LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



from a family of which almost nothing is known in a fossil 

 state, the tones cuirasses of Cuvier. ... I long for 

 the opportunity of studying your fossil shells; as soon as 

 I have gone over my Lowell lectures I hope to be able to 

 move. I shall only pack up what I have already col- 

 lected, but I cannot yet tell you precisely the time. 



" I began studying your Zoophytes, but it is so rich a 

 work that I proceed slowly. For years I have not learned 

 so much from a book as from yours. As I soon saw I 

 would not be able to go through it in a short time, I sent 

 a short preliminary report to one of our most diffused 

 papers, Preussische Staatszeitung, giving only the general 

 impression of your work, and I shall send to Erichsen a 

 fuller scientific report after I have done with the whole 

 volume." 



AGASSIZ TO DANA 



" CHARLESTON, January 26, 1852. 



"It is but for the pleasure of writing a few lines to 

 you I take the pen this evening, that you should at least 

 know I think often of you on these shores; and how 

 could I do otherwise, when I find daily new small crus- 

 tacea, which remind me of the important work you are 

 now preparing upon that subject? Of course of the larger 

 ones there is nothing to be found after Professor Gibbes, 

 but among the lower orders there are a great many in store 

 for a microscopic observer. I have only to regret that I 

 cannot apply myself more closely. I find my nervous 

 system so overexcited that any continued exertion makes 

 me feverish. So I go about much as the weather allows, 

 and gather material for better times. Several interesting 

 medusae have been already observed, among others, the 

 entire metamorphosis and alternate generation of a new 

 species of my genus Tiaropsis. You will be pleased to 

 hear that here as well as at the North, Tiaropsis is the 

 free medusa of a campanularia. Mr. Clark, one of my 

 assistants, has made very good drawings of all its stages 

 of growth, and of various other hydroid medusae peculiar 

 to this coast. Mr. Stimpson, another very promising 

 young naturalist, who has been connected with me for 

 some time in the same capacity, draws the Crustacea and 



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