LIFE OF WILSON. x l v ii 



On Friday, the 7th December, I reached Gray's Ferry, hav- 

 ing walked forty-seven miles that day. I was absent two 

 months on this journey, and I traversed in that time upwards 

 of twelve hundred miles. 



" The evening of my arrival I went to L***h's, whose wife 

 had got twins, a boy and a girl. The boy was called after me: 

 this honour took six dollars more from me. After paying for a 

 cord of wood, I was left with only three quarters of a dollar. " 



TO MR. WM. BARTRAM. 



Union School, December, 24, 1804. 



" I have perused Dr. Barton's publication,* and return it 

 with many thanks for the agreeable and unexpected treat it has 

 afforded me. The description of the falls of Niagara is, in some 

 places, a just, though faint, delineation of that stupendous cata- 

 ract. But many interesting particulars are omitted; and much 

 of the writer's reasoning on the improbability of the wearing: 

 away of the precipice, and consequent recession of the Falls, 

 seems contradicted by every appearance there; and many other 

 assertions are incorrect. Yet on such a subject, every thing, 

 however trifling, seems to attract attention: the reader's imagi- 

 nation supplying him with scenery in abundance, even amidst 

 the feebleness and barrenness of the meanest writer's descrip- 

 tion. 



" After this article, I was most agreeably amused with 

 "Anecdotes of an American crow," written in such a pleasing 

 style of playful humour as I have seldom seen surpassed; and 

 forming a perfect antidote against the spleen j abounding, at the 

 same time, with observations and reflections not unworthy of a 

 philosopher. 



" The sketch of your father's life, with the extracts from his 

 letters, I read with much pleasure. They will remain lasting 

 monuments of the worth and respectability of the father, as 

 well as of the filial affection of the son. 



* The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, vol. I. 



