MEXICO AND INDIA 211 



course is postponed for the present and I shall do well if 

 I can keep away from the undertaker. Everything was 

 arranged for me to make a dredging trip — Guayaquil, 

 Galapagos, Panama — next spring, and owing to some 

 cussedness of the Treasury Department the whole thing 

 is knocked in the head, and I had a fine chance to use a 

 700 ton steamer which will pass over the district and do 

 nothing ! 



Financial affairs here seem to be going to the eternal 

 bow-wows, but I hope the fall will stop before we reach 

 hell, but just now the more you have of anything the 

 poorer a fellow feels. 



How are you getting on for funds for the new Bio- 

 logical Laboratory? I see you have plenty of names, 

 but how 's the cash ? Lyman has returned from Wash- 

 ington for the present till fall, but he is so anxious to 

 be returned again (election in November) and so deep 

 in politics, that I do not believe a new deep-sea Ophiuran 

 even would turn him aside from his politics. 



TO F. A. FOREL 



Cambridge, Oct. 10, 1884. 



I have just got your letter of Sept. 17th announcing 

 that the Societe Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles had 

 done me the honor to elect me an honorary member. 



Please be kind enough to thank the Societe Helve- 

 tique for having inscribed my name among its members. 

 Permit me also to thank you for the extremely kind 

 way in which you send me this news. Although I left 

 Europe when very young, and have become a complete 

 American, it is with great pleasure that I receive the 

 tokens of approbation that my Old World colleagues 

 have done me the honor to show me. 



