Weber, Alb. Fred, to George Engelmarm 



Ree. Oct. 26 

 Ans. Dec. 22 



Lyon, August 20, 1876 



My Dear and Honored colleague, 



How is it possible that I allowed such a long time to go by without writing you? I swear 

 to you that I would be most embarrassed to give just any reason for this silence More 

 than once I had wanted to get news from you and give you some of mme, but absorbed 

 by my daily occupations and by my family life, I always placed this desire to later Last 

 year you had the kmdness of asking me to give your greetings to our poor Pfersdorf 

 (whose death was recently announced) and to send me some lines through his 

 intermediary . However because of a Singular fatality, this letter that was sent to me 

 was open while I spent some time in Alsace, and was lost among other papers and i'did 

 not find it until recently. It is this factual reason which was the cause for me not 

 answering your letter, which today I would simply like to thank you for 

 Like you, I have not ceased in the study of the Cacti to which I have added the Asaves I 

 continued durmg these last years, to add a large number of documents, that are more or 

 less interesting m the history of these plants. Unfortunatety the lack of sufficient time 

 could be interpreted as laziness, and I have only busied myself with my original notes of 

 which so many are not edited. I agreed with Mr. Fournier that I would provide him with 

 and enumerative description of the Mexican Cacti for the "Botany of Mexico" 

 pubhshed by Mr. Fournier under the direction of Mr. Decaisne with material from the 

 Mexican Scientific Commission. 



Since the war I always stayed in Paris in the Hotel des Invalides until the end of 1874 

 At this ti me I was promoted to principal physician of the army and sent to Bayonne on 

 the Spanish frontler, as chief of medicine in the military hospital But in 1879 at my 

 request I was transferred to a military hospital in Lyon, where in reality I am not chief 

 ot service; but I have the advantage of bemg in a large city, which for my family is 

 much better than living in Bayonne. I like Lyon very much and am very happy that my 

 wite and three children are busy most of time. 



Düring my sojourn in Paris, I continued to visit the collections of Cacti mainly at 

 Quedency's and at PfersdorfFs, where I observed many new facts. I also made a large 

 number of drawings to be used in a future publication. I continued to increase my 

 collection of seeds, which is beginning to be very complete. I myself do the drawings in 

 the hght Chamber of Machet. I could, if this should give you pleasure, give you the 

 name of a large number of seeds of many species. 



I also took advantage of my sojourn in Paris to go to the Iibraries and gather all the 

 bibhographic documents pertaining the Cacti. I found them nght and left little known 

 or entirely unknown material, therefore of great interest to me. Among other authors 

 there are original manuscripts and drawings of Plummier, found in the library of the 

 Jardin des Plantes and whose edition of Burmann gave me the idea that they were very 

 summanzed and very inaccurate. The excellent drawings of Plummier are 

 aecompanied with detailed insenptions that are misconstrued, and truncated It appears 

 that since Lamarck published some summaries, there has been no other Cactographic 



