136 Mr. Dana's Reply to Mr. Couthouy's Vindication. 



him till the sheets of his article in the Boston Journal were going 

 through the press. This fact was fully stated in my Report, the 

 reading of which has been so singularly forgotten, and the whole 

 explained at some length : yet he only verified it when, long af- 

 terwards, his paper was in the press. 



But leaving this subject and others, I take up again the abstract 

 of his journal sent home from Sydney. Respecting it he says, 

 "that so far from my having derived the opinions in question, as 

 Mr. D. alleges, from his MSS. at the Sandwich Islands in 1840, 

 they had at that period been several months in the possession of 

 my friends in the United States, having been communicated from 

 Sydney, New South Wales, in substantially the same form as to 

 facts, so far as the influence of temperature on corals is concerned, 

 as that of their publication in January, 1842." After giving his 

 reasons for this, he proceeds to say that the loss of his journals, 

 subsequently proved his wisdom in adopting this course. — (Vol. 

 xlv, pp. 380, 381, of this Journal.) 



The journals supposed to be lost are safe. By permission from 

 Judge Tappan, they were a few days since submitted to my in- 

 spection. Commencing with the date of our first appearance 

 among the coral islands, Aug. 14, 1839, I have followed the 

 journal through, day after day, page after page, till our arrival at 

 Sydney: and what was contained in this original document of 

 which the one at Boston is an abstract or duplicate minutes ? 

 A few remarks on the existence and structure of reefs, their 

 forms and composition, and descriptions of a few species. Not a 

 ivord on the influence of temperature on the growth of corals, nor 

 any thing bearing the most remotely on this subject. Before 

 commencing my examination, Capt. Wilkes, who has had the 

 perusal of this with the other Expedition journals, assured me 

 that I should find nothing — but I preferred to satisfy myself by 

 actual examination, as it would better satisfy the readers of this 

 Journal. The seals of his field note-books were broken for me, 

 and these too contained nothing. 



This reply to Mr. Couthouy I here close : and as I stated in the 

 commencement, I say again most sincerely, that I could willingly 

 withhold it from the public eye, would truth and honor permit. 

 I should be glad now to draw my pen across the whole, if I could 

 thereby spare one whom I have called a friend, without an un- 

 merited sacrifice on my own part of character and right. 



