Louis Agassiz

Louis Agassiz (Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz) , 1807-73, Swiss-American zoologist and geologist, b. Môtiers-en-Vuly, Switzerland. He studied at the universities of Zürich, Erlangen (Ph.D., 1829), Heidelberg, and Munich (M.D., 1830). Agassiz practiced medicine briefly, but his real interest lay in scientific research. In 1831 he went to Paris, where he became a close friend of Alexander von Humboldt and studied fossil fishes under the guidance of Cuvier . In 1832 he became professor of natural history at the Univ. of Neuchâtel, which he made a noted center for scientific study. Among his publications during this period were Recherches sur les poissons fossiles (5 vol. and atlas, 1833-44), a work of historic importance in the field (although his system of classification by scales has been discarded); studies of fossil echinoderms and mollusks; and Étude sur les glaciers (1840), one of the first expositions of glacial movements and deposits, based on his own observations and measurements. Agassiz came to the United States in 1846 and two years later accepted the professorship of zoology and geology at Harvard. His first wife died in Germany in 1848, and in 1850 in Cambridge he married Elizabeth Cabot Cary (see Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Cary ). In the United States he was primarily a teacher and very popular lecturer. Emphasizing advanced and original work, he gave major impetus to the study of science directly from nature and influenced a generation of American scientists. His extensive research expeditions included one along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Americas from Boston to California (1871-72). His Contributions to the Natural History of the United States (4 vol., 1857-62) includes his famous "Essay on Classification," an extension of the theory of recapitulation to geologic time. Despite his own evidences for evolution, Agassiz opposed Darwinism and believed that new species could arise only through the intervention of God.

Bibliography: See biographies by J. Marcou (including letters, 1896), J. D. Teller (1947), and E. Lurie (1960, repr. 1967); L. Cooper, Louis Agassiz as a Teacher (rev. ed. 1945).

Agassiz, Louis (1807–73) Louis Agassiz (christened Jean Louis Rodolphe), who was to become the foremost of the early proponents of the idea of a recent ice age, was born into the family of a Swiss Calvinist minister. He attended courses at several universities, graduating as a doctor of philosophy at Erlangen and as a doctor of medicine at Munich.

His early scientific leanings were towards zoology and palaeontology and led him to friendship with the famous French comparative anatomist the Baron Georges Cuvier in Paris. Proving a highly intelligent, hardworking, and productive scholar, he was in 1832 appointed Professor of Natural History at the University of Neuchatel. For some time Agassiz had studied both fossil and extant fishes. When only 22 years old he completed a pioneer study of fishes from South America. It was followed by a decade or more of documenting fossil fishes that culminated in his Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles (1833–44). This was not only a description of remains but also a vivid account of the fishes when alive. It was widely acclaimed and it profoundly boosted the study of ancient life.

Agassiz then took up a new interest: the superficial deposits and landscape features of Switzerland and Germany that were attracting attention as being possibly related to a previous much wider extent of the alpine glaciers. This activity culminated in 1840 in his Études sur les glaciers, in which he was able to show that Switzerland had recently been covered by a vast ice cap, and from which meltwaters carried far and wide great spreads of sand, gravel, and huge erratic boulders. The thesis brought its author to the immediate notice of European and American geologists.

Two years after a study visit to the USA in 1846, Agassiz accepted a professorship of zoology at Harvard University. Now began an extraordinarily productive period during which he published numerous zoological works, collected specimens in Brazil and California, and set about establishing at Harvard a comprehensive zoological museum. During a period of about 25 years there he had a unique reputation as an inspired teacher. He was very much what today is known as a field man, emphasizing out-of-doors experience and study.

Agassiz was beyond question one of the most able, wise, and well-informed biologists of his day. Although he was a contemporary of Charles Darwin, he seems to have been little influenced by Darwinism. Indeed, he misunderstood parts of Darwin's work on evolution. He nevertheless made a superb contribution to our understanding of biology and the Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology is a worthy memorial to his outstanding abilities.

D. L. Dineley

Agassiz, JeanLouisRodolphe (1807–73)A Swiss geologist who worked initially on fossil fish, Agassiz is better known for his glacial theory (1837). He met the geologist William Buckland (1784–1856) in 1840, and persuaded him that drift deposits in Britain were evidence of a glacial epoch. In 1846 he moved to the USA to become professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, where he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology (1859).