Louis Agassiz's grave in the famous-dead-person-rich Mount Auburn Cemetery, which straddles Cambridge and Watertown, Mass. It’s a boulder from the moraine of the Aar Glaciers, near where he once lived in Switzerland.
“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.’’
— Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), Swiss-born geologist and biologist recognized as an innovative and prodigious scholar of Earth's natural history.
He emigrated to the United States in 1847 after he visited Harvard University, where he went on to become professor of zoology and geology, to head its Lawrence Scientific School and to found its Museum of Comparative Zoology.
He made vast institutional and scientific contributions to zoology, geology, and related areas, including writing multivolume research books. He is particularly known for his contributions to ichthyological classification, including of extinct species such as megalodon, and to the study of geological history, including the founding of glaciology.
But unfortunately, a Creationist, he resisted the Darwinian theory of evolution and shared in the racism of his times.
Louis Agassiz
