Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence Part 28

CONCORD, December 13, 1864.

DEAR AGa.s.sIZ,

I pray you have no fear that I did, or can, say any word unfriendly to you or to the Museum, for both of which blessings--the cause and the effect--I daily thank Heaven! May you both increase and multiply for ages!

I cannot defend my lectures,--they are p.r.o.ne to be clumsy and hurried botches,--still less answer for any report,--which I never dare read; but I can tell you the amount of my chiding. I vented some of the old grudge I owe the college now for forty-five years, for the cruel waste of two years of college time on mathematics without any attempt to adapt, by skillful tutors, or by private instruction, these tasks to the capacity of slow learners. I still remember the useless pains I took, and my serious recourse to my tutor for aid which he did not know how to give me. And now I see to-day the same indiscriminate imposing of mathematics on all students during two years,--ear or no ear, you shall all learn music,--to the waste of time and health of a large part of every cla.s.s. It is both natural and laudable in each professor to magnify his department, and to seek to make it the first in the world if he can. But of course this tendency must be corrected by securing in the const.i.tution of the college a power in the head (whether singular or plural) of coordinating all the parts. Else, important departments will be overlaid, as in Oxford and in Harvard, natural history was until now. Now, it looks as if natural history would obtain in time to come the like predominance as mathematics have here, or Greek at Oxford. It will not grieve me if it should, for we are all curious of nature, but not of algebra. But the necessity of check on the instructors in the head of the college, I am sure you will agree with me, is indispensable. You will see that my allusion to naturalists is only incidental to my statement of my grievance.

But I have made my letter ridiculously long, and pray you to remember that you have brought it on your own head. I do not know that I ever attempted before an explanation of any speech.

Always with entire regard yours,

R.W. EMERSON.

At about this time, in September, 1864, Aga.s.siz made an excursion into Maine, partly to examine the drift phenomena on the islands and coast of that State, and partly to study the so-called "horse-backs." The journey proved to be one of the most interesting he had made in this country with reference to local glacial phenomena. Compa.s.s in hand, he followed the extraordinary ridges of morainic material lying between Bangor and Katahdin, to the Ebeene Mountains, at the foot of which are the Katahdin Iron Works.

Returning to Bangor, he pursued, with the same minute investigation, the glacial tracks and erratic material from that place to the seacoast and to Mount Desert. The details of this journey and its results are given in one of the papers contained in the second volume of his "Geological Sketches." In conclusion, he says; "I suppose these facts must be far less expressive to the general observer than to one who has seen this whole set of phenomena in active operation. To me they have been for many years so familiar in the Alpine valleys, and their aspect in those regions is so identical with the facts above described, that paradoxical as the statement may seem, the presence of the ice is now an unimportant element to me in the study of glacial phenomena; no more essential than is the flesh to the anatomist who studies the skeleton of a fossil animal."

This journey in Maine, undertaken in the most beautiful season of the American year, when the autumn glow lined the forest roads with red and gold, was a great refreshment to Aga.s.siz. He had been far from well, but he returned to his winter's work invigorated and with a new sense of hope and courage.

CHAPTER 21.

1865-1868: AGE 58-61.

Letter to his Mother announcing Journey to Brazil.

Sketch of Journey.

Kindness of the Emperor.

Liberality of the Brazilian Government.

Correspondence with Charles Sumner.

Letter to his Mother at Close of Brazil Journey.

Letter from Martius concerning Journey in Brazil.

Return to Cambridge.

Lectures in Boston and New York.

Summer at Nahant.

Letter to Professor Peirce on the Survey of Boston Harbor.

Death of his Mother.

Illness.

Correspondence with Oswald Heer.

Summer Journey in the West.

Cornell University.

Letter from Longfellow.

THE next important event in the life of Aga.s.siz, due in the first instance to his failing health, which made some change of scene and climate necessary, is best announced by himself in the following letter.

TO HIS MOTHER.

CAMBRIDGE, March 22, 1865.

DEAR MOTHER,

You will shed tears of joy when you read this, but such tears are harmless. Listen, then, to what has happened. A few weeks ago I was thinking how I should employ my summer. I foresaw that in going to Nahant I should not find the rest I need after all the fatigue of the two last years, or, at least, not enough of change and relaxation. I felt that I must have new scenes to give me new life.

But where to go and what to do?

Perhaps I wrote you last year of the many marks of kindness I have received from the Emperor of Brazil, and you remember that at the time of my debut as an author, my attention was turned to the natural history of that country. Lately, also, in a course of lectures at the Lowell Inst.i.tute, I have been led to compare the Alps, where I have pa.s.sed so many happy years, with the Andes, which I have never seen. In short, the idea came to me gradually, that I might spend the summer at Rio de Janeiro, and that, with the present facilities for travel, the journey would not be too fatiguing for my wife. . .Upon this, then, I had decided, when most unexpectedly, and as the consummation of all my wishes, my pleasure trip was transformed into an important scientific expedition for the benefit of the Museum, by the intervention of one of my friends, Mr. Nathaniel Thayer. By chance I met him a week ago in Boston. He laughed at me a little about my roving disposition, and then asked me what plans I had formed for the Museum, in connection with my journey. I answered that, thinking especially of my health, I had provided only for the needs of myself and my wife during an absence of six or eight months. Then ensued the following conversation.

"But, Aga.s.siz, that is hardly like you; you have never been away from Cambridge without thinking of your Museum."

