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Agassiz, Jean Louis Rodolphe (1807-1873)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Alexandre Emmanuel Louis Rudolphe Agassiz was a Swiss-American zoologist, glaciologist, and geologist, the husband of educator Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz (married in 1850), and one of the first world-class American scientists. He was appointed professor of zoology and geology at Harvard University in 1847 where he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1859 and served as the museum's first director until his death in 1873. During his tenure at Harvard, he was, among many other things, an early student of the effect of the last Ice Age on North America.
In 1846, Agassiz came to the United States; in 1848 he accepted a professorship at Harvard. He immediately set about organizing and acquiring funding for a great museum of natural history. In 1859 his dream came true with the founding of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which opened its doors in 1860. Agassiz labored for support of science in his adopted homeland; he and his colleagues urged the creation of a National Academy of Sciences, and Agassiz became a founding member in 1863. Agassiz was also appointed a regent of the Smithsonian Institution in 1863.
TAXONOMY
Unjustified emendation of Daceton to Dacetum.
PUBLICATIONS
- Agassiz, J.L.R., 1850. In Dixon, F. The geology and fossils of the Tertiary and Cretaceous formation of Sussex: 422 pp. London.
REFERENCES
- Agassiz, G.R. 1918. Letters and recollections of A. Agassiz with a sketch of his life and work. 454pp. Cambridge, Mass., portrait.
- Fasel, A. 1974. Bulletin de la Societe Fribourgeoise des Sciences Naturelles 63:39
- Evenhuis, N.L. 1997. Litteratura Taxonomica Dipterorum (1758-1930) 1: 47-52, portrait.
- A., Nat. Canadien 6:22-24, 1874; A., Globus 25:126-127, 1874; Ratzeburg, J. T. C., Forstwissenschaftliches Schriftstel- ler-Lexikon pp. 1-4, 1874; Porchet, F., et al., P., Bull. Soc. Vaudoise Sci. Nat. 43:301-386, 1907; Jaffe, B., Men of Science in Amer. pp. 233-257, 1944.