LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR R. OWEN. 169 



was practicable ; but you will forgive me when I tell you 

 that I never received the plates, without which, the descrip 

 tions are, to a great extent, useless. I can only account for 

 my apparent neglect of your kindness by my having de 

 layed to write in expectation of the arrival of the plates. 

 But whether they shall ever reach me or not, pray be as 

 sured that I am deeply sensible of your friendship, and that 

 I duly estimate the intrinsic value of the present. If you 

 could have peeped into the anniversary dinner-room of the 

 Royal Geological Society yesterday, where I presided with 

 your representative, Mr. Abbott Lawrence, on my right 

 hand, you would not think that I had a lukewarm feeling to 

 the men of science in the United States. In fact, it was 

 owing to my suggestion and motion in the Council, that the 

 only gold medal we have adjudicated this year (the Vic 

 toria) was unanimously voted to Colonel Fremont, for his 

 most adventurous and most successful explorations of the 

 Rocky Mountains, the great saliferous region, and the 

 Sierra Nevada of California. I have quite an admiration 

 of this true geographer who, under so many privations, has 

 opened up to us such an enormous mass of land, and has 

 laid down its latitude so correctly 



FROM PROFESSOR R. OWEN. 



Royal College of Surgeons, LONDON, 

 March 16, 1843. 



MY DEAR SIR, I beg to acknowledge the favor of your 

 esteemed letter of the 27th February, and am unwilling to 

 delay my answer, although I am not able to answer on all 

 the points to which it relates. I have not yet, for example, 

 seen the entire collection of footprints in the possession of 

 our common friend, Mr. Mantell ; but on the few which he 

 has obligingly submitted to me, (two very clear ones, last 

 Saturday night, at the soiree of the P. R. S.,) I may ven 

 ture, after much mature consideration, to speak. You may 

 be aware that M. de Blainville contends that the ground 



