Alexander Agassiz
During April and May 1896 Swiss-born American marine zoologist, oceanographer, and mining engineer Alexander Agassiz (1835-1910) from Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology coral reefs and islands on the Whitsunday coast in the Australian United Steam Navigation Company's SS Croydon. Although rough weather prevented the vessel from visiting their first destination — the Percy Islands and Cumberland Islands — the Croydon spent time in Cid Harbour, before moving on to Langford Island and the then-unnamed Black Island, which Agassiz referred to as 'Woody Island' — possibly a nickname for his assistant, Dr W.McM. Woodworth.
Agassiz had immigrated to the United States to join his father, Louis Agassiz, after his mother died in 1848, graduated from Harvard University in 1855, and went on to work with the United States Coast Survey and the Museum of Comparative Zoology. After a stint supervising a copper mine near Lake Superior at Calumet, Michigan, which transformed an unprofitable operation into the world’s foremost copper mine, Agassiz returned to scientific work, donating large sums to the Harvard Museum, where he worked as curator from 1874 to 1885, and to other institutions engaged in advancing the study of systematic zoology and oceanography.
His early research on starfish resulted in his most significant work, the Revision of the Echini (1872–74) . Subsequent scientific expeditions included a visit to South America in 1875) dredging excursions in U.S. waters for Coast Survey (renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1877-1880), and his South Pacific tour taking in Fiji, Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, (1896).
He died iaboard the RMS Adriatic en route to New York from Southampton in 1910.
