“The isle of Penikese
     Ranged about by sapphire seas.”

Just as he was realizing two of his ambitions, the establishment of a great museum and a practical school of zooelogy, he died, December 14th, 1873, at his home in Cambridge, and was buried at Mount Auburn beneath pine-trees sent from Switzerland, while a bowlder from the glacier of the Aar was selected to mark his resting-place.

Agassiz was greatly beloved by his pupils and associates, and was identified with the brilliant group—­Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell,—­each of whom has written of him.  Lowell considered his ’Elegy on Agassiz,’ written in Florence in 1874, among his best verses; Longfellow wrote a poem for ‘The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz,’ and Holmes ‘A Farewell to Agassiz’ on his departure for the Andes, whose affectionate and humorous strain thus closes:—­

     “Till their glorious raid is o’er,
     And they touch our ransomed shore! 
     Then the welcome of a nation,
     With its shout of exultation,
     Shall awake the dumb creation,
     And the shapes of buried aeons
     Join the living creatures’ paeans,
     While the mighty megalosaurus
     Leads the palaeozoic chorus,—­
     God bless the great Professor,
     And the land its proud possessor,—­
     Bless them now and evermore!”

Numerous biographies and monographs of Agassiz exist in many languages, a complete list of which is given in the last published ’Life of Agassiz,’ by Jules Marcou (New York and London, 1896), and also in the ‘Life of Agassiz,’ by Charles F. Holder (New York, 1893).  Complete lists of Agassiz’s works are also given in these biographies, and these titles show how versatile was his taste and how deep and wide his research.  His principal contributions to science are in French and Latin, but his most popular books appeared in English.  These include ‘The Structure of Animal Life,’ ‘Methods of Study,’ ’Geological Sketches,’ and ‘Journey in Brazil,’ the latter written with Mrs. Agassiz.  His ’Contributions to the Natural History of the United States,’ planned to be in ten large books, only reached four volumes.

In his ‘Researches concerning Fossil Fishes,’ Agassiz expressed the views that made him a lifelong opponent of the Darwinian theories, although he was a warm friend of Darwin.  Considering the demands upon his time as teacher, lecturer, and investigator, the excellence not less than the amount of the great naturalist’s work is remarkable, and won such admiration that he was made a member of nearly every scientific society in the world.  One of his favorite pastimes was deep-sea dredging, which embraced the excitement of finding strange specimens and studying their singular habits.

Of his love and gift for instructing, Mrs. Agassiz says in her ‘Life’ (Boston, 1885):—­