xlviii 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
“ The description of the Chactaw Bonepickers is a picture so 
horrible, that I think nothing can exceed it. Many other pieces 
in this work are new and interesting. It cannot fail to promote 
the knowledge of natural history, and deserves, on this account, 
every support and encouragement.” 
TO MR. WM. BARTRAM. 
December 26 , 1804. 
“1 send for your amusement the “Literary Magazine” for 
September, in which you will find a well written, and, except 
in a few places, a correct description of the great Falls of Nia- 
gara. I yesterday saw a drawing of them, taken in 1768, and 
observe that many large rocks, that used formerly to appear in 
the rapids above the Horseshoe falls, are now swept away; and 
the form of the curve considerably altered, the consequence of 
its gradual retrogression. I hope this account will entertain you, 
as I think it by far the most complete I have yet seen. ” 
TO MR. WM. DUNCAN. 
Kingsessing, February 20, 1805. 
“ I received yours of January 1, and wrote immediately; but 
partly through negligence, and partly through accident, it has 
not been put into the post office; and I now sit down to give 
you some additional particulars. 
■3^ * -Sft 
“ This winter has been entirely lost to me, as well as to your- 
self. I shall on the twelfth of next month be scarcely able to 
collect a sufficiency to pay my board, having not more than 
twenty-seven scholars. Five or six families, who used to send 
me their children, have been almost in a state of starvation. The 
rivers Schuylkill and Delaware are still shut, and wagons are 
passing and repassing at this moment upon the ice. 
“ The solitary hours of this winter I have employed in com- 
pleting the poem which I originally intended for a description 
of your first journey to Ovid. It is now so altered as to bear 
little resemblance to the original; and I have named it the “ Fo- 
