
          a plenty for distribution ten or more specimens of nearly everything.
Maj Emory has expressed his perfect willingness
that I should have the ultimate disposal of a liberal portion
of what I may collect particularly if on other duty in the 
intervals of which such collections are made.

I am pleased to think that my first collection made while 
in Col Graham's party has arrived though your letter is not
perfectly clear on the matter. You mention the arrival of two
boxes. Now when I sent off my plants they were not in boxes
at all but in four packages wrapped in large stout sheets
of paper. They were probably transferred to boxes in San Antonio. 
I believe I wrote you before that there probably would
not be many novelties among them, the country on which they
were collected was so severely parched with drought.

You suppose Dr Gray sends me the sheets of [Pl.?] [Wrightman?].
You need not suppose any such thing. At least I have
no proof of it. I have however received two copies of the 
article in Silliman to which you refer and on which 
I recognize the handwriting of the Dr thus evincing that
he knows when a letter would probably find me.

I am for the present relieved from the duties of the surveying
party and am at liberty to turn my attention to botany
which I shall not neglect. I shall have divers [diverse] little interesting
things to enclose in this letter. Dr Bigelow & myself are 
commencing to give close attention to the cactaceae making
detailed descriptions from the living flowering plants which 
will be sent with a collection now accumulating to Dr
Engelmann. We already find several new species new
at least to us with the few means of determining them 
at our command.

One of my last letters will inform you what books
I have & I hope you will not conclude me mistaken in
my knowledge of what I have & persist in believing that
        