CORRESPONDENCE WITH L. AGASSIZ 



that something interesting will come out, for there is one 

 feature of importance in the case, the present surface of 

 Long Island is not older than the drift period ; all its in- 

 habitants must therefore have been introduced since that 

 time. I shall see that I obtain similar collections from 

 the upper course of the Connecticut, to ascertain whether 

 here, as in the Mississippi, the species differ at different 

 heights of the river basin." 



AGASSIZ TO DANA 



A cknowledgments 



" May 28, 1855. 



" You did, of course, not know that the 28th of May 

 was my forty-eighth birthday and that you were sending 

 me the most magnificent birthday present I could have 

 received, which came just in due time for the occasion. 

 Many, many thanks, my dear friend, for your invaluable 

 gift; I praise it for its own intrinsic merit, but I am 

 equally delighted at its appearance as the work of an 

 American scientific man. Posterity will award to you 

 the merit of having made the name of America respect- 

 able in the highest scientific circles, for Franklin was 

 always claimed an ex parte European. I am happy to 

 join you with my own efforts." 



AGASSIZ TO DANA 



Classification of Zoophytes 



" NAHANT, August 7, 1855. 



' There is one fundamental feature in your work on 

 Zoophytes which seems to have escaped notice of all those 

 who are now writing upon corals, viz. : that you were the 

 first to combine the animals which constitute the class of 

 Polypi into one and the same natural division ; for Milne- 

 Edwards still placed actinoids, halcyonoids, and hy- 

 droids as co-ordinate groups before the publication of 

 your great work; although he now undertakes to make 

 it appear as if his classification and yours were essentially 

 identical, 



323 



