Mary Sisson
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Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)
Swiss-American Ichthyologist and Geologist

Louis Agassiz was one of the best-know scientists of the 19th century. His research formed the basis for part of Charles Darwin’s work on evolution.

The 19th century was a period of great debate over the processes that formed the Earth. Scientists were moving away from a strict reliance on the Biblical account of creation, but they were often deeply uncomfortable with discounting religious explanations altogether. In 1859 Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species, which theorized that modern animals were created primarily through natural processes like evolution rather than through supernatural intervention. While Agassiz’s work disproved many Bible-based theories of natural history, the scientist himself never accepted Darwin’s theories of evolution. Instead, Agassiz maintained that Agassiz’s work simply gave insight into the divine thought process as God created new forms of life.

Agassiz spent most of his career studying fishes, a childhood obsession. After publishing his doctoral dissertation classifying Brazilian fishes, Agassiz gained access to a huge collection of fossil fishes in Paris. In his Rechcerches sur les poissons fossils, published in installments from 1833 to 1843, Agassiz sorted the fossils, classifying them according to their complexity and shared traits. In his engaging book, Agassiz described how the fish of the early seas were markedly different from modern sea life. He also noted that older fossils tended to be simpler than more recent fossils—an observation that would provide crucial support to the theory of evolution.

In the mid-1830s, Agassiz became interested in the then-fringe theory that much of Europe had been covered by glaciers at some point in the past. In 1840 he published Etudes sur les glaciers, which effectively demonstrated that many of Switzerland’s geographic features were the result of a great “Ice Age.”

Agassiz, who immigrated to the United States in the 1840s to teach at Harvard University, was a great popularizer of science. With the help of his wife, Elizabeth Carey Agassiz, who helped to record and compile his notes and publicize his work, his books sold widely. His teaching technique of having students observe the natural world directly revolutionized science education. He helped found the National Academy of Sciences as well as Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, which eventually housed most of his personal collection of fossils and recent animals. But while his work inspired countless scientists to study fossils and glaciers, the stubbornness with which he held ideas eventually made him somewhat obsolete as a scientific thinker. Agassiz never accepted that natural processes could give rise to new species—a position that eventually put him at odds with his own son, Alexander, who became a noted marine zoologist. Agassiz embraced the Ice Age theory so enthusiastically that he tended to see the effects of glaciation everywhere he looked. Nonetheless, Agassiz continued to contribute to ichthyology until his death.

Biography

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz. Born 28 May 1807 in Motier, Switzerland. Received his doctorate in 1829 and his medical degree in 1830 from the University of Munich. Married Cécile Braun in 1832, three children. Professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel from 1832 to 1846. Traveled to the United States in 1846. Professor of natural history at Harvard University from 1848 until death. Married Elizabeth Cabot Cary in 1850, two years after Braun’s death. Founding member of the National Academy of Sciences 1863. Died 14 December 1873 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Further Reading

Agassiz, Elizabeth Cary, Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1885.

Bolles, Edmund Blair, The Ice Finders: How a Poet, a Professor, and a Politician Discovered the Ice Age. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999.

Lurie, Edward, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1960.