290- Correction of Col. Wailes's Communication. [May, 



CORRECTION OF COL. WAILES'S COMMUNICATION. 



We give place to the following communication from our friend 

 Prof. Gale, for the purpose of correcting, as iar as can be at this 

 time, the erroneous impressions which are entertained in regard 

 to a report which appeared in this Journal, of the doings ot the 

 Geologists and Naturalists, at New Haven, in 1845. 



We did not attend that meeting, and for our report of the pro- 

 ceedings depended upon the professional writer of the New \ork 

 Tribune. We supposed that as matter of fact w-e could rely upon 

 the reports furnished from that source, but it seems that we were 

 mistaken. We were aware at the time that there was manifest 

 in the reports of that meeting attempts at ridicule generally, or 

 perhaps as it would rather appear, attempts to be witty on the 

 part of the speakers. This, we have no doubt, was a flourish of 

 the reporter, made perhaps for the purpose of giving a little more 

 life to discussions, which it was supposed would be dry and uninte- 

 resting to the general reader. Some three or four months alter 

 the meeting, we received a letter from the editor of the American 

 Agriculturist, in which Col. Wailes very properly requested to 

 be set right, as it regarded his communication. As this came soon 

 after the issue of a quarterly number, it so happened that at the 

 next issue the letter was mislaid, and hence the apparent indiffer- 

 ence to Col. Wailes's request. We did not know nor feel at the 

 time, that the matter was of so much consequence, but Dr. Gale 

 better explains the whole matter, and we therefore do not hesitate 

 to publish it almost entire, expressing our regret that any occasion 

 iihould have been given by ourselves for complaint from any 

 quarter. 



U. S. Patent Office, 8th May, 1847. 

 My Dear Sir: 



I have had it in mind to write to you for several months; but 

 changing my residence in the mean time, from New York to 

 Washington, and giving my first course of lectures on Organic 

 Chemistry in the Medical College here, besi(k's entering on new 

 duties as Assistant Examiner in the Patent Office, I have hitherto 

 been prevented. Having passed nearly two years at Jefferson 

 College, near Natchez, 1 became much interested in the geology 

 of its vicinity, which at that time had scarcely attracted public 

 attention. Several papers you know have been read on that sub- 

 ject before our Geological Association, by Wailes, Forshay, Rid- 

 del, Dickerson, &c. At the meeting of 1845, Col. Wailes made 

 a communication through Prof. Silliman, Jr., which was com- 

 mented on rather severely at the time, exhibiting to ridicule the 



