Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence Part 10

BERLIN, January 21, 1833.

. . .It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the flattering welcome offered by you and your fellow-citizens to M. Aga.s.siz, who stands so high in science, and whose intellectual qualities are enhanced by his amiable character. They write me from Heidelberg that they intend the place of M. Leuckart in zoology for my young friend. The choice is proposed by M. Tiedemann, and certainly nothing could be more honorable to M. Aga.s.siz. Nevertheless, I hope that he will refuse it. He should remain for some years in your country, where a generous encouragement facilitates the publication of his work, which is of equal importance to zoology and geology.

I have spoken with M. Ancillon, and have left with him an official notice respecting the purchase of the Aga.s.siz collection. The difficulty will be found, as in all human affairs, in the prose of life, in money. M. Ancillon writes me this morning: "Your paper in favor of M. Aga.s.siz is a scientific letter of credit which we shall try to honor. The acquisition of a superior man and a superior collection at the same time would be a double conquest for the princ.i.p.ality of Neuchatel. I have requested a report from the Council of State on the means of accomplis.h.i.+ng this, and I hope that private individuals may do something toward it." Thus you see the affair is at least on the right road. I do not think, however, that the royal treasury will give at present more than a thousand Prussian crowns toward it. . .

Regarding the invitation to Heidelberg, Aga.s.siz's decision was already made. A letter to his brother toward the close of December mentions that he is offered a professors.h.i.+p at the University of Heidelberg, but that, although his answer has not actually gone, he has resolved to decline it; adding that the larger salary is counterbalanced in his mind by the hope of selling his collection at Neuchatel, and thus freeing himself from a heavy burden.

Aga.s.siz was now threatened with a great misfortune. Already, in Paris, his eyes had begun to suffer from the strain of microscopic work. They now became seriously impaired; and for some months he was obliged to abate his activity, and to refrain even from writing a letter. During this time, while he was shut up in a darkened room, he practiced the study of fossils by touch alone, using even the tip of the tongue to feel out the impression, when the fingers were not sufficiently sensitive. He said he was sure at the time that he could bring himself in this way to such delicacy of touch that the loss of sight would not oblige him to abandon his work.

After some months his eyes improved, and though at times threatened with a return of the same malady, he was able, throughout life, to use his eyes more uninterruptedly than most persons. His lectures, always delivered extemporaneously, do not seem to have been suspended for any length of time.

The following letter from Aga.s.siz to Humboldt is taken from a rough and incomplete draught, which was evidently put aside (perhaps on account of the trouble in his eyes), and only completed in the following May. Although imperfect, it explains Humboldt's answer, which is not only interesting in itself, but throws light on Aga.s.siz's work at this period.

AGa.s.sIZ TO HUMBOLDT.

NEUCHATEL, January 27, 1833.

. . .A thousand thanks for your last most welcome letter. I can hardly tell you what pleasure it gave me, or how I am cheered and stimulated to new activity by intercourse with you on so intimate a footing. Since I wrote you, some things have become more clear to me, as, for instance, my purpose of publis.h.i.+ng the "Fossil Fishes"

here. Certain doubts remain in my mind, however, about which, as well as about other matters, I would ask your advice. Now that Cotta is dead, I cannot wait till I have made an arrangement with his successor. I therefore allow the "Fresh-Water Fishes" to lie by and drive on the others. Upon careful examination I have found, to my astonishment, that all necessary means for the publication of such a work are to be had here: two good lithographers and two printing establishments, both of which have excellent type. I have sent for Weber to engrave the plates, or draw them on stone; he will be here at the end of the month. Then I shall begin at once, and hope in May to send out the first number. The great difficulty remains now in the distribution of the numbers, and in finding a sufficient sale so that they may follow each other with regularity.

I think it better to begin the publication as a whole than to send out an abridgment in advance. The species can be characterized only by good ill.u.s.trations. A summary always requires farther demonstration, whereas, if I give the plates at once I can shorten the text and present the general results as an introduction to the first number. With twelve numbers, of twenty plates each, followed by about ten pages of text, I can tell all that I have to say. The cost of one hundred and fifty copies printed here would, according to careful inquiry, be covered by seventy subscriptions if the price were put at one louis-d'or the number.

Now comes the question whether I should print more than one hundred and fifty copies. On account of the expense I shall not preserve the stones. For the distribution of the copies and the collecting of the money could you, perhaps, recommend me to some house in Berlin or Leipzig, who would take the work for sale in Germany on commission under reasonable conditions? For England, I wrote yesterday to Lyell, and to-morrow I shall write to Levrault and Bossange.

Both the magistrates and private individuals here are now much interested in public instruction, and I am satisfied that sooner or later my collection will be purchased, though nothing has been said about it lately.* (* His collection was finally purchased by the city of Neuchatel in the spring of 1833.)

