264 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
amusements. The number of members present was very large, and 
some of the communications quite valuable. The Cincinnatians 
gave gratuitous entertainment to all who were willing to stay at 
private houses, and collected money enough to pay all expenses of 
the meeting, and to publish the volume of proceedings. Not a single 
item was at the cost of the Association’s Treasury, save my traveling 
expenses, which I charged, as had been agreed upon. Coming back, 
I stopped a day with my good old friend, Dr. J. P. Kirtland of Cleve- 
land, where I got an undescribed species of bird. Thence to Buffalo 
by steamboat, with next a touch at Niagara, and off again to Albany. 
Here the next meeting of the Association, in August, takes place. 
Wonderful now are the facilities of traveling to the West. The 
regular period of transit from New York to Cincinnati, via Albany 
and Buffalo, is forty-eight hours, the two nights being spent in com- 
fortable staterooms of boats on North River and Lake Erie. And 
now by the Erie Railroad, finished through to Dunkirk, this period 
is diminished some eight hours, making 40 the time. The distance 
by the first route is about 910 miles, by the second 873!! In one 
year passengers will go from Philadelphia to Cincinnati in about 
28 hours! 
And now to resume the personal part of my discourse. I am now 
hard at work preparing for the emission of the 2d. vol. of Smithsonian 
Contributions to Knowledge, which goes off accompanied by hosts 
of companions from all parts of the country. Our proposed operations 
in the way of scientific international exchange, are enthusiastically 
welcomed by other societies; and we have received from various 
sources numerous documents and other things which will be sure 
cards. Our friend J. C. McGuire of Washington, is to send some 
400 Patent Reports of 1847, 48. We have also Jewett’s Library 
Report, just out. Best of all we have copies of Schoolcraft’s Indian 
book, for about 130 of the principal European Societies. This lot 
will no doubt bring back many valuable returns; as it is, you would 
be astonished to see the quantities of Foreign Transactions coming 
in almost daily. We have received over one hundred distinct parcels 
during the present year, embracing fully one thousand titles. The 
last lot is a complete series of the Memoirs of the Bavarian Academy 
in 17 quarto and heaven knows how many octavo volumes. This 
has not yet come to hand, but is in New York. We shall probably 
