Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1882 — Anecdote of Agassiz. [ARTICLE]

Anecdote of Agassiz.

The father of the famous naturalist was quite impatient at his son’s devotion to frogs, snakes and fishes, for he wanted Louis to be a merchant. But the boy would spend bis vacations traveling on foot through Europe, and carefully examining every species of natural history that he could find. Once he reached London when there was to be a meeting of the Royal Society, and, having a letter of introduction to one of the members, was permitted to be present. The gentleman said, “ I have a young friend here from Switzerland who thinks he knows something about fishes; how much, I have a fancy to try. There is, under this cloth, a perfect skeleton of a fish which existed long before man.” After describing it still further, he said to Agassiz, “Oan you sketch for me on the blackboard your idea of this fish?” The boy took the chalk and drew an outline of the fish, correct in every bone. The grave old doctors burst into loud applause, and Agassiz said it was the proudest moment of his life. Washington county, Pennsylvania, produces annually 2,600,000 to 3,000,000 pounds of wool, worth in cash $1,000,000 for the wool alone, beside the sale of fin* sheep for breeding purposes, and mut ton sheep and lambs lor the meat mar* kets of the East,