"True enough; but I am tired,--I need rest. I am going to loaf a little in Brazil."

"When you have had a fortnight of that kind of thing you will be as ready for work as ever, and you will be sorry that you have not made some preparation to utilize the occasion and the localities in the interest of the Museum."

"Yes, I have some such misgiving; but I have no means for anything beyond my personal expenses, and it is no time to ask sacrifices from any one in behalf of science. The country claims all our resources.

"But suppose some one offered you a scientific a.s.sistant, all expenses paid, what would you say?"

"Of that I had never thought."

"How many a.s.sistants could you employ?"

"Half a dozen."

"And what would be the expense of each one?"

"I suppose about twenty-five hundred dollars; at least, that is what I have counted upon for myself."

After a moment's reflection he resumed:--

"If it suits you then, Aga.s.siz, and interferes in no way with the plans for your health, choose your a.s.sistants among the employees of your Museum or elsewhere, and I will be responsible for all the scientific expenses of the expedition.". . .

My preparations are made. I leave probably next week, from New York, with a staff of a.s.sistants more numerous, and, I think, as well chosen, as those of any previous undertaking of the kind.* (*

Beside the six a.s.sistants provided for by Mr. Thayer, there were a number of young volunteer aids who did excellent work on the expedition.)

. . .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 Steams.h.i.+p Company has invited me to take pa.s.sage 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. Yesterday evening I received a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, at Was.h.i.+ngton, desiring the officers of all vessels of war stationed along the coasts I am to visit, to give me aid and support in everything concerning my expedition. The letter was written in the kindest terms, and gratified me the more because it was quite unsolicited. I am really touched by the marks of sympathy I receive, not only from near friends, but even from strangers. . .I seem like the spoiled child of the country, and I hope G.o.d will give me strength to repay in devotion to her inst.i.tutions and to her scientific and intellectual development, all that her citizens have done for me.

I am forgetting that you will be anxious to know what special work I propose to do in the interest of science in Brazil. First, I hope to make large collections of all such objects as properly belong in a Museum of Natural History, and to this end I have chosen from among the employees of our Museum one representative from each department. My only regret is that I must leave Alex in Cambridge to take care of the Museum itself. He will have an immense amount of work to do, for I leave him only six out of our usual staff of a.s.sistants. In the second place, I intend to make a special study of the habits, metamorphoses, anatomy, etc., of the Amazonian fishes. Finally, I dream sometimes of an ascension of the Andes, if I do not find myself too old and too heavy for climbing. I should like to see if there were not also large glaciers in this chain of mountains, at the period when the glaciers of the Alps extended to the Jura. . .But this latter part of my plan is quite uncertain, and must depend in great degree upon our success on the Amazons.

Accompanied as I am with a number of aides naturalistes, we ought to be able among us to bring together large collections, and even to add duplicates, which I can then, on my return, distribute to the European Museums, in exchange for valuable specimens.

We leave next week, and I hope to write you from Rio a letter which will reach you about the date of my birthday. A steamer leaves Brazil once a month for England. If my arrival coincides with her departure you shall not be disappointed in this.

With all my heart,

YOUR LOUIS.

The story of this expedition has been told in the partly scientific, partly personal diary published after Aga.s.siz's return, under the t.i.tle of "A Journey in Brazil," and therefore a full account of it here would be mere repet.i.tion. He was absent sixteen months. The first three were spent in Rio de Janeiro, and in excursions about the neighborhood of her beautiful bay and the surrounding mountains. For greater efficiency and promptness he divided his party into companies, each working separately, some in collecting, others in geological surveys, but all under one combined plan of action.

The next ten months were pa.s.sed in the Amazonian region. This part of the journey had the charm of purely tropical scenery, and Aga.s.siz, who was no less a lover of nature than a naturalist, enjoyed to the utmost its beauty and picturesqueness. Much of the time he and his companions were living on the great river itself, and the deck of the steamer was by turns laboratory, dining-room, and dormitory. Often, as they pa.s.sed close under the banks of the river, or between the many islands which break its broad expanse into narrow channels, their improvised working room was overshadowed by the lofty wall of vegetation, which lifted its dense ma.s.s of trees and soft drapery of vines on either side. Still more beautiful was it when they left the track of the main river for the water-paths hidden in the forest. Here they were rowed by Indians in "montarias," a peculiar kind of boat used by the natives. It has a thatched hood at one end for shelter from rain or sun. Little sun penetrates, however, to the shaded "igarape"

(boat-path), along which the montaria winds its way under a vault of green. When traveling in this manner, they stopped for the night, and indeed sometimes lingered for days, in Indian settlements, or in the more secluded single Indian lodges, which are to be found on the sh.o.r.es of almost every lake or channel. In this net-work of fresh waters, threading the otherwise impenetrable woods, the humblest habitation has its boat and landing-place. With his montaria and his hammock, his little plantation of bananas and mandioca, and the dwelling, for which the forest about him supplies the material, the Amazonian Indian is supplied with all the necessities of life.

Sometimes the party were settled, for weeks at a time, in more civilized fas.h.i.+on, in the towns or villages on the banks of the main river, or its immediate neighborhood, at Manaos, Ega, Obydos, and elsewhere. Wherever they sojourned, whether for a longer or a shorter time, the scientific work went on uninterruptedly. There was not an idle member in the company.

From the time he left Rio de Janeiro, Aga.s.siz had the companions.h.i.+p of a young Brazilian officer of the engineer corps, Major Coutinho.