304 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
insignificant, to contain so great a mind. One of the oddest and best 
men we have is von Waltershausen, the mineralogist. He looks, upon 
the street, like a drunken man, an impression which his “caved-in” 
hat and careless dress support. He appears to be always busy with 
his thoughts and does most ridiculous things sometimes from his 
absorption. I have been talking with him when an idea suddenly 
struck him and he would fly off to the other end of the room leaving 
his sentence unfinished, and perhaps forget utterly that he had been 
talking to me. He is a man of great originality of mind and a first- 
rate mineralogist. When I was in Berlin at Christmas, I drank coffee 
with H. Rose and his wife and daughter. The portraits of him which 
I have seen in America are very good. He is, like Wohler, a very 
jovial man. He is as full of jokes as of science. He and Wohler are 
intimate friends. The old fellow is a staunch Royalist and thinks no 
realm on earth like Prussia. Out of Berlin he could not properly 
exist. He only takes four pupils into his Laboratory, from whom he 
receives no pay.—I am going in the Fall to Freyberg to study mining. 
They have a corps of great men there. 
From S. F. Baird to George P. Marsh, Constantinople. 
WasuincTon, July 2, 1853. 
My pearesTt Mr. Marsu: 
T have had a long letter to you in my mind for an age and it has 
been interfered with by so many causes, that I fear I shall only be 
able to cancel my obligations by a few paragraphs of odds and ends. 
I have happily got through the special work of the spring, in the way 
of foreign exchanges, etc., and am now busy in arranging for a run 
out West. I leave in a few days for Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, 
and after remaining a month return to Lake Champlain to join Mary. 
How I wish I could hope to see you there as of old. 
The work of this spring has been unusually heavy, though I have 
stood it better than ever before, being now in perfect health and con- 
dition. I might tell you of the tons of packages, made up and sent off, 
but I do not wish to tire you with the details. Suffice it to say that I 
have as heretofore sent the Greece, Turkey, Egyptian, parcels to you 
for distribution, and shall forward through State Dept. letters to 
