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MEMOIR OF DANIEL TREADWELL. 



press. But he did not forget to examine a piece of ordnance whenever it chanced 

 to fall in his way, sometimes not very successfully. In Naples he one day attempted 

 to examine a cannon guarding one of the great squares, and began measuring it, 

 when he was instantly seized by some of the officials, and peremptorily ordered to 

 fall back under penalty of being taken for a suspect if he persevered. We spent 

 many days (without our party) at Pompeii, Mr. Treadwell measuring and examining 

 the construction of the houses and baths, and taking great delight in looking at the 

 things found in Pompeii, now collected in the Museum." 



While in Europe he wrote the following letters to his old friend, Dr. John 



Ware. 



To Dr. John Ware. 



Paris, November 12, 1847. 



Dear Sir, 



steamer 



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which was on the 8th of October. ... So we are in Paris, centre of fashion and the high science 

 of the world. Twenty-seven years ago I was in the same city, and within a thousand feet of 

 the spot where I now write. The great buildings and streets all appear to me as old acquaint- 

 am vs. Some of the signs of the shops even I remember. I notice, however, an evident 

 improvement in the moral aspect of certain orders, and a great accession to the power and comfort 

 of the people by the adoption of English inventions in the arts. For example, I crossed the 

 channel in a steamer, — English with a spice of American. I came from Abbeville to Paris by 

 railway, — English. The wires of the telegraph pass over the whole line, — English or American, 

 or both. I entered Paris in the evening, and found it flaming with gas, — English again. And 



jrovements which so strongly 

 mark the present age? I can think of nothing more important at this moment than the Daguerro- 

 type, and in this art the English form of Talbotype seems now to be getting the lead. For 

 public works executed in Paris since 1820, there appears to have been none of greater impor- 

 tance than the erection of the obelisk and building the fountains in the Place de la Concorde. 

 The Arc de Vfitoile is the greatest work of the kind I ever beheld, and I can well believe it is 

 what the French claim it to be, the noblest arch in the world. Indeed, I hardly supposed such 

 a structure capable of so much grandeur of appearance. But is it not a striking fact, that of all 

 the hundreds of names of victories and battles with which it is covered, there is not one men- 

 tioned in which the opposing force was English or mostly English, while Nelson and Wellington 

 have filled England with names and monuments to record the triumphs of the English over the 



French, But 1 am talking the French down when I am 



every day. . . . You of course went many times to the meetings of the Institute. I cannot 



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have attended at three of its meetings, and as it is without dispute the highest, or perhaps more 

 properly the most select, scientific body in the world, 1 could not but be. closely attentive to all 

 that I saw. It did not seem to me that the members presented that superiority of appearance 

 over ordinary men that one would be likely to expect to find from their superior intellect. The 



Webster 



1 was particularly struck with the appearance of Arago, who is one of the best-looking men in 



