82 Tlic Anicriccin Geologist. August, i90) 
"A few days ago I went at it and completed it before we went to 
cutting corn, so that it is now ready for printing." * * "The ar- 
rangement was very bad, and some old species described as new." 
The preceding letters carry us over the period of boyhood 
and early adolescence. The next ushers in his career as a man 
and an original thinker, with a consciousness of his own pres- 
ent and prospective value to the world. In the meantime he 
had attended lectures from Dr. Leidy in the University. It 
is dated Washington, Jan. 2-}^, 1861, and is addressed to his 
father, "Horatio'' (Dr. Horatio Wood) and he had gone there 
on Monday, and after some changes in their place of abode 
had finally located themselves on the "sixpenny side of Penn- 
sylvania avenue near 6th st." at $25 per month. 
He published in i860 six papers through the A. N. S., and 
one through the Smithsonian Institution. 
He was proposed for membership in the Academy of 
Natural Sciences by Wm. S. Vaux, J. D. Sergeant and John 
Cassin, and was elected on July 30, 1861. 
Washington, Feb. i. 1861. "I have come to the conclusion that 
Washington is decidedly a second-rate place. Though there are two 
professors and a doctor in the boarding house, they are all unsatis- 
factory trifling people." * * ''Two fairer men than Profs. Henry 
and Baird are, however, hard to find. Theodore Gill, a native of New 
York, with whom I have been acquainted for a considerable length of 
time, is an honorable and sincere young man, so far as I know him. 
though by education different enough from myself." 
His contributions to science for 1861 were nine papers 
through the A. N. S. 
Jan. 7th. 1862, Smithsonian Institution. "Gill, Kennicott and 
Meek are the working students in the building at present. The last 
is a paleontologist among invertebrata." * * "Prof. Henry came in 
not long ago and introduced me to Prof. Arnold Guyot, author of 
'Earth and Man.' He is a small, kind looking man and betrays his 
French origin in his speech. We had very interesting arguments with 
him on zoological districts, and their geological relations. We then 
came to the classification of Mammalia, especially that proposed re- 
cently by Prof. Dana — viz.: That making four divisions of mammalia. 
Archonta (man), Megasthenes, Microsthenes, and the Implacartialia. 
which I found had first occurred to Prof. Guyot. It has seemed to 
me fanciful, and I found he could not support it with anatomical dem- 
onstration. Gill was of the same opinion that I was. Nor could he 
demonstrate any anatomical ground for the great separation of man. 
So I had a long argument, as I have often hoped to, with one of the 
