218 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



vicinity. I have read it with much pleasure ; it is very enter 

 taining and instructive, and got up in the good taste which 

 we always expect and always find in your writings. How 

 rich your native region is in both historical and geological 

 antiquities. Professor Kingsley was in the house when 

 this little book arrived, and was much interested to see it 

 I have loaned it to him, and he has read it with great 

 interest ; he says it is, as far as he knows, perfectly correct, 

 and that many of the objects described he was acquainted 

 with. The memoir on the Wealden strata of the Isle of 

 Wight, with an account of the Iguanodon and other reptile 

 bones, is also received, and is very instructive. I hope that 

 the entire head may yet be found. How numerous those 

 reptiles must have been ! I am surprised to hear that your 

 excellent house at Lewes will neither let or sell ; no doubt 

 it must bring up to your mind most interesting associations, 

 both pleasing and painful, and you have made me so 

 familiar with the scenes of your earlier life, that were I 

 again to visit London, I should be off as soon as possible to 

 Lewes, Tilgate Forest, Beachy Head, and again to the " Isle 

 of Wight," in which beautiful island I passed two days in 

 August or September, 1805. Alas, how time flies, forty- 

 one years ago, I was then an active, zealous young man, 

 and by God's blessing I am still an active, zealous old man, 

 with no diminution of physical power or mental energy, 

 so at least it appears to me, and so my children tell me. Oh, 

 how I wish that as regards health, you could say the same. 

 I am afflicted by your sufferings, protracted, severe, and 

 as you oblige me to admit, irremediable. May God give 

 you patience and resignation. I trust you have both, and 

 also that good hope through our Saviour which is as an 

 anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast. What surprises me 

 most is the amount of labor you perform, and the mental 

 power which seems to rise superior to corporeal suffering. 

 We shall haH with much interest your forthcoming work on 

 the " Isle of Wight." I am now in the midst of my public 



