17 



wishes for the prosperity of the Washington Institution, and the continued pros- 

 perity of your great and increasing nation. 



I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant, 



ISAAC WELD. 



Letter from Lieutenant Maury. 



To Fkascis Maukoe, Jr., Esq., 



Corresponding Secretary of the National Listitulion. 



Fredericksburg, (Va,) Dec. S, 1840. 



Sir: Be so good as to convey to the members of the National Institution for 

 the Promotion of Science, estabHshed at Washington, my acknowledgments of the 

 honor of being elected a Corresponding Member of the Institution. 



The favorable auspices under which this Institution has commenced, and the 

 pecuhar advantages which it possesses in the zeal and commanding influence of its 

 Directors, and many of its members, give to Science the promise of an abundant 

 and rich harvest from the sea as well as from the land. 



To explore the bottom of the ocean along our own coasts, in search of sub- 

 marine forests, beds of shell-fish, and other treasures of the deep, would be a 

 ihagnificent undertaking. The field there presented, is rich and rare; and among 

 the more obvious advantages for making collections, the facilities enjoyed for turn- 

 ing laborers into this field have doubtless not escaped the attention of the Institu- 

 tion. Tiie ofBcers of the West India squadron, and, I doubt not, those too of 

 the revenue service, have wilUng hearts and ready hands. They have but to learn 

 how, consistently with their duties, they may promote the objects of such an In- 

 stitution. The fifteen or twenty revenue cutters along the seaboard, if furnished 

 with "dragi<" to ^' troll" the bottom in light winds, would greatly promote the 

 objects of the Institution. 



Not many years ago, the late Admiral Sir Isaac Coffix, R. N. had it in con- 

 templation to endow three Naval schools in Massachusetts. He actually made a 

 Will to that effect. Each school was to be furnished with a vessel, in which the 

 pupils were to cruise four months of every year, trolling from Maine to Long 

 Island, in search of "unknown or hidden treasures of the deep." Though the 

 Admiral was afterwards induced to annul this Will, the provision of it alluded to 

 above shows the importance which that distinguished officer attached to exploring 

 the bottom of the sea. 



Any one who contemplates for the first time the marl beds of our tertiary for- 

 mation is filled with amazement at the multitudinous remains of the animal kingdom 

 which he there beholds. In wonder, he asks himself, when and where lived these 

 vast quantities of animals 1 Yet were this observer familiar with the bottom of the 

 sea for a few leagues along the Atlantic coast, his wonderment would be turned 

 rather from the past to the present — for he would there find the bottom composed, 

 for miles together, of shells, whose genera and species yet live, and inhabit the 

 , unexplored caverns of the sea. Many of the bars and shoals along the Southern 

 coast are formed almost entirely by such shells. Yet so entirely unexplored are 

 the habitations of their living types that even the fisherman is a stranger to them, 

 <> 



