196 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



FROM DR. MANTELL. 



& June 26, 1840. 



I WAS introduced to Prince Albert a short time 



since, and presented him with the German and English edi 

 tions of the " Wonders " ; he is a very affable, intelligent, 

 handsome youth, and those who are intimately acquainted 

 with him assure me he is very amiable ; what a pity he 

 should be exposed to such a court as ours ! 



FROM DR. MANTELL. 



June 14, 1841. 



MY VERY DEAR FRIEND, . ... I was about to write to 

 you to inform you of Mr. Lyell's intentions, which he com 

 municated to me but a short time since. I dined with him 

 last week, a farewell party. His charming little wife (a 

 daughter of Mr. Leonard Homer) accompanies him. I 

 have said so much of you and yours, to her, that she is 

 quite anxious to visit New Haven ; if she does, I am sure 

 you will all be delighted with her. And now for a strictly 

 private sketch of my old friend. About twenty years or 

 more ago, one beautiful summer evening, a young Scotch 

 man called at Castle Place, (Lewes,) and announced him 

 self as a Mr. Lyell, who was fond of geology, had been 

 attending Jameson's lectures at Edinburgh, had visited his 

 former Alma Mater, Midhurst Grammar-School, in the 

 west of Sussex; and rambling about the neighborhood, 

 found some laborers quarrying in stone which they called 

 " Whin." As this term is Scotice, Trap, the young trav 

 eller was much puzzled to know how such a rock appeared 

 in the south of England, and upon inquiry of one of the 

 laborers why the stone was so called, the man referred him 

 to " a monstrous clever mon as lived at Lewes, a doctor, 

 who knowed all about them things, and got curosities out of 

 the chalk-pits to make physic with." The man, in short, had 

 been formerly a Lewes quarryman, and one of my collectors. 

 Mr. Lyell being alone and^on horseback, and having noth- 



