FIRST CAST OF THE DREDGE. 703 



the voyage, seemed a pleasant promise of its 

 farther opportunities. The whole ship's com- 

 pany soon shared his enthusiasm, and the very 

 sailors gathered about him in the intervals of 

 their work, or hung on the outskirts of the 

 scientific circle. A pause of a few days was 

 made at one or two of the West Indian isl- 

 ands, at St. Thomas and Barbadoes. At the 

 latter, the first cast of the large dredge was 

 made on a ledge of shoals in a depth of eighty 

 fathoms, and, among countless other things, a 

 number of stemmed crinoids and comatulse 

 were brought up. An ardent student of the 

 early fossil echinoderms, it was a great pleas- 

 ure to Agassiz to gather their fresh and living 

 representatives. It was like turning a leaf of 

 the past and finding the subtle thread which 

 connects it with the present. 



TO PROFESSOR PEIRCE. 



PERNAMBUCO, January 16, 1872. 



MY DEAR PEIRCE, I should have written 

 to you from Barbadoes, but the day before we 

 left the island was favorable for dredging, and 

 our success in that line was so unexpectedly 

 great, that I could not get away from the spec- 

 imens, and made the most of them for study 

 while I had the chance. We made only four 



