192 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
plish but for the—to me—odious labor of preparing two lectures 
weekly in the department of Chemical philosophy. I can make no 
researches for want of the proper apparatus, and the endless repetition 
of old and threadbare facts is, to say the least, tiresome. 
Will you not send me a note on the matters in Miller’s Physics 
in which proper credit has not been given to you for discoveries and 
observations made. The text of the Natural Philosophy of the 
Bilder Atlas is much like that of Miller, although rather fresher, 
and I would wish to do you justice in your own country. I have 
already made sundry corrections in the subject of electro-magnetism, 
but some inaccuracies I may have overlooked. I shall endeavor 
throughout the entire work to do full justice to American Savants, 
when it has not already been done. If you have time, I would beg 
for a memorandum of this kind, as the Natural Philosophy is now 
being printed, and I would wish to make any necessary corrections 
in time. I regretted exceedingly that your absence this fall prevented 
me from taking advantage of your kind offer to read over the MSS 
of the Physics. 
I send an account of expenditures for freight of specimens, 
liquor used and other items. Part of the whiskey bill is for the 
amounts received prior to January first, 1849, but I thought it best 
to send in the entire account. Dickinson College would pay about 
half of it, but I think it best not to let the College have any claim 
upon the specimens, although it was understood, at the time of my 
depositing my collections, that sundry expenses were to be paid by 
her for the use of the specimens in their free exhibition to the students. 
The specimens received are by no means represented by the amount 
of their cost. A large number of very rare or new and exceedingly 
valuable forms of natural history are embraced in the series. Never 
have I obtained half as much in the same time as since April first 
of this year. I am overloaded with treasures, duplicates of great 
value and uniques. In fact, I am greatly at a loss to know where 
to stow all my goods, I wish they were all transferred to the cellars 
of the Smithsonian Institution. 
Should you consider it indelicate importunity in me—as such 
I am afraid you will consider it—to ask whether you will recommend 
the appointment of a Curator this winter. I feel more and more 
desirous of escaping from my toils here, which I should do, were I 
