264 LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE. .ETAT. 29. [r838. 



a peak 2200 feet above the sea. I am now employed in 

 writing a paper on the subject, which I find very amusing 

 work, excepting that I cannot anyhow condense it into rea- 

 sonable limits. At some future day I hope to talk over 

 some of the conclusions with you, which the examination of 

 Glen Roy has led me to. Now I have had my talk out, I 

 am much easier, for I can assure you Glen Roy has aston- 

 ished me. 



I am living very quietly, and therefore pleasantly, and am 

 crawling on slowly but steadily with my work. I have come 

 to one conclusion, which you will think proves me to be 

 a very sensible man, namely, that whatever you say proves 

 right ; and as a proof of this, I am coming into your way of 

 only working about two hours at a spell ; I then go out and 

 do my business in the streets, return and set to work again, 

 and thus make two separate days out of one. The new plan 

 answers capitally ; after the second half day is finished I go 

 and dine at the Athenaeum like a gentleman, or rather like a 

 lord, for I am sure the first evening I sat in that great drawing- 

 room, all on a sofa by myself, I felt just like a duke. I am 

 full of admiration at the" Athenaeum, one meets so many people 

 there that one likes to see. The very first time I dined there 

 {i.e. last week) I met Dr. Fitton * at the door, and he got to- 

 gether quite a party — Robert Brown, who is gone to Paris and 

 Auvergne, Macleay [?] and Dr. Boott.f Your helping me into 



* W. H. Fitton (b. 1780, d. 1861) was a physician and geologist, and 

 sometime president of the Geological Society. He established the ' Pro- 

 ceedings,' a mode of publication afterwards adopted by other societies. 



f Francis Boott (b. 1792, d. 1863) is chiefly known as a botanist through 

 his work on the genus Carex. He was also well known in connection with 

 the Linnean Society of which he was for many years an office-bearer. He 

 is described (in a biographical sketch published in the Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 1864) as having been one of the first physicians in London who gave up 

 the customary black coat, knee-breeches and silk stockings, and adopted 

 the ordinary dress of the period, a blue coat with brass buttons, and a buff 

 waiscoat, a costume which he continued to wear to the last. After giving 

 up practice, which he did early in life, he spent much of his time in acts of 

 unpretending philanthropy. 