For a closer description of my family of Lepidostei, to which belong all the ante-chalk bony fishes, I am anxious to have for dissection a Polypterus b.i.+.c.hir and a Lepidosteus osseus, or any other species belonging exclusively to the present creation.

Hitherto, I have only been able to examine and describe the skeleton and external parts. If you could obtain a specimen of both for me you would do me the greatest service. If necessary, I will engage to return the preparations. I beg for this most earnestly.

Forgive the many requests contained in this letter, and see in it only my ardent desire to reach my aim, in which you have already helped me so often and so kindly.

HUMBOLDT TO AGa.s.sIZ.

SANS SOUCI, July 4, 1833.

. . .I am happy in your success, my dear Aga.s.siz, happy in your charming letter of May 22nd, happy in the hope of having been able to do something that may be useful to you for the subscription. The Prince Royal's name seemed to me rather important for you. I have delayed writing, not because I am one of the most persecuted men in Europe (the persecution goes on crescendo; there is not a scholar in Prussia or Germany having anything to ask of the King, or of M.

d'Altenstein, who does not think it necessary to make me his agent, with power of attorney), but because it was necessary to await the Prince Royal's return from his military circuit, and the opportunity of speaking to him alone, which does not occur when I am with the King.

Your prospectus is full of interest, and does ample justice to those who have provided you with materials. To name me among them was an affectionate deceit, the ruse of a n.o.ble soul like yours; I am a little vexed with you about it.* (* The few words which called forth this protest from Humboldt were as follows. After naming all those from whom he had received help in specimens or otherwise, Aga.s.siz concludes:--"Finally, I owe to M. de Humboldt not only important notes on fossil fishes, but so many kindnesses in connection with my work that in enumerating them I should fear to wound the delicacy of the giver." This will hardly seem an exaggeration to those who know the facts of the case.)

Here is the beginning of a list. I think the Department of the Mines de Province will take three or four more copies. We have not their answer yet. Do not be frightened at the brevity of the list . . .I am, however, the least apt of all men in collecting subscriptions, seeing no one but the court, and forced to be out of town three or four days in the week. On account of this same inapt.i.tude, I beg you to send me, through the publisher, only my own three copies, and to address the others, through the publisher also, to the individuals named on the list, merely writing on each copy that the person has subscribed on the list of M. de Humboldt.

With all my affection for you, my dear friend, it would be impossible for me to take charge of the distribution of your numbers or the returns. The publis.h.i.+ng houses of Dummler or of Humblot and Dunker would be useful to you at Berlin. I find it difficult to believe that you will navigate successfully among these literary corsairs! I have had a short eulogium of your work inserted in the Berliner Staats-Zeitung. You see that I do not neglect your interests, and that, for love of you, I even turn journalist. You have omitted to state in your prospectus whether your plates are lithographed, as I fear they are, and also whether they are colored, which seems to me unnecessary. Have your superb original drawings remained in your possession, or are they included in the sale of your collection?. . .

I could not make use of your letter to the King, and I have suppressed it. You have been ill-advised as to the forms.

"Erhabener Konig" has too poetical a turn; we have here the most prosaic and the most degrading official expressions. M. de Pfuel must have some Arch-Prussian with him, who would arrange the formula of a letter for you. At the head there must be "Most enlightened, most powerful King,--all gracious sovereign and lord."

Then you begin, "Your Royal Majesty, deeply moved, I venture to lay at your feet most humbly my warmest thanks for the support so graciously granted to the purchase of my collection for the Gymnasium in Neuchatel. Did I know how to write," etc. The rest of your letter was very good; put only "so much grace as to answer"

instead of "so much kindness." You should end with the words, "I remain till death, in deepest reverence, the most humble and faithful servant of your Royal Majesty." The whole on small folio, sealed, addressed outside, "To the King's Majesty, Berlin." Send the letter, not through me, but officially, through M. de Pfuel.*

(* At the head there must be "Allerdurchlauchtigster, grossmachtigster Konig,--allergnadigster Konig und Herr." Then you begin, "Euer koniglichen Majestat, wage ich meinen lebhaftesten Dank fur die allergnadigst bewilligte Unterstutzung zum Ankauf meiner Sammlung fur das Gymnasium in Neuchatel tief geruhrt allerunterthanigst zu Fussen zu legen. Wusste ich zu schreiben,"

etc. The rest of your letter was very good,--put only, "so vieler Gnade zu entsprechen" instead of "so vieler Gute." You should end with the words, "Ich ersterbe in tiefster Ehrfurcht Euer koniglicher Majestat aller onter thanigsten getreuester." The whole in small folio, sealed, addressed outside, "An des Konig's Majestat, Berlin." These forms are no longer in use. They belong to a past generation.)

