300 A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. (1847, 
I have been addling my brain and straining my 
eyes over a set of ignoble Pond-weeds (alias Potamo- 
geton) trying to find the 
* difference there should be 
Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee,” 
and wasting about as much brain in the operation as 
your dear paternal would expend in an intricate law 
case, for all »f which I suppose nobody will thank me 
and I shall get no fee. Indeed, few would see the 
least sense in devoting so much time to a set of vile 
little weeds. But I could not slight them. The 
Creator seems to have bestowed as much pains on 
them, if we may use such a word, as upon more con- 
spicuous things, so I do not see why I should not try 
to study them out. But I shall be glad when they 
are done, which I promise they shall be before I sleep. 
10.45 p. ma. — There, the pond-weeds are done fairly. 
TO W. J. HOOKER. 
CAMBRIDGE, December Ist, 1847. 
I reply early to your kind letter of October 30th to 
assure you that I shall with much pleasure contribute 
so far as I have opportunity to the new Botanical 
Museum, which, under your charge, and with your 
great opportunities for obtaining things from every 
art of the world, will soon become a magnificent 
collection. I have already several things to send you, 
such as two very large entwined stems of Aristo- 
lochia Sipho, which I brought from the mountains of 
Carolina; a Dasylirion from Texas, ete. I have some 
time ago made arrangements for getting curious stems 
from Para, through a friend in Salem, who will also 
incite the masters and supereargoes of ships from that 
port which trade with various out-of-the-way parts of 
