urocera , without eyes, of which I 
send you the figure. 
I have found in Lake Erie, in 
1826, two N. G. very near to the 
Trilobites, both lacustrai living 
animals: both without antens and 
with concealed feet. I call them 
Feltoma with two eyes, and Ade- 
lopus without eyes. I send you the 
figures. Also the description and 
figure of another living sea N. G. 
from the atlantic shore between 
Idotea and my Gonotus of 1814. I 
call it Mesotropis albipes . Body 
oblong, back carinated, small head, 
no eyes, fourteen feet, tail with 
many articles and ciliated, two 
antens, Sp> Car. greenish-brown, 
both ends obtuse, antens equal to 
body and tail, feet white. 
I send you the figure and de- 
scription of a singular atlantic small 
sea shell, Nemalix pelagic a, which 
suspends itself by a thread from the 
Fucus natans in the middle of the 
ocean, discovered 1815. 
I send you, as you request, the 
figure, description, and a specimen 
of my Trinectes Scabra , a new G. 
of fish near to Achirus found in the 
river Schuylkill; it has only three 
fins, dorsal, anal and caudal. Also 
the description and figure of a large 
and beautiful new catfish from the 
river Tennessee discovered in 1 823, 
Fimelodus lutescens: it was three 
feet long, excellent to eat, of a 
olivaceous yellow colour, belly 
white, jaws equal, eyes round, tail 
forked, first dorsal falciform, se- 
cond dorsal nearly as large as the 
anal. 
Extracts from letter 2, April , 
1831. I send you the figure and 
description of two subterranean 
worms. The first Gphelmis rugosa, 
is near to Gordius , but dwells under 
ground like Lumbricus . It was 
found in New York* six feet under 
ground in 1817, and was preserved 
in a museum. It was a gigantic 
worm, almost like a snake, three 
feet long. Gen . C. body fistular 
compressed, leathery, without vis- 
cera, not annulated but wrinkled 
diagonally on the sides. Tail tri- 
lobe, vent oblong inferior, lateral 
lobes short obtuse, middle lobe long < 
cylindrical. Spec. C. fulvescent, 
wrinkles equal in length but not 
in depth, inside smooth filled with 
a yellowish liquid. 
The second Geonema gordinea, 
was" a subterranian Gordius found 
two feet under ground in Connecti- 
cut, with body filiform, fistular, 
filled with a fluid, elastic, the two 
ends equal attenuated, opening, 
hardly visible. Spec . Description , 
Flexuose fulvescent, both ends ob- 
tuse only four inches long. 
Another akin N. G. but aquatic 
like Gordius , was found by me in a 
spring near the river Hudson in 
1816. It differs from Gordius by 
body hardly fistular, head split or 
bilobe and tail simple. I call it 
Cephachisma dipkaia. Length 
eight inches, size of a violin string, 
dark brown above, fulvous brown 
beneath, head clavate bilobe, tail 
obtuse black, with a white tip. 
I have perhaps been the first 
naturalist, ~who has observed and 
studied the microscopical animals 
of infusions, swamps, pools, creeks, 
rivers, lakes, and the ocean, in 
America, and chiefly in Kentucky, 
as I once did in Sicily and the 
Mediterranean. This is quite a new 
world of animated beings, fecund 
and inexhausible. They swarm 
every where and are from a size so 
minute as not to be seen without a 
large magnifying power, sometimes 
one thousand times smaller than a 
grain of sand, up to a size visible to 
the naked eye, and even reaching a 
gigantic size, in the ocean; where I 
I have seen some a foot long, although 
quite identic with the most minute, 
being in common always destitute 
of mouths, and therefore living by 
absorbing their nourishment by the 
minute pores of the body: whereby 
they belong to the peculiar class or 
division of animals nearest to plants, 
and merely differing by their sponta- 
neous motions, which I called Po- 
rostomes as early as 1814 in my 
