230 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



has also materially increased my work in many direc- 

 tions not my own and compelled me to give a lending 

 hand to building up other scientific departments. But 

 in a new country, where all is to be moulded, it is no 

 small satisfaction to feel that one is a power behind the 

 throne for good and for evil. 



I need not say how glad I was to receive your letter 

 and to hear again from you, for I have never forgotten 

 that it was from you that I received the first friendly 

 recognition of one of the first papers I ever wrote, and 

 that your kind words did much to keep me in a path 

 which did not seem to have too many attractions for a 

 young and ambitious student. 



TO HUXLEY 



Calumet, Oct. 16, 1888. 



I intended long before this to have answered your 

 kind note, which reached me at Newport, but I have had 

 an extended fit of laziness and have allowed myself to 

 put off during this summer all that was not absolutely 

 essential. The strain of last winter floored me at last 

 and I Ve not been able to buckle down to work as I 

 hoped to do at the seashore. I am here on my semi-annual 

 visit to the mines, and the doctor has ordered me for a 

 few weeks to the mountains in Colorado. So I am on my 

 way to the other side of the Rockies, into what is said 

 to be a most beautiful country just beyond the main 

 divide of the Rocky Mountains, back of Denver and 

 Leadville. He thinks that 's all I need to start fresh, 

 specially if I get away during the coming winter. 



I was sorry to hear from Mrs. Moseley of the poor 

 condition of Moseley's health; the poor fellow seems 

 utterly broken down, and his chance for any more work 



