New Haven July 22, 1835
Dear sir,
My duties & interruptions have been so numerous since I received your letter of May 31 that it has lain with many others in view but not answered because I have been constantly wanting the leisure that has never come. You of course was [sic] not disappointed on the question of coal at Portland & I trust that you have settled the minds of the people on that topic & probably on many others. That you left a favorable impression of the science & of yourself no one who is acquainted with either will doubt. I regret that the pecuniary result should not have been more favorable. A previous stipulation of a minimum is the insert with the privilege of receiving more if more is received than is requisite to pay the minimum & the expenses. You will perhaps be surprised to learn that I am going (DV) to Nantucket upon a stipulation of that kind* I took my chance however in my late eastern engagements & the result was favorable & expect to spend the month of September with them.
Upon a similar basis I am (providence
* I took my chance however in my late eastern engagements & the result was favorable
Benjamin Silliman tells Edward Hitchcock about a plaster cast of bird tracks found in red sandstone he has recently received from James Deane. Silliman wants to write about the tracks in his American Journal of Science but requests that Hitchcock give his opinion of them first so that Silliman might avoid writing something erroneous. He compliments Orra, saying that "when a good wife is with her husband there is always home."