[Home]Alexander Emanuel Agassiz

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AGASSIZ, ALEXANDER EMANUEL (1835-1910), American man of ' science, son of J. L. R. Agassiz, was born in Neuchatel, ' Switzerland, on the 17th of December 1835. He came to the ' United States with his father in 1846; graduated at Harvard ' in 1855, subsequently studying engineering and chemistry, ' and taking the degree of bachelor of science at the Lawrence ' scientific school of the same institution in 1857; and in ' 1859 became an assistant in the United States Coast Survey. ' Thenceforward he became a specialist in marine ichthyology, ' but devoted much time to the investigation, superintendence ' and exploitation of mines, being superintendent of the Calumet ' and Hecla copper mines, Lake Superior, from 1866 to 1869, and ' afterwards, as a stockholder, acquiring a fortune, out of ' which he gave to Harvard, for the museum of comparative zoology ' and other purposes, some $500,000. In 1875 he surveyed Lake ' Titicaca, Peru, examined the copper mines of Peru and Chile, ' and made a collection of Peruvian antiquities for that museum, ' of which he was curator from 1874 to 1885. He assisted Sir ' Wyville Thomson in the examination and classification of the ' collections of the "Challenger" exploring expedition, and ' wrote the Review of the Echini (2 vols., 1872-1874) in the ' reports. Between 1877 and 1880 he took part in the three ' dredging expeditions of the steamer "Blake," of the United ' States Coast Survey, and presented a full account of them ' in two volumes (1888). Of his other writings on marine ' zoology, most are contained in the bulletins and memoirs of ' the museum of comparative zoology; but he published in 1865 ' (with Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, his step-mother) Seaside Studies ' in Natural History, a work at once exact and stimulating, ' and in 1871 Marine Animals of Massachusetts Bay. ' '


Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed

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