LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



DARWIN TO DANA 



" DOWN, BROMLEY, KENT, Sept. 27, 1853. 



" Pray forgive me troubling you, but my neighbor, 

 Mr. J. Lubbock, has got your work on Crustacea (as yet 

 without the plates), and has lent it to me for a fortnight 

 to look over, and I have experienced such great interest 

 in many parts, and have found it so suggestive towards 

 my Cirrtpedia work, that I cannot resist expressing my 

 thanks and admiration. The geographical discussion 

 struck me as eminently good. The size of the work, 

 and the necessary labor bestowed on it, are really surpris- 

 ing. Why, if you had done nothing else whatever, it 

 would have been a magnum opus for life. Forgive my 

 presuming to estimate your labors, but when I think that 

 this work has followed your Corals and your Geology, I 

 am really lost in astonishment at what you have done in 

 mental labor. And then, besides the labor, so much 

 originality in all your works! I only hope that your 

 health has withstood such labor. It frightens me to 

 think of it. You will have seen my friend and neighbor, 

 Mr. Lubbock, has been working a little on the lower 

 Crustacea. He is a remarkably nice young man, only a 

 little above eighteen years old. If you can ever give him 

 a little encouragement it would really be a good service, 

 for he has great zeal, and for one so young, I should hope, 

 has done well ; and if he can resist his future career of 

 great wealth, business, and rank, may do good work in 

 natural history. I hope myself to go to press in a 

 month's time with my last volume on the Cirripedia. I 

 have got thirty plates engraved, and shall be very glad to 

 have finished it." 



DARWIN TO DANA 

 Caution against Overwork 



" DOWN, FARNBOROUGH, KENT, June 15, 1857. 



' I thank you much for your note of the I3th of May, 

 and the tracings of the curious Bopyrid. 



" Considering how overwhelmed you are with work, I 

 am quite sorry that you should have had this trouble. I 

 have always been utterly astonished at the amount of 



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