Conway 1st Dec. 1822
Dear Sir,
Yours of the 18th inst. did not reach me till a few days since and I have doubted whether this will reach you till you have been obliged to decide concerning the points therein mentioned. However I am not afraid to abide by your decision. As to the corrections I sent, the most important one is that relating to the termination of the secondary greenstone because that is a thing every body must mention in speaking of the subject & I had hoped that as that would come in toward the last of the essay it might be made reach [paper torn] in time for insertion. On every account except [paper torn ] (viz. the discrepancy between the colouring of the map & the description) I should prefer to have the corrections appended to the close of the entire memoir instead of the first part. However you may do as is most convenient.
I confess I have used the term stratified as synonomous with schistose (or rather slaty for I believe the term schistose does not occur in my essay). And I also confess myself unable to draw any definite line between them. Or rather although these two terms, although obviously enough distinct in their extremes, yet along the place of junction there has always appeared a fog I cannot penetrate. And it does seem to me that most geologists in their descriptions have confounded the two things together. Are not the definitions of the two terms so constituted that they will include one another? There is no limit fixed to the thickness either of strata or layers of slate. Hence with Greenough I
After posing questions about geological terminology and mentioning a new mineral called "Sillimanite", Edward Hitchcock ends his letter by asking for advice in balancing out or reckoning his love of botany and geology with his religious beliefs and pursuits. He wonders if he is "worshipping idols" with his scientific pursuits and asks Benjamin Silliman if there is "such a thing as pursuing them with a supreme reference to the glory of God."