Louis Agassiz’s Followers (8)

Louis Agassiz

Born

in Môtier (now Haut-Vully), canton of Fribourg, Rhodanic republic

May 28, 1807

Died

December 14, 1873

Website

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Agassiz

Genre

Science, Biology, Geology

Influences

Alexander von Humboldt, Ignaz Venetz, Georges Cuvier ...more

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Nited Swiss-born American naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz studied fossil fish and from geologic evidence recognized that ice ages occurred in the Northern Hemisphere.

He married Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz in 1850.

This biologist, geologist, physician, and a prominent innovator in the study of history of Earth served as a professor at University of Neuchâtel. Later, he accepted a professorship at Harvard University in the United States.

Educated first at home, then spending four years of secondary school in Bienne, he completed his elementary studies in Lausanne. He adopted medicine as his profession and studied successively at the universities of Zürich, Heidelberg and Munich, where he extended his knowledge of natural history, esp Nited Swiss-born American naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz studied fossil fish and from geologic evidence recognized that ice ages occurred in the Northern Hemisphere.

He married Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz in 1850.

This biologist, geologist, physician, and a prominent innovator in the study of history of Earth served as a professor at University of Neuchâtel. Later, he accepted a professorship at Harvard University in the United States.

Educated first at home, then spending four years of secondary school in Bienne, he completed his elementary studies in Lausanne. He adopted medicine as his profession and studied successively at the universities of Zürich, Heidelberg and Munich, where he extended his knowledge of natural history, especially botany. He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Erlangen in 1829 and that of doctor of medicine at Munich in 1830. Moving to Paris, he fell under the tutelage of Alexander von Humboldt and Georges Cuvier, who launched him on his careers of geology and zoology, respectively. Previously, he paid no special attention to the study of ichthyology, quickly the great focus of work of his life.

From his first marriage to Cecilie Bruan, Agassiz had two daughters in addition to son Alexander. In 1863, Agassiz's daughter Ida married Henry Lee Higginson, later to be founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and benefactor to Harvard University and other schools. On November 30, 1860, Agassiz's daughter Pauline was married to Quincy Adams Shaw (1825–1908), a wealthy Boston merchant and later benefactor to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

In the last years of his life, Agassiz worked to establish a permanent school where zoological science could be pursued amid the living subjects of its study. In 1873, a private philanthropist (John Anderson) gave Agassiz the island of Penikese, in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts (south of New Bedford), and presented him with $50,000 to permanently endow it as a practical school of natural science, especially devoted to the study of marine zoology. The John Anderson school collapsed soon after Agassiz's death, but is considered a precursor of the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, which is nearby.

Within his lifetime, Agassiz had developed a reputation for a particularly demanding teaching style. He would allegedly "lock a student up in a room full of turtle-shells, or lobster-shells, or oyster-shells, without a book or a word to help him, and not let him out till he had discovered all the truths which the objects contained." Two of Agassiz's most prominent students detailed their personal experiences under his tutelage, Samuel Hubbard Scudder in a short magazine article for Every Saturday and Nathaniel Southgate Shaler in his Autobiography. These and other recollections were collected and published by Lane Cooper in 1917, which Ezra Pound was to draw on for his anecdote of Agassiz and the sunfish.

An ancient glacial lake that formed in the Great Lakes region of North America, Lake Agassiz, is named after him, as are Mount Agassiz in California's Palisades, Mount Agassiz, in the Uinta Mountains, Agassiz Peak in Arizona and in his native Switzerland, the Agassizhorn in the Bernese Alps. Agassiz Glacier and Agassiz Creek in Glacier National Park and Mount Agassiz in Bethlehem, New Hampshire in the White Mountains also bear his name. A crater on Mars and a promontorium on the Moon are also named in his honour. A headland situated in Palmer Land, Antarctica is named in his honor, Cape Agassiz. A main-belt asteroid named 2267 Agassiz is also named in association with Louis Agassiz. In addition, several animal species are so named, including Apistogramma agassizi Steindachner, 1875 (Agassiz's dwarf cichlid); Isocapnia agassizi Ricker, 1943 (a stonefly); Publius agassizi (Kaup), 1871 (a passalid beetle); Xylocrius agassizi (LeConte), 1861 (a longhorn beetle). ...more

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Louis Agassiz’s books

Average rating: 3.87 · 38 ratings · 7 reviews · 527 distinct works

	Journey In Brazil 3.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2013 — 120 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Louis Agassiz: His Life And Correspondence by Louis Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (editor) 3.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2003 — 64 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Essay on Classification by Louis Agassiz, Edward Lurie (Editor) 4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2004 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Contributions to the natural history of the United States of America Volume v. 4 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2013 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 042 by Louis Agassiz (Contributor), Katharine Susan Anthony (Contributor), Amy Lowell (Contributor) liked it 3.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2016	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Drawings Illustrating the Lowell Lectures on Comparative Embryology [Manuscript] by Louis Agassiz, Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (Creator) liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Principles Of Zology: Touching The Structure, Development, Distribution, And Natural Arrangement Of The Races Of Animals, Living And Extinct: With Numerous Illustrations it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2005 — 84 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Geological Sketches it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2010 — 119 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Address Delivered on the Centennial Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Von Humboldt it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Principles of Zoology: Touching the Structure, Development, Distribution, and Natural Arrangement of the Races of Animals, Living and Extinct. Part I. Comparative Physiology it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Louis Agassiz (?)

“Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it has been discovered before. Lastly they say they always believed it.”
― Louis Agassiz

tags: bible, conflict, fact, facts, science, science-and-religion, scientific-truth, the-bible, truth

13 likes

“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.”
― Louis Agassiz

tags: humor, money

11 likes

“Branches or types are characterized by the plan of their structure,
Classes, by the manner in which that plan is executed, as far as ways and means are concerned,
Orders, by the degrees of complication of that structure,
Families, by their form, as far as determined by structure,
Genera, by the details of the execution in special parts, and
Species, by the relations of individuals to one another and to the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their parts, their ornamentation, etc.”
― Louis Agassiz, Essay on Classification

tags: anatomy, biology, classification, genera, science, species, zoology

3 likes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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The History Book ...: 9. THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB ~ August 19th - August 25th ~~ Part Three - Chapter Nine ~ (201- 234) ~ The Metaphysical Club ~No-Spoilers, please	56	56	Sep 20, 2013 04:55PM
The History Book ...: * WE ARE OPEN - PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS ~ BIBLIOGRAPHY~ On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present (Spoiler Thread)	29	200	Mar 01, 2015 02:32PM
The Readers Revie...: Nathaniel Hawthorne	2	16	Aug 07, 2018 06:16PM

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Louis Agassiz’s Followers (8)

Louis Agassiz

Combine EditionsLouis Agassiz’s books

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Louis Agassiz’s books