
          Philadelphia 5th April 1819
Esteemed Friend
I have rec'd [received] with the greatest pleasure your favor 28 th. March, 
& I am glad to see that you have resolved to write me.I would have addressed
you long ago, but I hardly knew if you was in New York, and I
was told that you had been proposed as Mineralogist it the expedit 
of Major long up the Missouri; but I have just heard that a philadelphian 
Miner? Mr Gessup is gone instead of you along with Mess. Long
& Baldwin. I often think with pleasure of my friends of the 
Lyceum, and regret with you that their valuable labors should be 
lost. I have often been prevented from communicating many papers,
by this idea; that it would be an easy matter to obviate the small 
difficulties you point out. I once offered in writing to Mr Bigelow
(chairman of the committee appointed to consider the subject) four 
different plans to suit any taste; 
but he took hardly any notice
of them,because he thought that any publication of the Lyceum 
would interfere with his Magasine! You now ask my advice, & I 
will give it freely,feeling a deep interest in the welfare of the Lyceum.
I would propose that a sheet of 16 pages 8 be published every month 
under title of Annals of the Lyceum of N.Y. in small type if possble
the monthly cost will be about $25 printing only 500 copies.
Let every member take one (at least) or more copies,(formy part I 
shall take 12!) at only 10 cents each; 12 numbers will form in one year 
a volume of I92 pages costing only 120 Cents. If 50 are taken or 
subscribed for by the members and 100 copies sold, the expenses are paid 
and 250 copies more remain to be sent abroad by the Lyceum, or given 
in present. Let no plate be introduced unless at the expense of those who 
offer them or of any willing member. Let the whole matter be new 
and sinoptical,any diffuse matter be rejected unless printed priBf,6id^n an 
extra sheet at the expense of the writer or his friends. All the matter to be 
selected by a Standing Committee of Selection, who must report on every paper 
presented & state the grounds of rejection
when needful^. Every paper 
        