The letter to the King is not absolutely necessary, but it will give pleasure, for the King likes any affectionate demonstration from the country that has now become yours.* (* It may not be known to all readers that Neuchatel was then under Prussian sovereignty.) It will be useful, also, with reference to our request for the purchase of some copies, which we will make to the King as soon as the first number has appeared. Had I obtained the King's name for you to-day (which would have been difficult, since the King detests subscriptions), we should have spoiled the sequence. It seems to me that a letter of acknowledgment from you to M. Ancillon would be very suitable also. Do not think it is too late. One addresses him as "Monsieur et plus votre Excellence." I am writing the most pedantic letter in the world in answer to yours, so full of charm.

It must seem to you absurd that I write you in French, when you, French by origin, or rather by language, prefer to write me in German. Pray tell me, did you learn German, which you write with such purity, as a child?

I am happy to see that you publish the whole together. The parceling out of such a work would have led to endless delays; but, for mercy's sake, take care of your eyes; they are OURS. I have not neglected the subscriptions in Russia, but I have, as yet, no answer. At a venture, I have placed the name of M. von Buch on my list. He is absent; it is said that he will go to Greece this summer. Pray make it a rule not to give away copies of your work.

If you follow that inclination you will be pecuniarily ruined.

I wish I could have been present at your course of lectures. What you tell me of them delights me, though I am ready to do battle with you about those metamorphoses of our globe which have even slipped into your t.i.tle. I see by your letter that you cling to the idea of internal vital processes of the earth, that you regard the successive formations as different phases of life, the rocks as products of metamorphosis. I think this symbolical language should be employed with great reserve, I know that point of view of the old "Naturphilosophie;" I have examined it without prejudice, but nothing seems to me more dissimilar than the vital action of the metamorphosis of a plant in order to form the calyx or the flower, and the successive formation of beds of conglomerate. There is order, it is true, in the superposed beds, sometimes an alternation of the same substance, an interior cause,--sometimes even a successive development, starting from a central heat; but can the term "life" be applied to this kind of movement? Limestone does not generate sandstone. I do not know that there exists what physiologists call a vital force, different from, or opposed to, the physical forces which we recognize in all matter; I think the vital process is only a particular mode of action, of limitation of those physical forces; action, the nature of which we have not yet fully sounded. I believe there are nervous storms (electric) like those which set fire to the atmosphere, but that special action which we call organic, in which every part becomes cause or effect, seems to me distinct from the changes which our planet has undergone. I pause here, for I feel that I must annoy you, and I care for you too much to run that risk. Moreover, a superior man like yourself, my dear friend, floats above material things and leaves a margin for philosophic doubt.

Farewell; count on the little of life that remains to me, and on my affectionate devotion. At twenty-six years of age, and possessed of so much knowledge, you are only entering upon life, while I am preparing to depart; leaving this world far different from what I hoped it would be in my youth. I will not forget the b.i.+.c.hir and the Lepidosteus. Remember always that your letters give me the greatest pleasure. . .

[P.S.] Look carefully at the new number of Poggendorf, in which you will find beautiful discoveries of Ehrenberg (microscopical) on the difference of structure between the brain and the nerves of motion, also upon the crystals forming the silvered portion of the peritoneum of Esox lucius.

In October, 1833, Aga.s.siz's marriage to Cecile Braun, the sister of his life-long friend, Alexander Braun, took place. He brought his wife home to a small apartment in Neuchatel, where they began their housekeeping after the simplest fas.h.i.+on, with such economy as their very limited means enforced. Her rare artistic talent, hitherto devoted to her brother's botanical pursuits, now found a new field.

Trained to accuracy in drawing objects of Natural History, she had an artist's eye for form and color. Some of the best drawings in the Fossil Fishes and the Fresh-Water Fishes are from her hand.

Throughout the summer, notwithstanding the trouble in his eyes, Aga.s.siz had been still pressing on these works. His two artists, Mr. d.i.n.kel and Mr. Weber, the former in Paris, the latter in Neuchatel, were constantly busy on his plates.

Although Aga.s.siz was at this time only twenty-six years of age, his correspondence already shows that the interest of scientific men, all over Europe, was attracted to him and to his work. From investigators of note in his own country, from those of France, Italy, and Germany, from England, and even from America, the distant El Dorado of naturalists in those days, came offers of cooperation, accompanied by fossil fishes or by the drawings of rare or unique specimens. He was known in all the museums of Europe as an indefatigable worker and collector, seeking everywhere materials for comparison.

Among the letters of this date is one from Charpentier, one of the pioneers of glacial investigation, under whose auspices, two years later, Aga.s.siz began his inquiries into glacial phenomena. He writes him from the neighborhood of Bex, his home in the valley of the Rhone, the cla.s.sic land of glacial work; but he writes of Aga.s.siz's special subjects, inviting him to come and see such fossils as were to be found in his neighborhood, and to investigate certain phenomena of upheaval and of plutonic action in the same region, little dreaming that the young zoologist was presently to join him in his own chosen field of research.

