Mr. Couthouy’s Reply to Mr. Dana. 383 
must now proceed to notice another, and very important mis-state- 
ment of Mr. Dana’s. On page 145 of your last number, I find 
the following among the “ proceedings of the American Associa- 
tion of Geologists and Naturalists,’ at Albany, in April last. 
“‘ Mr. Dana alluded to a statement made by Mr. Couthouy, at the 
meeting of the Association at Boston, that the limiting tempera- 
ture of corals was 76° Fahrenheit, and took occasion to remark, 
that Mr. Couthouy was indebted to him (Mr. D.) for the views 
there advanced by him, with regard to the temperature limiting 
corals; and added, that the temperature 76° Fahr. was a mis- 
take by Mr. Couthouy for 70°, the limit fixed upon by Mr. Dana 
when the views were communicated by him to Mr. Couthouy.” 
It must be admitted that the language of this accusation is 
sufficiently clear and explicit, as to time, place and circumstance. 
‘There seems to have been especial care taken to prevent any 
possibility of misapprehension as to the precise nature of the 
charge, and also to fix it distinctly upon me, by the frequent it- 
eration of my name. It is open but to the solitary objection that 
there is not one syllable of truth in the passage from beginning 
to end, so far as Mr. Dana is concerned. Both the statement al- 
luded to, and the views he represents me as having expressed in 
it, are entirely the creation of Mr. D.’s singularly imaginative 
_ brain. he facts set forth in the indictment on which I am 
thus arraigned at the bar of public opinion, are altogether ficti- 
tious. The opinions which Mr. Dana therein alleges were de- 
rived by me from his manuscript, I have never expressed either 
orally or in print! Incredible as this may seem, I shall now pro- 
ceed. to place it beyond the shadow of a doubt. 
First, then, I deny that I made any statement, advanced any 
views or expressed any opinions whatever to the Association, 
upon the subject of temperature limiting corals, or upon their 
srowth, their distribution, or in short, upon any topic connected 
with corals directly or indirectly.* For the evidence of this as- 
sertion, I refer to the proceedings of the Association, as publish- 
ed in your Journal, and in the first volume of its 'Transactions. 
* Perhaps I ought in so sweeping a denial, to except the remarks alluded to on 
page 153, Am. Jour. for July, 1842, (p. 48, Transactions of the Association,) on 
the evidences of successive paroxysmal elevations, presented by one of the uplifted 
coral islands visited by me in 1839; though these had not the slightest bearing on 
the question here at issue. 
