
          Dear Mr. Meehan 


 Certain enquiries and statements 
 with which you have recently plied me,
 accompanied with most ingenuous and
 suggestive reasonings, have led me 
 to take up to-day for the first time.
 Your paper On the Leaves of 
 Coniferae, read by you at the 17th 
 (Chicago) Meeting of the American 
 Association for the Advancement 
 of Science. My excuse for such neglect
 is, that the paper was read 
 and discussed at a meeting which 
 I did not attend, on the eve [crossed out: of my 
 going abroad for a] my long absence 
 from the country, was published while
 I was abroad, and my copy of the 
 printed volume was delivered to me 
 only a few weeks ago. As you 
 have recently been propounding to [me?]
 the more advanced applications
 of similar views, it has happened 
 that my acquaintance with the 
        