It is very natural you should be in my mind, as I am in the midst of corals. I came down here about six weeks ago to study the surface fauna of the Gulf Stream. The Coast Survey placed a small launch at my disposal to go out and scour the surface when the weather is favorable. Unfortunately thus far I have had little chance to accomplish what I started to do, as I find is nearly always the case on the seashore— you never can do what you wish, but have to be satisfied with what turns up. Thus far I have only found the more common things with which I was familiar from my former Blake experience and from meeting them late in the fall at Newport.¹

I took advantage of bad weather to finish up a lot of drawings and notes on Velella and Porpita, and have some interesting things about the post-embryonic stages of both, which I hope to publish next summer if I get time to finish the drawings.² The greater part of my time I spend in running round inside the reef in the launch and getting at the distribution of the different genera of corals. The number of species here is not great, so it makes their mapping out a simple matter. The Tortugas being the very last of the Florida reefs I find much that has not been noticed before and helps to explain, somewhat differently from what was done by Father, the formation of the reefs.³ On my way here I went across the northern base of the Peninsula of Florida—from Jacksonville to Cedar Keys, and found halfway across a series of hammocks and old coral reefs, such as are found in the Everglades at the southern extremity. In tracing the growth of the reefs and the formation of the Peninsula, I have come across no signs of any elevation. Everything, on the contrary, tends to show that the immense plateau which forms the base upon which the Peninsula of Florida is formed, was built up by the débris of animal remains,— Mollusks, Corals, Echinoderms, etc. (after it had originally reached a certain depth in the ocean), until it reached the proper height for corals to flourish. This here is not much deeper than seven to eight fathoms; generally six fathoms marks the limit. To the westward of this group of reefs is a coral reef starting on a bank at a depth of seven fathoms.

I expect to publish a small map of the distribution of the corals of the Tortugas as soon as I return home, in my report of work (not done) to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey. I shall, however, have first to finish reading the proofs of the Challenger Echini, the last pages of which I expect to find awaiting my return home, and I trust you will see that Memoir out during the summer.⁴