208 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



which I resisted until my arduous task was done. I wrote 

 to you immediately on the receipt of your last, and sent you 

 a proof-sheet of " Infusoria," which I trust you duly received. 

 Your letter of November arrived afterwards ; the cause of 

 its delay I cannot even guess at. I have gone on much as 

 usual, but with more continued and severe suffering, occa- 

 sioned by additional mental anxieties, and perhaps from 

 over-study, for I found my work very laborious at last. 

 Thank Heaven, it is over ; it will be published next week 

 in two very handsome volumes, about nine hundred and 

 eighty pages in the two, the price, eighteen shillings or 

 twenty shillings, I know not which. The greatest pleasure 

 I anticipate from its publication is your approval. I feel 

 certain you will be pleased with it, and consider it as my 

 greatest labor ; not so much from the quantity of original 

 matter, but for the manner in which the whole science of 

 palaeontology from the fossil moss to the fossil monkey 

 is placed before the intelligent reader. 



FROM DR. MANTELL. 



July 18, 1844. 



OUR island has been visited by several of the 



continental sovereigns this year ; among others by the King 

 of Saxony, who, as you know, is one of the most enlightened 

 and amiable princes in Europe. He is a great patron and 

 cultivator of science, and Sir Robert Peel, (our Premier,) 

 upon entertaining his Majesty, invited our leading philos- 

 ophers to the party. At the King's request, Sir Robert 

 very kindly invited me also, and fortunately I was well 

 enough that evening to attend, and was received most 

 kindly by the King, whom I found a very affable and intelli- 

 gent man. Sir Robert Peel told me he had been reading 

 my " Medals " before breakfast that day with great delight. 

 The King has since visited Matlock and Faringdon, in 

 consequence of my account of the geological constitution 

 of those places. 



