304 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



insignificant, to contain so great a mind. One of the oddest and best 

 men we have is von Waltershausen, the mineralogist. He looks, upon 

 the street, like a drunken man, an impression which his "caved-in" 

 hat and careless dress support. He appears to be always busy with 

 his thoughts and does most ridiculous things sometimes from his 

 absorption. I have been talking with him when an idea suddenly 

 struck him and he would fly off to the other end of the room leaving 

 his sentence unfinished, and perhaps forget utterly that he had been 

 talking to me. He is a man of great originality of mind and a first- 

 rate mineralogist. When I was in Berlin at Christmas, I drank coffee 

 with H. Rose and his wife and daughter. The portraits of him which 

 I have seen in America are very good. He is, like Wohler, a very 

 jovial man. He is as full of jokes as of science. He and Wohler are 

 intimate friends. The old fellow is a staunch Royalist and thinks no 

 realm on earth like Prussia. Out of Berlin he could not properly 

 exist. He only takes four pupils into his Laboratory, from whom he 

 receives no pay. I am going in the Fall to Freyberg to study mining. 

 They have a corps of great men there. . . . 



From S. F. Baird to George P. Marsh, Constantinople. 



WASHINGTON, July 2, 1853. 

 MY DEAREST MR. MARSH: 



I have had a long letter to you in my mind for an age and it has 

 been interfered with by so many causes, that I fear I shall only be 

 able to cancel my obligations by a few paragraphs of odds and ends. 

 I have happily got through the special work of the spring, in the way 

 of foreign exchanges, etc., and am now busy in arranging for a run 

 out West. I leave in a few days for Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, 

 and after remaining a month return to Lake Champlain to join Mary. 

 How I wish I could hope to see you there as of old. 



The work of this spring has been unusually heavy, though I have 

 stood it better than ever before, being now in perfect health and con- 

 dition. I might tell you of the tons of packages, made up and sent off, 

 but I do not wish to tire you with the details. Suffice it to say that I 

 have as heretofore sent the Greece, Turkey, Egyptian, parcels to you 

 for distribution, and shall forward through State Dept. letters to 



