Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD, dated May 18, 1872.
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Dear Baird
After many weeks confinement to my bed I am so far recruited as to be up, & be thinking of work.
With some hesitation I commit to the [tender mercies?] of the P.O. the Neapolitan Fish Report you wanted & hope it will reach you.
I hear nothing of the book sent me "by way of Milan." The Museo Civico people know nothing of it. They say the Smithsonian had an agent somewhere, Dell'Acque, through whom they used to receive packages is dead & they don't know who succeeds him
The only safe way to send is via addressed to the U. S. Legation,
care of consulate at Leghorn
You see my handwriting does not improve. Perhaps
as I get stronger I may recover my former plain chirography
My poor wife who is much broken down by two years of watching & anxiety, & now, by very] bad news from her niece, joins me in love to you all
Yours trulyG P Marsh