436 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



these men are so worthy to soar on their own 

 wings, why not help them to take flight? 

 They need only confidence, and some special 

 recognition from Europe would tend to give 

 them this. . . . 



Among the zoologists of this country I 

 would place Mr. Dana at the head. He is 

 still very young, fertile in ideas, rich in facts, 

 equally ahle as geologist and mineralogist. 

 When his work on corals is completed, you 

 can better judge of him. One of these days 

 you will make him a correspondent of the 

 Institute, unless he kills himself with work 

 too early, or is led away by his tendency to 

 generalization. Then there is Gould, author 

 of the malacologic fauna of Massachusetts, 

 and who is now working up the moUusks of 

 the Wilkes Expedition. De Kay and Lea, 

 whose works have long been known, are rather 

 speciaHsts, I should say. I do not yet know 

 Holbrook personally. Pickering, of the Wilkes 

 Expedition, is a well of science, perhaps the 

 most erudite naturalist here. Haldeman knows 

 the fresh -water gasteropods of this country 

 admirably well, and has published a work upon 

 them. Le Conte is a critical entomologist who 

 seems to me thoroughly familiar with what is 

 doing in Europe. In connection with Halde- 



