228 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



TO SIR JOHN MURRAY 



Cambridge, Dec. 2, 1887. 

 I have been greatly amused at the articles in " Fort- 

 nightly" and "Nature" by the Duke, Huxley, and 

 Bonney. I am surprised that Huxley should have taken 

 up the cudgels in favor of Darwin's theory. But Huxley 

 has always hankered after a sunken continent in the 

 Pacific ; and Darwin, who has always objected to that 

 kind of juggling with continents, could not resist when 

 it came to coral reefs to do just the same thing, and calls 

 the reefs of the Pacific, if I remember rightly, the last 

 traces of a sinking continent ! It is no use to talk of 

 subsidence in the Yucatan plateau in case of such a fine 

 atoll as the Alacran, or on the Florida Reef in case of 

 Marquesas. Still we can wait and let them fight it out. 

 I was somewhat surprised in Darwin's Life to see the 

 element of wishing his cause to succeed as a cause 

 brought out so prominently. The one thing always 

 claimed by Darwin's friends had been his absolute im- 

 partiality to his own case. Certainly his correspondence 

 with Hooker, Huxley, and Gray shows no such thing. 

 However, I don't want to branch off. The book is a 

 mighty interesting one and admirably put together. 



TO FRITZ MULLER 



Cambridge, May 28, 1888. 

 I hope that by this time the Life of my father has 

 reached you, and if it has not please to let me know and 

 I will send you another copy. But if you can indicate 

 to me any safe method of forwarding, I should of course 

 like to avail myself of it. I trust that my " Three Cruises 

 of the Blake " has also arrived safely and that you will 



