394 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



This will be the end of a most successful expedition, 

 perhaps to me the most interesting visit to a coral reef 

 group I have made — for certainly I have learned more 

 at the Maldives about atolls than in all my past experi- 

 ence in the Pacific and elsewhere. I should never have 

 forgiven myself had I not seen the Maldives with my 

 own eyes and formed my own opinion of what they mean. 



Such a lot of twaddle as has been written about the 

 Maldives. It 's all wrong what Darwin has said, and the 

 charts ought to have shown him that he was talking non- 

 sense. I am afraid Gardiner also came down with a theory 

 and saw much that he wanted to see. But Gardiner's 

 and Cooper's patience and endurance to accomplish 

 what they did are beyond praise. At any rate, I am glad 

 that I always stuck to writing what I saw in each group 

 and explained what I saw as I best could without trying 

 all the time to have an all-embracing theory. Now, how- 

 ever, I am ready to have my say on coral reefs and write 

 a connected account of coral reefs based upon what I 

 have seen, and it will be a pleasure to me to write such 

 a book and illustrate it properly by charts and photo- 

 graphs. But it will be quite a job with my other things 

 on hand. I hope to live to 100 ! — or rather I don't 

 hope but ought to ! — to finish all. 



The Captain was a regular trump, full of interest in 

 all that was doing, an excellent photographer, a good 

 mechanic, and he has now become an expert coral reef 

 navigator, as good as any man I have sailed with as pilot 

 in the South Seas. He took special charge of the sound- 

 ing machine, and attended to everything and became an 

 expert ; he often sounded when I should have hesitated 

 to do so ; he only lost forty fathoms of wire making 

 eighty soundings, quite a number near fifteen hundred 



