5 



It was the apprehension of a fate like this befalling those pages, in case 

 of my never leaving Sydney, which caused me to send them home, as before 

 remarked, under an injunction to be kept strictly private, — and I believe 

 there are few men living, who, if situated as I was, would not have done 

 the same. But this is not the point at issue between Mr. D. and myself. 



The same remark applies to all his arguments, touching my accuracy 

 or inaccuracy in giving 76° as a flourishing temperature. At a proper 

 time and place I shall notice these, but they are wholly extraneous to the 

 present question. I may be wrong or I may be right in my views, but 

 this has nothing to do with the question whether I have borrowed certain 

 other views from Mr. Dana. There are one or two passages however 

 which must not be passed over in silence. On p. 133 Mr. D., speaking of 

 my article on coral formations says, " He states that through the coral ar- 

 chipelago to the eastward of Tahiti, the surface temperature ranges from 

 78° to 81°, (Bost. Jour. p. 75.) The fact is that the range is from 77° to 

 83°, and in the second part of his article, printed at a later period, we 

 find this range given, (p. 100*) evidently a correction of the former, and 

 not a part of his expedition observations." 



This is indeed a very suspicious circumstance, if the facts so compla- 

 cently here set forth by Mr. D. are correct. Unfortunately for his conclu- 

 sions, and for the inferences he wishes the public to make from them, the 

 second part of my article was not printed as he asserts, at a later period 

 than the first. The entire article was set up and printed simultaneously, 

 as it appeared in the extras printed for my use, which came out at the 

 close of December, 1841, in anticipation of the publication in the Jour- 

 nal. It was divided at the request of the publishing committee, in order 

 to make room for other communications, which had been promised an in- 

 sertion in the number containing the first part of my paper. Moreover, 

 the correction alluded to, was made precisely because having between the 

 early and latter part of the article, had my journal returned by a friend to 

 whom it had been loaned, I found on reference to my Expedition observa- 

 tions that my first statement, from memory, did not exactly correspond with 

 them, since at Clermont Tonnerre, the maximum temp, for 24 hours was 

 78 D and the minimum 77°, and the same off Serle I., while off an island 

 near Raraka, to which the name of King's I. was given at the time, its 

 range was from 78° to 83 c .f The only information not derived from uns- 

 own observations, was that on the temperatures at Callao, Valparaiso, in 

 November, the Gallapagos, Trinidad, C. Verde Is., Martin Vas and Fer- 

 nando Noronha, which, as stated p. 382 of last volume of this Journal, I 

 derived from the appendix to King and Fitzroy's voyage. J I might, if 



* Page 160 is meant. 



t In reference to these variations, I will cite from my article in Bost. Journ. Vol. 

 IV, p. 155, the following sentence. " At a future day I may be enabled (abandon- 

 ing the indefinite specifications whose occurrence I am well aware is too frequent 

 in these remarks, but which under the circumstances are unavoidable.) systemati- 

 cally to arrange my observations, and give the details with the minuteness and pre- 

 cision demanded by the importance of the subject." 



X I perceive that by an oversight in the text, 1 have said, "from the same work and 

 at the same time were derived all the local temperatures of the Pacific, specified in 

 my article." It should have read, "all the local temperatures of places not visit- 

 ed by me in the Pacific, or not visited at the seasons specified in my article," as 

 implied by the reference to p. 160 Bost. Journal, in foot-note, p. 382 last volume 

 of this. 



