Alexander Agassiz

Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (December 17, 1835 – March 27, 1910), was a Swiss-born, American mining engineer, naturalist, museum curator, zoologist, and oceanographer, participating in several voyages for scientific research. He served from 1901 to 1907 as President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, after being elected a Member in 1866. He was elected in 1862 a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1875 a Member of the American Philosophical Society.

Quotes

The affinities of the Ctenophoræ have become one of the most fertile topics of discussion among recent investigators. Vogt, following Quoy, remove them from the Acalephs altogether. Huxley places them in close proximity to Polyps. Clark has made a special case of them, equivalent to Echinoderms, while Milne Edwards and Agassiz, after a careful revision of the whole subject, have followed Cuvier and Eschscholtz, and retained them as an order of Acalephæ.
- North American Acalephae. Volume 1, Issue 2 of Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard College. Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Company. 1865. p. 7. (234 pages)

Our knowledge of the depths of the sea was only incidentally increased by the work of the great French, English, and Russian exploring expeditions, sent on voyages of circumnavigation. They collected interesting isolated facts regarding the distribution of temperature, the density of the sea-water, and the existence of animal life at great depths. Boyle and Hooke in the seventeenth century both speculated and experimented as to the saltness of the sea; Ellis, in the middle of the eighteenth century, observed the temperature of the water from a depth of nearly 900 fathoms. This observation, like many of the early deep-sea temperature observations, was made by bringing up the sea-water in a closed vessel and observing the temperature when it was brought on deck. To Sir Joseph Hooker, when naturalist of the Ross Antarctic expedition, we owe the interesting observation regarding the occurrence of surface desmids in the bottom specimens of the dredgings of Sir James Ross.
- Three cruises of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Steamer "Blake" in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, and along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, from 1877 to 1880. Vol. 14 of Vols. 14 & 15 published in Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard College(). vol. 1 of 2 vols.. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. 1888. p. 39.

While in charge of the expedition of the United States Fish Commission Steamer " Albatross " during the winter of 1899–1900 we visited the coral reef districts of the tropical Pacific, with the exception of the Sandwich, the Samoan Islands, and the Galapagos. The Hawaiian Islands I had explored on former occasions, and had also obtained a bird's-eye view of the reefs of Samoa on my way to examine the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.
It has thus been my good fortune to observe the structure of the great majority of the coral reefs, atolls, and coral islands of the tropical Pacific, and to have the benefit of the excellent charts published since the days of Darwin and Dana.
- "Introduction". The Coral Reefs of the Tropical Pacific. Volume 28 of Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard College; Volume 4 of Reports on the scientific results of the expedition to the tropical Pacific, in charge of Alexander Agassiz, by the U.S. Fish Commission Steamer "Albatross", from August, 1899, to March, 1900, Commander Jefferson F. Moser, U.S.N., commanding. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. 1903. pp. xi–xxxiii. ISBN 9780598450715. (quote from p. xi; 410 pages)