Ericsson’s own wants were few. His temperate habits, his love of physical exercise, and his simple tastes made but slender demands on his income. Vigorous by inheritance, and possessing a fine physique from his early activities, he preserved his splendid vigor throughout his long life. Rarely has been given to the world a finer example of health and character contributing to a career of splendid usefulness. On the eighth of March, 1889, John Ericsson died in his New York house, where for a quarter of a century he had lived his active and solitary existence. The significance of his death was recognized, not only by his native Sweden and the United States, the land of his adoption, but by the entire civilized world, in which his inventions had brought such revolutionizing changes. But the story of his achievements can never die, and in the history of his useful life is an inspiration to every succeeding generation to whom the United States unfolds an ever-increasing opportunity. III LOUIS AGASSIZ _Born in Motier, Switzerland, 1807_ _Died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1873_ When men first received the names which they have handed down through succeeding generations there was undoubtedly an appropriate reason for the name which each man bore. The Smiths quite probably worked with iron, the Carpenters labored with saw and hammer, and the son of John became Johnson to his friends. But centuries have passed, and it rarely happens to-day that a man’s name describes his vocation or his characteristics. Occasionally, however, there is an exception, and the name of Agassiz is one of these. Lover of nature, and particularly of the living things which have for hundreds of thousands of years inhabited the earth, Louis Agassiz bore a name that suggested his ruling interests; for Agassiz, or Aigasse as it was written in old French, is the name of the magpie, a lovable, friendly bird that was known to every peasant in the beautiful countryside of La Sarraz.