1!M> LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



FROM DR. MANTELL. 



June 26, 1840. 



I WAS introduced to Prince Albert a short time 



since, and presented hi in with the German and English edi- 

 tions of the tk 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 Horner) 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 

 monstrous clever mon as lived at Lewes, a doctor, 

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

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

 former! v a Lewes quarryman, and one of my collectors. 

 Mr. I.M II bring alone and on horseback, and having noth- 



