92 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



now done with copper mines, and have returned with all 

 my heart to my studies, which I hope nothing will again 

 interrupt. You can easily imagine my satisfaction at 

 returning to my intellectual mode of life when I tell 

 you that for the last one and one-half years I have not 

 opened a single book on Natural History, and though 

 the accumulation of books seems rather formidable just 

 now, I shall hope soon to get through with the more 

 special and important parts and find myself where I 

 started from. I left some work unfinished for the 

 Museum, my " Revision of the Echini," which I shall 

 do as my share of Museum work, and hope to complete 

 next year ; and my own studies I shall go on with, the 

 embryological work I left off, which seems to me to 

 promise more satisfactory results than anything else. 

 Since I have studied Annelids and especially the young, 

 I begin to have very serious doubts concerning the 

 existence of types. Radiates always seemed to me so 

 well and naturally circumscribed, but the embryology 

 of Echinoderms and of some of the Annelids certainly 

 is pointing out coincidences and affinities which the 

 study of the mature animals was far from showing. The 

 larva, which you figure in your letter, is just one of 

 those forms and like the forms of the Planariajof Miiller 

 are probably all Nematoid larvae, and seem to show a 

 closer affinity between Echini and Annelids than we 



suspected. had indeed pointed this out, but 



simply theoretically. He, like many English, is very 

 fond of generalizing other people's observations and 

 passing them off as his own the moment he has written 

 a Review of the subject, which is the curse of English 

 science and scientific men. 



I hope next summer to be again on the seashore 



