226 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



solatory to the righteous mind is the quaint* remark of one 

 of our old divines, " We have but stepped aside from 

 eternity to be tried in this state of probation." I troubled 

 Mr. Dana with the abstracts of my three papers, and Regi- 

 nald's one, that he might make any use of them he pleased 

 for your Journal. Our societies move so slowly, that these 

 papers, in all probability, will not, all of them, be published 

 for these twelve months. An author in England needs to 

 have patience and forbearance ; and I really often am sur- 

 prised at myself, as well as others, going through all the 

 trouble, and incurring considerable expense, and submitting 

 to the captious and unfair criticisms of the referees, to 

 whom the papers are consigned, for so trifling a result ; for 

 there are but few memoirs that could not be published by 

 an author himself, with as little loss as he sustains by the 

 preliminary expenses of preparing memoirs for our societies. 

 But so it is ; Providence, for some wise purpose, has so 

 strongly implanted in us the spirit of proselytism, that we 

 cannot resist the instinct. 



FROM DR. MANTELL. 



May 17, 1850. 



I GAVE a lecture last Friday evening at the 



Royal Institution, on the geology and the fossil birds of 

 New Zealand, and had a splendid and numerous audience 

 (between seven and eight hundred). It is, as you know, 

 our aristocratic Institution, and attended by our fashion- 

 able lords and ladies. My kind friend, Professor Faraday, 

 was most attentive, and insisted on superintending the 

 hanging-up of the drawings, and when the lecture was over, 

 would help pack up the specimens, and worked until eleven 

 o'clock, and saw me into my carriage, this was genuine 

 kindness ; and it is this great man's natural character. 



