THE YOUNG PROFESSOR 213 
has been adopted which will tend to keep everything under the eye 
of myself and those connected with me. 
The rooms in the towers of the main building will be finished in 
the course of the next six or eight months and they will furnish 
accommodations sufficient for a year or two for our expanding 
operations. 
I find on referring to your letter that you ask for a draft for 100 
dolls. on account of collections; this you can make as soon as you 
receive the note I am now writing. 
Your salary I presume will commence with the date of your 
acceptance which may be considered the 1st of July provided you 
enter immediately on the duty of your office. 
I propose leaving Washington shortly after the 1st of Aug. to 
be present at the meeting at New Haven. Will you not be there 
also? 
I presume that besides making your scientific excursions you 
will be able to settle all your business at Carlisle and to commence 
operations in Washington about the 1st of Oct. I shall return myself 
at or before that time. 
I remain very truly your friend, 
JoserH Henry. 
This appointment, so fortunate for Baird and for 
Science, opened the way to a field of the greatest useful- 
ness. The salary was small for a resident of Washington, 
even in those days, but a considerable advance on that 
of the professorship he already held, and the latter was, 
moreover, dependent on the prosperity and size of the 
classes of the College, which fluctuated from year to year. 
On the 12th of July he left for a visit to his relatives 
at Reading and three days later went to Philadelphia, 
where he was joined by Mrs. Baird and Lucy, who, with 
Caleb Kennerly, were to make with him a summer journey 
to the North, in part a collecting trip. Passing through 
New York and Troy, he proceeded to Lake Champlain. 
