
          Ans. May 21

Recd. March 28 
(on my return from Princeton)

Rochester march 15. 1840.

My Dear Sir,

As I can send you a line, I take the
way to do it. The infusoria earth came safely,
& I was much obliged. It seems that infusoria [stops?],
long before we come to granite; so that animal
life is not to begin before creation. What [animacula?]
are those developed by Crosse's Galvanic Battery?
Can you tell me? Have others been developed like
them? What is the proof that they came from the [?]
water, & that the ova were in it or some came
into it. I ask for to be informed.

In looking over the Carices lately, I am led
to believe that C. rostrata Mx. is a species by itself,
& not a var. of C. [intumescens?] or folliculata.

After all the [?], can it be that C. paupercula
Mx. is the plant you mean. Did you ever
see flat leaves, leaves narrow, on the plant, or
pendulous spikelets, which are so stiff, erect,
& few flowered. And on the figure you [?]
Paris, the scales are too long, [blotched: illeg.]; & [?];
all which I see not. It seems to me that the
plant is different; but at least, [crossed out: [?]] [added: we] need not be
too certain.

The plant I mistook for [?] is the
C. miliaris Mx. This seems very clear; as that
C. Oakesiana is C. oligosperma. I have the
C. miliaris from the north & from Georgia,
so that I see how I was brought into confusion,
but I think that it is now settled. If you have
my figure in Silliman, compare it with the one of
C. miliaris, you brought from France.

You have several Carices, which I want, if you
have spare ones, as C. alata, C. bicolor, C. glarrosa [glareosa?], 

        