Sleep And Dreams

The letters on sleep and dreams in The Spectator remind me' of a case in the experience of Agassiz, and which he told me himself, though it is recorded in his work on the American fishes. He was studying a fossil fish in the Jardín des Plantes, but had never been able to determine the species to his satisfaction. Af ter a time he dreamed that he canght the very fish and without difficulty determined the qnestion, thinking, as he woke from the dream, that he would have no difflculty. Bnt on returning to the fossil something in the dream had escaped him, and he could no more determine the species than before. The next night he had the same dream and again forgot the essential point. He then determiued to take a penoil and paper witjh him to bed and inake his note as soon as he woke. The dream came the third time, but to his surprise on fully awakening he found the drawing made and lying on the table bed side, with three bones displayed in it which were not visible in the fossil, and which solved the problem. On returning to the Jardín des Plantes he obtained permission of his friend, the director, to chip away a scala of stone which lay on the spot where the bones were in the drawing, and found tbem there as his drawing had given them. It is 80 years sinca Agassiz told me the incident, but those who have aocess to his history of the Korth American fishes will be able to read it in his own words in the introduction and correct my version if my memory has in any detail failed me. -