CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. MANTELL. 187 



and my labors. I cannot express what I feel on this subject ; 

 but be assured that neither Mrs. Mantell, nor myself, nor 

 my family, can ever forget your disinterested kindness ! 

 The notice has been copied in part into many of our jour 

 nals, and it came most opportunely, at the very time when 

 my memoir (which I read to the Geological Society on 

 the 5th of December) had excited great interest in the 

 scientific world, and found its way into many of the lead 

 ing daily papers I feel most deeply sensible of 



your kind, your generous observation on the possibility of 

 my family, like thousands of others, being compelled to 

 seek in your rising country for that repose and comfort 

 which, in my artificial and highly-excited community, but 

 few, if any, can find ; and I assure you, my dear friend, 

 that, deeply as I venerate the home of my ancestors, and 

 attached as I am to the very walls which surround their 

 ashes, yet, if I were ten years younger, I would not, for the 

 sake of my family, have hesitated long since to launch my 

 young folks in America, where they would have been free 

 from that feverish state of anxiety and excitement, which 

 awaits them here. When I reflect on the many hundreds 

 of families whom, even in my comparatively short life, I 

 have seen reduced from affluence to poverty, I shudder 

 with horror lest such a fate may be mine, in spite of all 

 my exertions and all the precautions which providence can 

 suggest ; and the same feeling pervades all classes of so 

 ciety. I know not one, even of our first families, that does 

 not find itself involved in difficulties. I read with great 

 feeling your eloquent address on the causes of national 

 anxiety, alike honorable to your head and heart ; it has 

 afforded much pleasure to some benevolent friends to 

 whom I have lent it. Stewart's " America," which is just 

 published, has a great run. Mrs. Trollope's is sinking into 

 merited oblivion and contempt. I have been watching 

 with intense anxiety the announcements from Carolina ; 

 and most fervently do I hope that the difference existing 



