APPENDIX A.

BIOGRAPHIES OF LOUIS AGASSIZ.

THE biographies of Louis Agassiz are numerous. Many are mere sketches, and more are only repetitions without any original facts. Scientific periodicals, and even literary reviews and political newspapers, have published a number of articles on Agassiz. I shall quote only those containing original matter. The biographical sketches in dictionaries and encyclopædias, such as the "Dictionnaire des Contemporains," by Vapereau; Appleton's "Cyclopedia of American Biographies,” and others in English, French, and German, are all compilations, more or less well executed, without real value, except to popularize his name.

Several papers and books have been quoted, which contain original and important facts bearing on the life of Agassiz, although they were published for other purposes, and under titles which do not indicate Agassiz's connection with the subject treated.

I. DURING HIS LIFE.

Only three original biographies were published during his life.

1845. The first appeared at Geneva in 1845-47, in the "Album de la Suisse Romane," Vol. V., p. 1, 4to, with portrait. The title is Agassiz. The name of the author is not given, but in the Table of Contents, at the end of the volume, it is entered as "Par F. J. Pictet," the celebrated naturalist of Geneva. As I have mentioned, the manuscript was sent to Agassiz, at Neuchâtel, for correction.

This article did not make its appearance until Agassiz was already in America; and it is doubtful whether Agassiz ever received a

copy of it, or ever saw it in print. It is excellent, and, although short, is the best biographical sketch we have, so far as it goes; that is to say, up to 1845, when Agassiz was on the point of leaving Neuchâtel for America.

By virtue of his own studies of fossil fishes and fossil invertebrates, Pictet was able to make a just estimation of the merit and originality of Agassiz's researches; and his liberty of judgment and high sense of justice enabled him to examine, without prejudice, the rôles played in the glacial question by Venetz, de Charpentier, and Agassiz.

1847. The Life and Writings of Agassiz, published in Boston, December, 1847, in the "Massachusetts Quarterly," Vol. I., pp. 96– 119. The author, Mr. J. Elliot Cabot, whose name is not, however, attached to the article, wrote it from materials furnished by Agassiz's secretary, M. Desor. It was substantially a translation, or rather, a report of verbal information; and it may be considered an accurate sketch of Agassiz's life until his acceptance of the professorship of zoology and geology at Harvard University. The article was reprinted in the "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal," Vol. XLVI., p. 1. Edinburgh, 1848.

1847. — At about the same time, 10 December, 1847, a Biographic Notice of Professor Agassiz appeared in New York, in a pamphlet entitled, "Professor Agassiz's Lectures: The Animal Kingdom,” issued by Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York "Tribune." The proofs of this short sketch, of only two pages, were corrected by Agassiz and Auguste Mayor.

Many newspapers and magazines reprinted in part these last two biographical sketches.

2. AFTER HIS DEATH.

1874. — Commemorative Notice of Louis Agassiz, by Theodore Lyman. This paper, by one of his favourite pupils, was published as an academic eulogy, in the "Annual Report of the Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 1873," Boston, 13 pages. It is a good sketch, and very complete, considering its limitation to a dozen octavo pages.

1874. - Obituary, Louis John Rudolph Agassiz, by Benjamin Silliman, Jr. In "American Journal of Science," Third Series, Vol. VII., pp. 77-80, January, 1874. The author gives extracts from two letters of Agassiz, dated October, 1845, and February, 1846, addressed to Benjamin Silliman, Sr.

1874.- Notice biographique sur Louis Agassiz, par Alphonse de Candolle, dans son Rapport comme Président de la Société de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle de Genève pour l'année 1873–1874. Lu le 16 Juillet, 1874. “Mém. Soc. Phys. et Hist. Nat.," Vol. XXIII., pp. 470-478. 4to, Genève, 1874. An excellent and original biography, containing two most interesting letters addressed to M. Louis de Coulon of Neuchâtel, written by Agassiz, from Paris, during the months of March and June, 1832.

1874.-Louis Jean Rodolphe Agassiz, by the Duke of Argyll, in the Anniversary Address of the President of the Geological Society of London, "The Quarterly Journal," Vol. XXX., May, 1874, pp. xxxvii-xliii. This academic eulogy is less complete than that by Mr. Lyman.

1874.- Louis Agassiz, by Dr. F. Steindachner, in "Die Feierliche, Sitzung der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften am 30 Mai, 1874. Wien, pp. 60-82. The author, who accompanied Agassiz in his last journey around South America, and passed three years in constant and most intimate intercourse with him, has here written an excellent "Nekrolog," by far the best published in German. Steindachner, being an excellent ichthyologist, was able to appreciate at its full value the great and, as he says, the unique knowledge of Agassiz, whom he justly calls his master.

1874. (Sketch of) Professor Louis Agassiz, by Richard Bliss, Jr., in "Popular Science Monthly," Vol. IV., pp. 608-618, with portrait. New York, March, 1874.

1875.-Sketch of Agassiz, by L. F. de Pourtalès, in “Harvard Book," by F. O. Waille and H. A. Clark, Vol. I., pp. 342-344, folio, with an excellent portrait, taken from the larger photograph by Sonrel, Cambridge, 1875.

This sketch contains exact and little known information in regard

to the storage of the first collections made by Agassiz in America, though the account of his European life is short and somewhat inaccurate; e.g. Agassiz was never at school at Orbe.

1877.-Louis Agassiz, notice biographique, par Ernest Favre, in "Archives des Sciences de la Bibliothèque Universelle," May and June, 1877, 53 pages; issued also separately, Genève. An English translation, made by order of Professor Joseph Henry, the secretary of the Smithsonian, was published in the "Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1878," pp. 236-261, Washington.

The author was too young to have known Agassiz personally, but he makes good use of the knowledge of his father, Alphonse Favre, an old pupil of Agassiz; and the biography is original and good, containing extracts from letters of Agassiz to Alphonse Favre, and several anecdotes about Agassiz, when in Switzerland. I may add that M. Ernest Favre asked me to write the biography for the "Bibliothèque Universelle." But at the time, I was passing a winter at Algiers, far from all my notes and books; and I declined, but promised to furnish him some notes, more especially upon the life and works of Agassiz in America. He begged me to do so, as otherwise he would not undertake the work. I therefore sent him notes, which he acknowledged very courteously in a foot-note on the first page of his Notice. But, influenced by his acquaintance with M. Desor, and also by a little difficulty which had occurred between Agassiz and his father, he gave Desor much more credit for the fossil echinoderms than he is really entitled to, curiously reversing the facts, by saying that Agassiz was the collaborator of his assistant and secretary. Agassiz began the work on echinoderms many years before he knew Desor, and before Desor came to Neuchâtel, as his secretary, and worked out the greater part of it until 1846; and the part taken by Desor is wholly secondary, and far below Agassiz's in excellence. I am obliged to make this statement because M. E. Favre, in quoting me as furnishing numerous facts, seems to indicate that his opinion of the part taken by Desor, in the publication of the "Catalogue des Echinodermes vivants et fossiles," 1846-1848, is more or less in accordance with my information, which is erroneous. As I have previously said, I saw the