Louis Agassiz was a naturalist and a geologist. Wise in all departments of these wide fields of nature study, and the leading teacher in his time, he will always be remembered for his discoveries in two particular departments of his great subject. Agassiz was an ichthyologist and a palæontologist. These are hard Latin names, but they are easily understood, for an ichthyologist is a man who studies fishes, and a palæontologist is one who is a student of the ancient life of the globe as it may be seen in the fossil remains deep buried in the earth. Moreover, to the science of geology Agassiz contributed a great discovery which revolutionized the thought of scientists of his day; for it was he who proved beyond all doubt that at one time, far back in the world’s history, great moving glaciers covered a huge part of the earth’s surface, and where now the summer sunshine warms green fields, at one time, in an arctic temperature, these same lands were deep buried under grinding, creeping fields of ice. Not far from Lake Neuchâtel, in western Switzerland, is the little village of Motier, a place so small that it is hard to find it on the maps of ordinary atlases. Below the village the blue water of Lake Morat gleams like a bit of sky in the green of hills and fields, and beyond, like a blue wall against the sky, the Bernese Alps look down over the ancient country. Here on May 28, 1807, was born Jean Louis Rudolph Agassiz. His father was a clergyman and his mother the daughter of a physician, and the boy inherited from them a love of study and a delight in teaching which always distinguished him. From the beautiful country of his birth came also an inheritance of nature that kept him throughout his long life always a boy at heart. The lakes of Switzerland are among the oldest dwelling-places of mankind since human life began. Beneath the waters of Lake Morat are still found traces of an ancient race that once lived there in huts built over the water; still may be seen, far down in the blue deeps, the earthen vessels which, perhaps, fell from their dwellings; occasionally are found the stumps of piles on which their houses rested. They were a water-loving people, and Agassiz, born on the shores of the same lake as this ancient people, found in the water a natural and congenial element.