Christoph Irmscher - Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science

Copyright 2013 Christoph Irmscher

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Irmscher, Christoph.

Louis Agassiz: creator of American science / Christoph Irmscher.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-547-57767-8

1. Agassiz, Louis, 18071873. 2. Agassiz, Louis, 18071873Influence. 3. NaturalistsUnited StatesBiography. 4. Natural historyUnited StatesHistory19th century. I. Title.

QH 31. A 2I47 2013

508.092dc23

[B]

2012014225

e ISBN 978-0-547-56892-8
v1.0213

For Daniel Aaron

On the occasion of his one hundredth birthday

With love

PAGE:

: Louis Agassiz on the steps of his house at 36 Quincy Street. Undated stereoscopic card. Photograph by DeLos Barnum (also known as Deloss; active in Boston 18561859). Authors collection.

: Louis Agassiz. Undated salt print, autographed on mount, early 1850s. Photograph by John Adams Whipple. Authors collection.
Louis Agassiz. Signed carte de visite, albumen silver print mounted on card, early 1860s. Photograph by John Adams Whipple. Authors collection.

: Louis Agassiz. Albumen print, 1860s. Photograph by George Kendall Warren (18241884), Boston. Authors collection.
Louis Agassiz. 1872. Photograph by Antoine Sonrel. Frontispiece for Jules Marcou, Life, Letters, and Works of Louis Agassiz, vol. 1 (1896). Authors collection.

: Charles Darwin. Carte de visite, c. 1881. Photograph by Herbert Rose Bar-raud (18451896). Courtesy of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

: Agassizs grave, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA. Photograph by Jennifer J. Johnston. Courtesy of Mount Auburn Cemetery.

: Corydoras edentatus (Doras humboldti). From Louis Agassiz, Selecta genera et species piscium Brasiliensium, plate 5. Courtesy of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

: Cecilie Braun. Self-portrait, red and black crayon, chalk, pencil, 1829. From Cecilie Braun, Portfolio of Pencil Drawings, Botany Library, Natural History Museum, London. Natural History Museum, London.

: Meinau [sic] im Bodensee. Pencil drawing by Cecilie Braun, 1833. From Cecilie Braun, Portfolio of Pencil Drawings, Botany Library, Natural History Museum, London. Natural History Museum, London.

: Coelaster couloni Ag. Pencil drawing by Cecilie Braun Agassiz, 1834. Archives de lEtat de Neuchatel, Switzerland. Fonds Louis Agassiz 161/6.7.

: Louis Agassiz, January 26, 1835. Drawing, pencil and ink, by Cecilie Braun Agassiz. From Cecilie Braun, Portfolio of Pencil Drawings, Botany Library, Natural History Museum, London. Natural History Museum, London.

: Glacier de lAar. From Louis Agassiz, tudes sur les glaciers (1840), plate 14, drawn and lithographed by Joseph Bettannier. Courtesy of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

: Glacier de Zermatt. From Agassiz, tudes sur les glaciers, plate 3, drawn and lithographed by Joseph Bettannier. Courtesy of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Glacier de Zermatt. From Agassiz, tudes sur les glaciers, plate 3 a, drawn and lithographed by Joseph Bettannier. Courtesy of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

: Htel des Neuchtelois, August, 1842. From Jules Marcou, Life, Letters, and Works of Louis Agassiz, vol. 1 (1896), lithographed by Kurtz. Authors collection.

: Andromeda. Pencil drawing by Cecilie Braun, 1822. Cecilie Braun, Portfolio of Pencil Drawings, Botany Library, Natural History Museum, London. Natural History Museum, London.

: Pic Island, from Camp Porphyry. In Louis Agassiz, Lake Superior: Its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals (1850), from a drawing by J. Elliot Cabot; lithographed by Antoine Sonrel. Authors collection.

: Ticket for Louis Agassizs Centennial Lecture on Humboldt, Boston Society of Natural History, September 14, 1869. Authors collection.

: Asa Gray. Carte de visite, c. 18641866. Collection of Daniel Weinstock, M.D., Geneva, New York.

: Cyanea arctica. From Louis Agassiz, Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America (18551862), vol. 3, plate 4, drawn and lithographed by Antoine Sonrel. Authors collection.

: Cyanea arctica. From Agassiz, Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America (18551862), vol. 3, plate 5, drawn and lithographed by Antoine Sonrel, c. 1860. Authors collection.

: Discomedusae From Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 18991904), plate 8. Courtesy of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

: Louis Agassiz (speaking with himself). Albumen print, carte de visite, c. 1871. Photograph by Antoine Sonrel. From the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.

: Henry James Clark. Undated carte de visite. From the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.

: On the steps of the home of Louis Agassiz, Quincy Street. Stereoview on glass, 1856. By Frederick Langenheim. Collection of Daniel Weinstock, M.D., Geneva, New York.

: Chelonura serpentina. Draft sketch by Henry James Clark, July 31, 1855. From the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, bAg_786.60.i(4), Harvard University.

: Entry for August 25, 1860. Henry James Clarks Journal in Europe. From the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, sMu_612.41.1 (3), Harvard University.

: Detail from the entry for September 11, 1860. Journal of Addison Emery Verrill, 18601863, Harvard University Archives, HUD 860.90.

: Haliclystus auricula. Engraving after a drawing by Henry James Clark. From Henry James Clark, Lucernariae and Their Allies (1878), plate 1. Authors collection.

: Xenos Clarks Phi Sigma Kappa photograph. Undated. Courtesy of Carol James, San Francisco, California.

: John Bachman. Oil on canvas byJohn Woodhouse Audubon, c. 1837. Courtesy of the Charleston Museum, Charleston, South Carolina.

: Jack (driver), Guinea. Plantation of B. F. Taylor Esq., Columbia, S.C. Daguerreotype, March 1850. By Joseph T. Zealy. Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 355-10/53043, Harvard University.

: Boston Natural History Society. Undated holograph by Elizabeth Agassiz. Authors collection.

: Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, with her stepdaughters Pauline (left) and Ida (right). c. 18511852. Unknown photographer. The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

: Anodus. Watercolor and ink drawing by Jacques Burkhardt. From the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, bAG_15.42.if_7_21, Harvard University.

: Veranda and Dining-room at Teffe. After Jacques Burkhardt. From Louis and Elizabeth Agassiz, Journey in Brazil (1868), unnumbered plate. Authors collection.

: Louis Agassiz and Benjamin Peirce. Photograph by Antoine Sonrel, 1869. Later reprint. Authors collection.

: The Hassler. Unknown photographer. From the scrapbook of James Henry Blake (18711940). From the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, sMu_32 6.43.i, Harvard University.