158 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



country, I leave it to you to judge of the propriety of an- 

 nouncing my arrival in your Journal, and to do so in the 

 form most appropriate to the circumstances in which I find 

 myself, and which I will again briefly detail to you. Know- 

 ing the great desire that I had to visit your country, and 

 the impossibility of doing it at my own expense, his Excel- 

 lency the Baron de Humbotdt, who has always treated me 

 as a friend, and whose good counsels have been to me like 

 those of a father, proposed to the King of Prussia to give 

 me the necessary funds for the jour-ney, which his Majesty 

 granted to me in the most generous manner, in furnishing 

 me with a sum sufficient for a journey of two years, if 

 travelling alone. However, desiring to profit by this op- 

 portunity to gather as much as possible of the materials of 

 the natural history of the United States, my intention is 

 to have a preparateur and draughtsman accompany me, 

 so as to have drawn from life all the fishes of your rivers 

 and lakes, which have not yet been properly represented ; 

 and also the mollusca of your coasts, which have not yet 

 been sufficiently studied. But, to provide for the extra 

 expense, I shall be obliged to live very economically, and 

 in a manner little in accordance with the royal munifi- 

 cence which has furnished me the means of making this 



journey 



My sphere is entirely circumscribed by the scientific 

 world, and all my ambition is limited to being useful to 

 that branch of science which I particularly cultivate. With 

 all this, I am no misanthrope ; but I learnt early that, when 

 one has no fortune, one cannot serve science and live at 

 the same time in the world. If I have been able to pro- 

 duce numerous expensive publications, it has been onty by 

 following this system of economy and voluntary seclusion ; 

 and the results which I have obtained thus far have re- 

 warded rue so well for the privations which I have suffered, 

 that I have no temptation to adopt another style of life, 

 even should I have hereafter, and especially in your conn- 



