"All those who know me seem to have combined to heighten the attraction of the journey, and facilitate it in every respect. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company have invited me to take passage with my whole party on their fine steamer, the Colorado. They will take us, free of all expense, as far as Rio de Janeiro,—an economy of fifteen thousand francs at the start.... I seem like the spoiled child of the country, and I hope God will give me strength to repay, in devotion to her institutions and to her scientific and intellectual development, all that her citizens have done for me....
With all my heart,
"Your Louis."
The story of this expedition has been told, chiefly by Mrs. Agassiz, in that most interesting volume, "A Journey in Brazil."
On Agassiz's return, he gave a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute, and the Cooper Institute, New York, spending the summer at his pleasant seaside home and laboratory at Nahant.
The fisherman at Nahant would pull two or three miles to bring him a rare fish; and only for the pleasure of seeing him rush out of his little laboratory, crying: "Oh! where did you get that? That is a species which goes as far as Brazil. Nobody has ever seen it north of Cape Cod. Come in, come in, and sit down!"
In 1868, Agassiz, invited by Mr. Samuel Hooper, joined a party of friends in an excursion to the Rocky Mountains. This year he was appointed non-resident professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
The Massachusetts Legislature now gave seventy-five thousand dollars, and private individuals an equal sum, to provide for the new collections at the museum. Later, the museum received from the Legislature twenty-five thousand more, and a birthday gift to Agassiz, of one hundred thousand dollars, was also used by him for his precious work. September 15, 1869, at the Humboldt Centennial Celebration, Agassiz delivered an eloquent address before the Boston Society of Natural History, and the "Humboldt Scholarship" was founded at the museum. The bread cast upon the waters by Humboldt had been found after many days.
Agassiz was now completely prostrated by overwork, and told by his physician that for the several months in which he remained shut up in his room he must not think. Yet he could not banish one subject from his thoughts, and, with tears in his eyes, he would sometimes exclaim,—"Oh, my museum! my museum! always uppermost, by day and by night, in health and in sickness, always—always!"
The great mind rallied for one more voyage of research in his beloved science. In the coast-survey steamer Hassler, with his wife and friends, he sailed December 4, 1871, around Cape Horn, landing at several places along the coast, gathering rich treasures from deep-sea dredgings, entering the Golden Gate August 24, 1872.