By a great good fortune for me, the British Association, at the
suggestion of Buckland, Sedgwick, and Murchison, has renewed, for
the present year, its vote of one hundred guineas toward the
facilitating of researches upon the fossil fishes of England, and I
hope that a considerable part of this sum may be awarded to me, in
which case I may be able to complete the greater number of the
drawings I need. If I had obtained in France only half the
subscriptions I have had in England, I should be afloat; but thus
far M. Bailliere has only disposed of some fifteen copies. . .My
work advances fairly; I shall soon have described all the species I
know, numbering now about nine hundred. I need some weeks in Paris
for the comparison of several tertiary species with living ones in
order to satisfy myself of their specific identity, and then my
task will be accomplished. Next comes the putting in order of all
my notes. My long vacations will give me time to do this with the
greatest care. . .
His second visit to England, during which the above letter was
written, was chiefly spent in reviewing the work of his artist,
whom he now reinforced with a second draughtsman, M. Weber, the
same who had formerly worked with him in Munich. He also attended
the meeting of the British Association in Dublin, stayed a few days
at Oulton Park for another look at the collections of Sir Philip
Egerton, made a second grand tour among the other fossil fishes of
England and Ireland, and returned to Neuchatel, leaving his two
artists in London with their hands more than full.
While Agassiz thus pursued his work on fossil fishes with ardor and
an almost perilous audacity, in view of his small means, he found
also time for various other investigations. During the year 1836,
though pushing forward constantly the publication of the "Poissons
Fossiles," his "Prodromus of the Class of Echinodermata" appeared
in the Memoirs of the Natural History Society of Neuchatel, as well
as his paper on the fossil Echini belonging to the Neocomian group
of the Neuchatel Jura, accompanied by figures. Not long after, he
published in the Memoirs of the Helvetic Society his descriptions
of fossil Echini peculiar to Switzerland, and issued also the first
number of a more extensive work, "Monographie d'Echinodermes."
During this year he received a new evidence of the sympathy of the
English naturalists, in the Wollaston medal awarded to him by the
London Geological Society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account