Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

The next day I visited the market, and in five days I had filled a great barrel with different kinds of fish and fresh-water turtles, beside making several skeletons and various dissections of mollusks. Wishing to employ my time as usefully as possible, I postponed my visits to the savans of the city, and the delivery of my letters, till I was on the eve of departure, that I might avoid all invitations. I had especial pleasure in making the acquaintance of the two Le Contes, father and son, who own the finest collection of insects in the United States. I can easily make some thousand exchanges with them when I receive those that M. Coulon has put aside for me, with a view to exchange. . . . Every morning Auguste Mayor went with me to the market before going to his office and helped me to carry my basket when it was too heavy. One day I brought back no less than twenty-four turtles, taken in one draught of the net. I made four skeletons, and dissected several others. Under such conditions the day ought to have thirty-six working hours.

Were I an artist, instead of describing my voyage from New York to Albany, I would