264 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



amusements. The number of members present was very large, and 

 some of the communications quite valuable. The Cincinnatians 

 gave gratuitous entertainment to all who were willing to stay at 

 private houses, and collected money enough to pay all expenses of 

 the meeting, and to publish the volume of proceedings. Not a single 

 item was at the cost of the Association's Treasury, save my traveling 

 expenses, which I charged, as had been agreed upon. Coming back, 

 I stopped a day with my good old friend, Dr. J. P. Kirtland of Cleve- 

 land, where I got an undescribed species of bird. Thence to Buffalo 

 by steamboat, with next a touch at Niagara, and off again to Albany. 

 Here the next meeting of the Association, in August, takes place. 



Wonderful now are the facilities of traveling to the West. The 

 regular period of transit from New York to Cincinnati, via Albany 

 and Buffalo, is forty-eight hours, the two nights being spent in com- 

 fortable staterooms of boats on North River and Lake Erie. And 

 now by the Erie Railroad, finished through to Dunkirk, this period 

 is diminished some eight hours, making 40 the time. The distance 

 by the first route is about 910 miles, by the second 873!! In one 

 year passengers will go from Philadelphia to Cincinnati in about 

 28 hours! 



And now to resume the personal part of my discourse. I am now 

 hard at work preparing for the emission of the 2d. vol. of Smithsonian 

 Contributions to Knowledge, which goes off accompanied by hosts 

 of companions from all parts of the country. Our proposed operations 

 in the way of scientific international exchange, are enthusiastically 

 welcomed by other societies; and we have received from various 

 sources numerous documents and other things which will be sure 

 cards. Our friend J. C. McGuire of Washington, is to send some 

 400 Patent Reports of 1847, 48. We have also Jewett's Library 

 Report, just out. Best of all we have copies of Schoolcraft's Indian 

 book, for about 130 of the principal European Societies. This lot 

 will no doubt bring back many valuable returns; as it is, you would 

 be astonished to see the quantities of Foreign Transactions coming 

 in almost daily. We have received over one hundred distinct parcels 

 during the present year, embracing fully one thousand titles. The 

 last lot is a complete series of the Memoirs of the Bavarian Academy 

 in 17 quarto and heaven knows how many octavo volumes. This 

 has not yet come to hand, but is in New York. We shall probably 



