132 Mr. Dana's Reply to Mr. Coathouy's Vindication. 



ed for ten months yet heard nothing — a long silence, which seem- 

 ed to betoken a consciousness of having done me wrong. Was it 

 then obligatory on me, after an exhibition of such warm feelings 

 of regard, such friendship, to address him on the subject ? I went 

 to Albany with the expectation of meeting him there, and making 

 my reclamation in his presence ; but as he was absent, I had no 

 alternative left but to make my statements before a body who 

 were well acquainted with his writings. 



Where then was the breach of faith and honor — and on whose 

 part the misused confidence ? I would have welcomed him on 

 my return with warm greetings as when we parted. But after- 

 wards, I could not but lose some portion of my esteem on finding 

 that in violation of an implied agreement he had published on 

 corals, — that he had published too the very views read to him 

 from my report, and moreover that he showed not common cour- 

 tesy, much less the friendship professed, in neglecting to acquaint 

 me with his publication. And what shall we say of the honorable 

 feeling which, besides violating such obligations, could trespass 

 also on the department of a friend, for he has given to the public 

 numerous geological facts observed abroad besides those on coral 

 islands? What of the honesty which could find any excuse for 

 transmitting home, duplicate minutes of his journal, contrary to 

 express prohibition by the authority under which we sailed ? 



With regard to my "imaginative brain," attributing opinions 

 never expressed by him respecting a limiting temperature, let us 

 take out the paragraph from the cloud with which he has ob- 

 scured it in his vindication, and permit it to speak for itself. It 

 reads thus : 



"It is my belief that, to a certain extent, the corals are limited 

 in their range of growth by temperature rather than depth, and 

 that wherever this is not below 76° F., there, cmteris paribus, 

 they will be found to flourish as in the Polynesian seas ; accord- 

 ingly we find that their principal formations are placed within 

 the tropics, and though I have no means of ascertaining at this 

 moment the fact, I apprehend that in the Indian Ocean, as in the 

 Pacific, the Saxigenous polypes will be found most abundant 

 and at their greatest depths in a belt comprising about twenty 

 degrees on each side of the equator." — (Boston Journal of Natu- 

 ral History, Vol. iv, p. 76.) 



It requires no lawyer's skill to make out that the words above, 

 imply that 76° F. is a limiting temperature. I so understood 



