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

[270] like it in all that we possess upon vertebrates. I have also begun to study your text, so rich in well arranged facts; the monograph of the Lepidostei, the passage upon the bony rays, and, dear Agassiz, I could hardly believe my eyes, sixty-five continuous pages of the third volume, without interruption! You will spoil the public. But, my good friend, you have already information upon a thousand species; ‘claudite jam rivos!’ You say your work can go on if you have two hundred subscribers; but if you continue to support two traveling draughtsmen, I predict, as a practical man, that it cannot go on. You cannot even publish what you have gathered in the last five years. Consider that in attempting to give a review of all the fossil fishes which now exist in collections, you pursue a phantom which ever flies before you. Such a work would not be finished in less than fifteen years, and besides, this now is an uncertain element. Cannot you conquer yourself so far as to finish what you have in your possession at present? Recall your artists. With the reputation you enjoy in Europe, whatever might essentially change your opinion on certain organisms would willingly be sent to you. If you continue to keep two ambassadors in foreign