
          Cambridge October 21st 1820

Dear Friend

After so long a silence it is with the greatest pleasure 
that I write you a few lines. I suspect you will conclude I intend to 
neglect you, and perhaps you have grounds for your opinion,
from my long silence. You may rest assured you are the last of my correspondents
whom I would willingly neglect. Consequently you will be troubled
occasionally with my letters. I wish my correspondence with
you was now frequent, and if I possesed any information worth communicating
I would write [?], but I feel a reluctance to trouble my
friends with empty letters. You are not altogether correct in your
opinion suspecting the cause of my silence. I am yet in the
blessed state of Celibacy, but have as much medical business as I 
could expect. [?] it has greatly abridged my time for botanizing
and often it has been out of my power to attend to anything
but practice. However any leisure time is devoted to my favorite
study. I attempted to collect minerals, but this is a [?] place for
that employment. I greatly fear my engagements will prevent me from
maing any progress in mineralogy. There is a yougn man here of
my acquaintance who has paid some attention to the study & is 
very fond of it. I requested him to preserve duplicates for you of all he 
collected & he has engaged to do it. I will forward to you all I may
receive from him & I expect you will obtain more from him then 
from me. Had it not been out of my power I would have obtained
from him for you specimens of what he supposes to be [?] and 
[angeliacious?] oxide of Iron. It is time to answer your letter.
The plants you sent me were a great addition to my collection & has 
laid me under additional obligation to you. I consider them as 
peculiarly valuable both from the palce where they were collected &
the celebrated botanist by whom they were named. I possess [us?] Eucapian 
cryptogamia & if you could find me a collection they would
be very acceptable. Neither have I any European grasses from
you and would be pleased with any you could send me, but
I really do not know how I am to repay you for them as it
is now out of my power to collect anything more [?] of value
to send you. I attempted to collect seeds for you but was
unable to devote time sufficient to collect any of consequence.

        