So closed his first year in America. The second unfolded events both in the home he had left and in the one to which he had unconsciously come, which were to shape his future career, and exert the most powerful influence upon his whole life. CHAPTER 15. 1847-1850: AGE 40-43. Excursions on Coast Survey Steamer. Relations with Dr. Bache, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey. Political Disturbances in Switzerland. Change of Relations with Prussia. Scientific School established in Cambridge. Chair of Natural History offered to Agassiz. Acceptance. Removal to Cambridge. Literary and Scientific Associations there and in Boston. Household in Cambridge. Beginning of Museum. Journey to Lake Superior. "Report, with Narration." "Principles of Zoology," by Agassiz and Gould. Letters from European Friends respecting these Publications. Letter from Hugh Miller. Second Marriage. Arrival of his Children in America. One of Agassiz's great pleasures in the summer of 1847 consisted in excursions on board the Coast Survey steamer Bibb, then employed in the survey of the harbor and bay of Boston, under command of Captain (afterward Admiral) Charles Henry Davis. Under no more kindly auspices could Agassiz's relations with this department of government work have been begun. "My cabin," writes Captain Davis, after their first trip together, "seems lonely without you." Hitherto the sea-shore had been a closed book to the Swiss naturalist, and now it opened to him a field of research almost as stimulating as his own glaciers. Born and bred among the mountains, he knew marine animals only as they can be known in dried and alcoholic specimens, or in a fossil state. From the Bibb he writes to a friend on shore: "I learn more here in a day than in months from books or dried specimens. Captain Davis is kindness itself. Everything I can wish for is at my disposal so far as it is possible." Dr. Bache was at this time Superintendent of the Coast Survey, and he saw at once how the work of the naturalist might ally itself with the professional work of the Survey to the greater usefulness of both. From the beginning to the end of his American life, therefore, the hospitalities of the United States Coast Survey were open to Agassiz. As a guest on board her vessels he studied the reefs of Florida and the Bahama Banks, as well as the formations of our New England shores. From the deck of the Bibb, in connection with Count de Pourtales, his first dredging experiments were undertaken; and his last long voyage around the continent, from Boston to San Francisco, was made on board the Hassler, a Coast Survey vessel fitted out for the Pacific shore. Here was another determining motive for his stay in this country. Under no other government, perhaps, could he have had opportunities so invaluable to a naturalist.