THE YOUNG PROFESSOR 205 



From Spencer F. Baird to Joseph Henry. 



CARLISLE, Jan. 26, 1850. 

 DEAR SIR, 



. . . The prospects of success in making collections for the 

 coming year are unusually bright. In the first place, I have heard 

 of a meadow some few miles from Carlisle which, on being ploughed 

 for the first time several years ago, exhibited a great number of fossil 

 bones, horns of deer, etc. many of them according to my informant 

 of the most singular appearance. None of these were preserved but, 

 as the ploughing extended only to the depth of six inches, it is certain 

 that a subsoil plough would turn up additional quantities. The 

 meadow was probably once a bog in which these animals of a past 

 race became mired; as is supposed to have been the case with the 

 Big Bone Lick of Kentucky, which I hope my new locality will rival, 

 if not in the size, at least in the quality of its remains. As soon as 

 the snow leaves the surface, I intend by permission of the proprietor 

 to have this three-acre meadow ploughed up, so as by the expenditure 

 of a few dollars (probably not over five) to obtain an abundant 

 harvest of fossil remains. My object is to make the Smithsonian 

 Museum eminent above all others American for the value of its 

 vertebrate fossil remains, a department in which everything remains 

 to be done, although of the very highest zoological and geological 

 interest. The collections I have already made under this head far 

 outweigh all others of a similar character in all other American 

 collections combined. A new bone cave, explored by some of my 

 students during Christmas week last, has furnished very valuable 

 matter. I hope, thus, ere long to have the material for an entirely 

 unique series of papers for the Smithsonian Contributions, to be 

 prepared by such person or persons as may be the most competent. 



From Mrs. Lydia M. Baird to Spencer F. Baird. 



READING, Feby. 2nd, 1850. 

 MY DEAR SON: 



I was just thinking that as I was to stay another week in Reading, 

 I would answer Mary's very acceptable letter, when it occurred to 

 me that to-morrow would be your birthday, and I concluded to write 



