414 CORRESPONDENCE. [1855, 
It is now time my letter was off, — when lo and be- 
hold ! — 
Yesterday morning I was sitting here busy with 
steady work and not expecting much interruption ; 
now, this evening, my passage is taken, my trun 
packed, I am hurriedly closing up affairs, and to-mor- 
row morning go on board steamer America and sail 
for Liverpool. I have to go and look after my bro- 
ther-in-law, who is sick in Paris of a fever. No one 
of the family can go but me, and I manage to find the 
time. Mr. Loring pays the traveling charges, and 
off I go, to be gone, however, not over two months, per- 
haps not so long; a week in Paris, another at Kew, a 
few days more in England; this must repay me (be- 
sides the consciousness of having done my duty) for 
some twenty odd days of discomfort at sea ! 
What have I been doing of late? Not much ac- 
complished, i. e., published. Of my “ Plante Nove 
Thurberiane ”’ and “Notes on Vaveea and Rhytidan- 
dra” I have sent you copies already, but I will send 
you more. 
A useful article on the Smithsonian Institution, in 
July number of “ Silliman,” probably you have seen 
in the “ Journal;” never mind, I send you a separate 
copy by mail. Some critical notices which I have no 
copies of. 
What I am about doing, I can always talk largely 
of. Iam preparing a new edition of the “ Manual of 
Botany of the Northern United States,” and a new 
elementary work! of a familiar character, to go with 
it, separate and with original pictures on wood by 
Sprague, and I am to finish the “ Flora” volume and 
“Plante Wrightiane” with it. I have determined 
1 First Lessons in Botany. 
