2 9 o SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



work much better than when I began, and I do promise that if I send 

 any more collections to the S. I. they shall be more worthy. I have 

 stated that I am importuned to donate my future collections to the 

 Royal Museum of Paris. If I am rightly informed, I might expect to 

 be supplied by the Directors of that Institution with some important 

 facilities. But I do not desire to divert to a foreign depository the 

 collections that belong naturally to my own country. It cannot be 

 denied, however, that Prof. Henry in the Sixth annual report of the 

 Regents speaks rather disparagingly of Collections, and his tone 

 seems to prognosticate a day when they will not even be received as 

 gifts. This reminds me that my own collections which I am about to 

 send, may be, after all my labor, but a cumbersome and unwelcome 

 donation a not very comforting apprehension, I assure you. I hope 

 if my collections are worth anything, they will be worth copies of 

 some of the publications of the S. I. under the head of "Contribu- 

 tions to Knowledge" such I mean as relate to Natural History. 

 I have indeed received such as are distributed to Meteorological 

 Observers, but the most desirable to me I have not seen. 



How I long to see you and the collections you have! and to be 

 once in the atmosphere of the Smithsonian Institution, and around 

 which cluster and crowd so many associations and hopes and aspira- 

 tions! If I could once step within its threshold, it seems to me my 

 eager eyes and ears and understanding would drink in a world of 

 wonders and knowledge and that scientific atmosphere! How 

 refreshingly would it be inhaled. . . . Forgive my enthusiasm; 

 even if it exaggerates I cannot repress it. ... I feel an almost 

 irresistible longing and drawing towards the centre of so much interest 

 as Washington, where I can occasionally see an appreciative friend to 

 science nay, even a Cultivator of science and more, can have the 

 precious privilege of access to books and satiating the desire to know, 

 not something unknown to the world, but simply what so many other 

 men of science already know, while I here am compelled to dole out 

 days and years in anxious and painful ignorance I feel it my occu- 

 pation is not sufficiently scientific, and I must, by my constitution 

 I shall be compelled to enter another sphere. You will laugh no, you 

 have too much of a kindred nature to do that, you will then sym- 

 pathize Well, thank you for sympathy. How I should like to be 

 attached to an Exploring Expedition! . 



But I have wearied your patience over and over again. I beg you 