Aga.s.siz now began also to receive pressing invitations from the English naturalists, from Buckland, Lyell, Murchison, and others, to visit England, and examine their wonderful collections of fossil remains.

FROM PROFESSOR BUCKLAND TO AGa.s.sIZ.

OXFORD, December 25, 1833.

. . .I should very much like to put into your hands what few materials I possess in the Oxford Museum relating to fossil fishes, and am also desirous that you should see the fossil fish in the various provincial museums of England, as well as in London. Sir Philip Egerton has a very large collection of fishes from Engi and Oeningen, which he wishes to place at your disposition. Like myself, he would willingly send you drawings, but drawings made without knowledge of the anatomical details which you require, cannot well represent what the artist himself does not perceive. I would willingly lend you my specimens, if I could secure them against the barbarous hands of the custom-house officials. What I would propose to you as a means of seeing all the collections of England, and gaining at the same time additional subscriptions for your work, is, that you should come to England and attend the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science in September next. There you will meet all the naturalists of England, and I do not doubt that among them you will find a good many subscribers.

You will likewise see a new mine of fossil fishes in the clayey schist of the coal formation at Newhaven, on the banks of the Forth, near Edinburgh. You can also make arrangements to visit the museums of York, Whitby, Scarborough, and Leeds, as well as the museum of Sir Philip Egerton, on your way to and from Edinburgh.

You may, likewise, visit the museums of London, Cambridge, and Oxford; everywhere there are fossil fishes; and traveling by coach in England is so rapid, easy, and cheap, that in six weeks or less you can accomplish all that I have proposed. As I seriously hope that you will come to England for the months of August and September, I say nothing at present of any other means of putting into your hands the drawings or specimens of our English fossil fishes. I forgot to mention the very rich collection of fossil fishes in the Museum of Mr. Mantell, at Brighton, where, I think, you could take the weekly steam-packet for Rotterdam as easily as in London, and thus arrive in Neuchatel from London in a very few days. . .

AGa.s.sIZ TO PROFESSOR BUCKLAND.

. . .I thank you most warmly for the very important information you have so kindly given me respecting the rich collections of England; I will, if possible, make arrangements to visit them this year, and in that case I will beg you to let me have a few letters of recommendation to facilitate my examination of them in detail. Not that I question for a moment the liberality of the English naturalists. All the continental savants who have visited your museums have praised the kindness shown in intrusting to them the rarest objects, and I well know that the English rival other nations in this respect, and even leave them far behind. But one must have merited such favors by scientific labors; to a beginner they are always a free gift, wholly undeserved. . .

A few months later Aga.s.siz received a very gratifying and substantial mark of the interest felt by English naturalists in his work.

CHARLES LYELL TO LOUIS AGa.s.sIZ.

SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON, February 4, 1834.

. . .It is with the greatest pleasure that I announce to you good news. The Geological Society of London desires me to inform you that it has this year conferred upon you the prize bequeathed by Dr. Wollaston. He has given us the sum of one thousand pounds sterling, begging us to expend the interest, or about seven hundred and fifty francs every year, for the encouragement of the science of geology. Your work on fishes has been considered by the Council and the officers of the Geological Society worthy of this prize, Dr. Wollaston having said that it could be given for unfinished works. The sum of thirty guineas, or 31 pounds 10 s.h.i.+llings sterling, has been placed in my hands, but I would not send you the money before knowing exactly where you were and learning from you where you wish it to be paid. You will probably like an order on some Swiss banker.

I cannot yet give you the extract from the address of the President in which your work is mentioned, but I shall have it soon. In the mean time I am desired to tell you that the Society declines to receive your magnificent work as a gift, but wishes to subscribe for it, and has already ordered a copy from the publishers. . .

AGa.s.sIZ TO LYELL.

NEUCHATEL, March 25, 1834.

. . .You cannot imagine the joy your letter has given me. The prize awarded to me is at once so unexpected an honor and so welcome an aid that I could hardly believe my eyes when, with tears of relief and grat.i.tude, I read your letter. In the presence of a savant, I need not be ashamed of my penury, since I have spent the little I had, wholly in scientific researches. I do not, therefore, hesitate to confess to you that at no time could your gift have given me greater pleasure. Generous friends have helped me to bring out the first number of my "Fossil Fishes;" the plates of the second are finished, but I was greatly embarra.s.sed to know how to print a sufficient number of copies before the returns from the first should be paid in. The text is ready also, so that now, in a fortnight, I can begin the distribution, and, the rotation once established, I hope that preceding numbers will always enable me to publish the next in succession without interruption. I even count upon this resource as affording me the means of making a journey to England before long. If no obstacle arises I hope to accomplish this during the coming summer, and to be present at the next meeting of the English naturalists.