Agassiz, ag'a-see, Louis (1807-1873), an eminent scientist. Born at Neuchatel, Switzerland, May 28, 1807. Died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 14, 1873. He was the son of a Protestant minister. He studied medicine at Zurich, Heidelberg, and Munich, and became professor of natural history at Neuchatel in 1832. He was acquainted with Cuvier and Humboldt. His first published work was a description of fishes brought from Brazil, 1831. He increased his reputation by a five volume work in French, 1842, entitled Researches on Fossil Fishes, in which he made several improvements in the classification of fishes. With Guyot he studied the glaciers of the Alps. In 1848 Agassiz accepted the chair of zoology and geology at Harvard. He rejected the evolutionary theory of the origin of animals. In 1868 Agassiz was made a non-resident professor of natural history at Cornell University. Although Agassiz's opinions are not always accepted by scientists, he is conceded by all to have been a great teacher and a wonderful man. He gave the study of natural history a tremendous impulse in this country. He was devoted to field work and inspired his students with a love of nature. He established the first marine biological laboratory in this country, on the island of Penekese, south-west of Massachusetts. He lies buried near the graves of Lowell and Longfellow in Mount Auburn cemetery, Cambridge. A boulder from the Aar glacier in Switzerland marks his resting place. The following lines are from a poem read by Longfellow at a dinner given Professor Agassiz on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday: And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying: "Here is a story-book Thy father has written for thee." "Come, wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God." And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe.