Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence

by Louis Agassiz

1852-1855: AGE 45-48.

Return to Cambridge.
Anxiety about Collections.
Purchase of Collections.
Second Winter in Charleston.
Illness.
Letter to James D. Dana concerning Geographical Distribution
and Geological Succession of Animals.
Resignation of Charleston Professorship.
Propositions from Zurich.
Letter to Oswald Heer.
Decision to remain in Cambridge.
Letters to James D. Dana, S.S. Haldeman, and Others respecting
Collections illustrative of the Distribution of Fishes, Shells,
etc., in our Rivers.
Establishment of School for Girls.

Agassiz returned from Charleston to Cambridge in the early spring, pausing in Washington to deliver a course of lectures before the Smithsonian Institution. By this time he had become intimate with Professor Henry, at whose hospitable house he and his family were staying during their visit at Washington. He had the warmest sympathy not only with Professor Henry's scientific work and character, but also with his views regarding the Smithsonian Institution, of which he had become the Superintendent shortly after Agassiz arrived in this country. Agassiz himself was soon appointed one of the Regents of the Institution and remained upon the Board until his death.

Agassiz now began to feel an increased anxiety about his collections. During the six years of his stay in the United States he had explored the whole Atlantic sea-board as well as the lake and river system of the Eastern and Middle States, and had amassed such materials in natural history as already gave his collections, in certain departments at least, a marked importance. In the lower animals, and as illustrating the embryology of the marine invertebrates, they were especially valuable. It had long been a favorite idea with him to build up an embryological department in his prospective museum; the more so because such a provision on any large scale had never been included in the plan of the great zoological institutions, and he believed it would have a direct and powerful influence on the progress of modern science. The collections now in his possession included ample means for this kind of research, beside a fair representation of almost all classes of the animal kingdom. Packed together, however, in the narrowest quarters, they were hardly within his own reach, much less could they be made available for others. His own resources were strained to the utmost, merely to save these precious materials from destruction. It is true that in 1850 the sum of four hundred dollars, to be renewed annually, was allowed him by the University for their preservation, and a barrack-like wooden building on the college grounds, far preferable to the bath-house by the river, was provided for their storage. But the cost of keeping them was counted by thousands, not by hundreds, and the greater part of what Agassiz could make by his lectures outside of Cambridge was swallowed up in this way. It was, perhaps, the knowledge of this which induced certain friends, interested in him and in science, to subscribe twelve thousand dollars for the purchase of his collections, to be thus permanently secured to Cambridge. This gave him back, in part, the sum he had already spent upon them, and which he was more than ready to spend again in their maintenance and increase.

The next year showed that his over-burdened life was beginning to tell upon his health. Scarcely had he arrived in Charleston and begun his course at the Medical College when he was attacked by a violent fever, and his life was in danger for many days. Fortunately for him his illness occurred at the "Hollow Tree," where he was passing the Christmas holidays. Dr. and Mrs. Holbrook were like a brother and sister to him, and nothing could exceed the kindness he received under their roof. One young friend who had been his pupil, and to whom he was much attached, Dr. St. Julian Ravenel, was constantly at his bedside. His care was invaluable, for he combined the qualities of physician and nurse. Under such watchful tending, Agassiz could hardly fail to mend if cure were humanly possible. The solicitude of these nearer friends seemed to be shared by the whole community, and his recovery gave general relief. He was able to resume his lectures toward the end of February. Spite of the languor of convalescence his elastic mind was at once ready for work, as may be seen by the following extract from one of his first letters.

TO JAMES D. DANA.

SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, CHARLESTON, February 16, 1853.

. . .It seems, indeed, to me as if in the study of the geographical distribution of animals the present condition of the animal kingdom was too exclusively taken into consideration. Whenever it can be done, and I hope before long it may be done for all classes, it will be desirable to take into account the relations of the living to the fossil species. Since you are as fully satisfied as I am that the location of animals, with all their peculiarities, is not the result of physical influences, but lies within the plans and intentions of the Creator, it must be obvious that the successive introduction of all the diversity of forms which have existed from the first appearance of any given division of the animal kingdom up to the present creation, must have reference to the location of those now in existence. For instance, if it be true among mammalia that the highest types, such as quadrumana, are essentially tropical, may it not be that the prevailing distribution of the inferior pachyderms within the same geographical limits is owing to the circumstance that their type was introduced upon earth during a warmer period in the history of our globe, and that their present location is in accordance with that fact, rather than related to their degree of organization? The pentacrinites, the lowest of the echinoderms, have only one living representative in tropical America, where we find at the same time the highest and largest spatangi and holothuridae. Is this not quite a parallel case with the monkeys and pachyderms? for once crinoids were the only representatives of the class of echinoderms. May we not say the same of crocodiles when compared with the ancient gigantic saurians? or are the crocodiles, as an order, distinct from the other saurians, and really higher than the turtles? Innumerable questions of this kind, of great importance for zoology, are suggested at every step, as soon as we compare the present distribution of animals with that of the inhabitants of former geological periods. Among crustacea, it is very remarkable that trilobites and limulus-like forms are the only representatives of the class during the paleozoic ages; that macrourans prevailed in the same manner during the secondary period; and that brachyurans make their appearance only in the tertiary period. Do you discover in your results any connection between such facts and the present distribution of crustacea? There is certainly one feature in their classification which must appear very striking,—that, taken on a large scale, the organic rank of these animals agrees in the main with their order of succession in geological times; and this fact is of no small importance when it is found that the same correspondence between rank and succession obtains through all classes of the animal kingdom, and that similar features are displayed in the embryonic growth of all types so far as now known.

But I feel my head is growing dull, and I will stop here. Let me conclude by congratulating you on having completed your great work on crustacea. . .

Agassiz returned to the North in the spring of 1853 by way of the Mississippi, stopping to lecture at Mobile, New Orleans, and St. Louis. On leaving Charleston he proffered his resignation with deep regret, for, beside the close personal ties he had formed, he was attached to the place, the people, and to his work there. He had hoped to establish a permanent station for sustained observations in South Carolina, and thus to carry on a series of researches which, taken in connection with his studies on the New England coast and its vicinity, and on the Florida reefs and shores, would afford a wide field of comparison. This was not to be, however. The Medical College refused, indeed, to accept his resignation, granting him, at the same time, a year of absence. But it soon became evident that his health was seriously shaken, and that he needed the tonic of the northern winter. He was, indeed, never afterward as strong as he had been before this illness.