
          Saturday Morning, Cambridge 


 My Dear Friend 


 I reply hastily to your kind 
 favor of the 4th inst [instant]: for I am very hard 
 at work, as you well know. I am 
 doing very well: except that I have had 
 a hard cold all this week, and have 
 consequently made myself very hoarse in
 speaking. But after this afternoon I 
 shall not have to speak again until Tuesday 
 Evening, by which time I hope to throw it off.
 No reports in the papers. There have been 
 none this year, and I have taken special 
 pains to send no tickets to the newspaper offices.


 I finish Lichens this afternoon; and have 
 next two lectures on Fungi & spontaneous generation 
 to give. I interweave a good [deal] of matter, 
 such [as], on Ferns, the part they played in the early 
 times of world, a la Brongniart. Mosses, filling up 
 lakes & pools, Sphagnum, Peat. Lichens, first agents 
 in clothing rocks with soil. I have noble illustrations 
 of Rust in Wheat, Ergot, &c., and Sprague is 
 now hard at work on Smut, a la Bauer. 


 Bowen speaks in high terms of Whitney. 
 [Added: I have written to Dr. Jackson about him. He is probably your man 
 if you can get him.]


 You remember the letter I sent you 
 from Preslele [Prestele] of " Ebenezer, near Buffalo," and 
 which you still hold. Well, he has sent 
 me for inspection, a most superb 
        