Publication InformationBurlington Nov 13 1848

Carlisle

Page 1

Dear Sir

I have been detained here later than I expected and fear it will be still some days before I shall be to leave.

Mrs Marsh is much as she has been for many months, and as we shall have little time to spare, it will not be in our power to pay you the promised visit this fall, but between the adjournment of Congress next March, & the opening of the Lake navigation, there will be an interval of

some weeks a part of which I hope we may spend at Carlisle. I have packed up for you a good Dutch Dictionary, & a grammar. Write (directing to me at the Astor House N. York) where, in Phil. or N.Y. I shall leave them.

Agassiz says our grinder is that of an elephant, extinct, and as he inclines to think non-descript. They have found a tusk since. With love to Mary & her mother.

Yours trulyGeo P. MarshProf. S. F. Baird

References in this letter:

Swiss born zoologist and geologist, Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) emigrated to the U.S. in 1846 to join the faculty at Harvard where he became a leading figure in American science. He a member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian and initially supported Baird but later disparaged his scientific accomplishments and, in 1863, attempted to block Baird's election to the National Academy of Sciences.