pils of Agassiz, not the least famous was his son, Alexander,
who, after graduating from Harvard, assisted his father in his work,
collected many specimens for the museum at Cambridge, and was finally
appointed assistant in zoology there. In the following years he put his
scientific knowledge to a very practical use. In his geological surveys
of the country, he had been impressed with the richness of the copper
mines on Lake Superior. For five years, he acted as superintendent of
the famous Calumet and Hecla mines, developing them into the most
successful copper mines in the world, and himself gaining wealth from
them which permitted his making gifts to Harvard aggregating half a
million dollars. It was characteristic of him that, after his service
with the Calumet and Hecla, he resumed his duties at the museum at
Cambridge, and continued as curator until ill health compelled his
resignation in 1885.

Among other pupils of Agassiz who won more than ordinary fame as
naturalists may be mentioned Albert Smith Bickmore, Alonzo Howard
Clark, Charles Frederick Hartt, Alpheus Hyatt, Theodore Lyman, Edward
Sylvester Morse, Alpheus Spring Packard, Frederick Ward Putnam, Samuel
Hubbard Scudder, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, William Stimpson, Sanborn
Tenney, Addison Emory Merrill, Burt Green Wilder and Henry Augustus
Ward--as brilliant a galaxy of names as American science can boast,
bearing remarkable testimony to the inspiring qualities of their great
teacher.

What Agassiz did for geology and natural history, Asa Gray to some
extent did for botany. Born at Paris, N. Y., in 1810, and at an early
age abandoning the study of medicine for that of botany, he accepted, in
1842, a call to the Fisher professorship of natural history at Harvard,
a post which he held for over thirty years. Gray's work began at the
time when the old artificial system of classification was giving way to
the natural system, and he, perhaps more than any other one man,
established this system firmly on the basis of affinity.

In 1864, he presented to Harvard his herbarium of more than two hundred
thousand specimens, and his botanical library. He remained in charge of
the herbarium until his death, adding to it constantly, until it became
one of the most complete in the world. His publications upon the subject
of botany were numerous and of the highest order of scholarship, and
long before his death he was recognized as the foremost botanist of the
country.