Part 2, Chapter 5 Agassiz, Section 1 Summary

Louis Agassiz was a protégé of two of the leading scientific minds in Europe before the age of twenty-five. One was the French Paleontologist, George Cuvier. The other was the Prussian Naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt.

When Cuvier died, he left his studies to Agassiz. These studies included a fish fossil collection that Agassiz used to his advantage and quickly surpassed Cuvier's expertise. However, this was not his true claim to fame. The discovery that made him known the world over was the discovery of the Ice Age.

By 1845, Agassiz was in debt and his scientific publishing house was losing money steadily. His wife left him, but finances were only one of her reasons. Because of these problems, Agassiz went to von Humboldt for help. Von Humboldt received a grant to study natural history in...