, the projection of the cheek-bones, the position of the eyes, the characteristic hair, or wool, afford as constant differences as those by which the chimpanzees, orangs, and gibbons are separated into distinct genera; and their respective species differ no more than do the Greeks, Germans, and Arabs,—or the Chinese, Tartars, and Finns, —or the New Zealanders and Malays, which are respectively referred to the same race. The truth is, that the different SPECIES admitted by some among the orangs are in reality RACES among monkeys, or else the races among men are nothing more than what are called species among certain monkeys. . .Listen for a moment to the following facts, and when you read this place a map of the world before you. Upon a narrow strip of land along the Gulf of Guinea, from Cape Palmas to the Gaboon, live two so-called species of chimpanzee; upon the islands of Sumatra and Borneo live three or four orangs; upon the shores of the Gulf of Bengal, including the neighborhood of Calcutta, Burmah, Malacca, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java together, ten or eleven species of gibbons, all of which are the nearest relatives to the human family, some being as large as certain races of men; altogether, fifteen species of anthropoid monkeys playing their part in the animal population of the world upon an area not equaling by any means the surface of Europe. Some of these species are limited to Borneo, others to Sumatra, others to Java alone, others to the peninsula of Malacca; that is to say to tracts of land similar in extent to Spain, France, Italy, and even to Ireland; distinct animals, considered by most naturalists as distinct species, approaching man most closely in structural eminence and size, limited to areas not larger than Spain or Italy. Why, then, should not the primitive theatre of a nation of men have been circumscribed within similar boundaries, and from the beginning have been as independent as the chimpanzee of Guinea, or the orangs of Borneo and Sumatra? Of course, the superior powers of man have enabled him to undertake migrations, but how limited are these, and how slight the traces they have left behind them. . . Unfortunately for natural history, history so-called has recorded more faithfully the doings of handfuls of adventurers than the real history of the primitive nations with whom the migrating tribes came into contact. But I hope it will yet be possible to dive under these waves of migration, to remove, as it were, the trace of their passage, and to read the true history of the past inhabitants of the different parts of the world, when it will be found, if all analogies are not deceptive, that every country equaling in extent those within the limits of which distinct nationalities are known to have played their part in history, has had its distinct aborigines, the character of which it is now the duty of naturalists to restore, if it be not too late, in the same manner as paleontologists restore fossil remains. I have already made some attempts, by studying ancient geography, and I hope the task may yet be accomplished. . .Look, for instance, at Spain. The Iberians are known as the first inhabitants, never extending much beyond the Pyrenees to the Garonne, and along the gulfs of Lyons and Genoa. As early as during the period of Phoenician prosperity they raised wool from their native sheep, derived from the Mouflon, still found wild in Spain, Corsica, and Sardinia; they had a peculiar breed of horses, to this day differing from all other horses in the world. Is this not better evidence of their independent origin, than is the fancied lineage with the Indo-Germanic family of their Oriental descent? For we must not forget, in connection with this, that the Basque language was once the language of all Spain, that which the Iberian spoke, and which has no direct relation to Sanskrit.
I have alluded but slightly to the negro race, and not at all to the Indians. I would only add with reference to these that I begin to perceive the possibility of distinguishing different centres of growth in these two continents. If we leave out of consideration fancied migrations, what connection can be traced, for instance, between the Eskimos, along the whole northern districts of this continent, and the Indians of the United States, those of Mexico, those of Peru, and those of Brazil? Is there any real connection between the coast tribes of the northwest coast, the mound builders, the Aztec civilization, the Inca, and the Gueranis? It seems to me no more than between the Assyrian and Egyptian civilization. And as to negroes, there is, perhaps, a still greater difference between those of Senegal, of Guinea, and the Caffres and Hottentots, when compared with the Gallahs and Mandingoes. But where is the time to be taken for the necessary investigations involved in these inquiries? Pray write to me soon what you say to all this, and believe me always your true friend,
L. AGASSIZ.
In the spring of 1852, while still in Charleston, Agassiz heard that the Prix Cuvier, now given for the first time, was awarded to him for the "Poissons Fossiles." This gratified him the more because the work had been so directly bequeathed to him by Cuvier himself. To his mother, through whom he received the news in advance of the official papers, it also gave great pleasure. "Your fossil fishes," she says, "which have cost you so much anxiety, so much toil, so many sacrifices, have now been estimated at their true value by the most eminent judges. . .This has given me such happiness, dear Louis, that the tears are in my eyes as I write it to you." She had followed the difficulties of his task too closely not to share also its success.