LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



for the last ten years (which has lost me much more than 

 half my time) has interrupted all my former hopes and 

 designs. You cannot imagine how much gratified I have 

 been that you have to a certain extent agreed with my 

 coral island notions. To return to the Cirripedia. I am 

 allowed to work only two hours daily (after five months' 

 doing nothing), so that it will be long before I publish. 

 The Cirripedia are, moreover, very troublesome from 

 their great variability, and the necessity of examining the 

 whole animal and [the] inside and outside of shell. Pos- 

 sibly you may publish your specimens before my mono- 

 graph. In that case would it be possible for me to see 

 any duplicates, or in no case must [they] be sent out of 

 the country ? Your spirillus sounds very curious. I 

 would really like to know whether it is absolutely loose 

 and unattached amongst the seaweed. 



" I am particularly obliged to you for pointing out to 

 me your notice on the metamorphosis of the Cirripedia 

 in Sillimans Journal, for I should have overlooked it. 

 You have to a certain extent forestalled me, though we 

 do not take the same view in the homologies of the parts. 

 I have, I think, worked out the anatomy of the larva in 

 considerable detail, and I hope correctly. I have seen 

 Dr. Leidy's eyes in several genera; indeed, I have seen 

 and noted them as ' like eyes ' before reading his paper; 

 but I do not suppose that I should have followed out 

 what I had seen had it not been for Dr. Leidy; for 

 these organs are very minute and rudimentary." 



DARWIN TO DANA 

 On Coral Reefs 



" DOWN, FARNBOROUGH, KENT, Dec. 5, 1849. 



" I have not for some years been so much pleased as I 

 have just been by reading your most able discussion on 

 coral reefs. I thank you most sincerely for the very 

 honorable mention you make of me. ... I have 

 read about half through the descriptive part of the Vol- 

 canic Geology (last night I ascended the peaks of Tahiti 

 with you, and what I saw in my short excursion was most 

 vividly brought before me by your descriptions), and have 



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