Publication InformationRome Feb 2 1874

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Dear Baird

My friend Mr John Ball of Alpine celebrity, and, as you know, eminent both as a geologist and a botanist, hath at least half a mind to go to the U.S. and look up a peak christened after him in the Rocky mountains or elsewhere in our highland. He is the chiefest of mountaineers, and once there, would set the fashion of climbing to the great advantage of the rising generation and the benefit of science.

Now, what can be done to aid and abet him in this matter? Will there be mountain expeditions next summer, & if so what and where? Could he accompany any of these expeditions, and if so would any facilities be afforded him in the way of transportation and accommodations? Not that he is poor, or wishes to be treated in , but these are things that one can't do alone. I shrink from asking you to write a letter, for I fear that

you like me, find writing harder & harder every year, but I really think it a matter of public interest that so accomplished an Alpinist as Mr Ball should have an opportunity of seeing our Alps under favorable circumstances, & therefore I trouble you with this communication.

We are having just now, after months of clear sky and pleasant temperature, some real cold weather. Rome has been rather healthier than usual for a year--owing, I believe, to the new element of life and hope infused into this torpid population by the new government--but this weather makes itself felt in the increase of pneumonia and other complaints of the chest, which are always frequent here. Mrs Marsh and I are well, and as she is able to write & read some hours a day, and I, more still, we keep ourselves busy. Good Dr Menser of Coblenz healed the eyes of the both of us last summer by the simplest means possible. He is not of the Graefe school, but a pupil of Leeuw, a Dutch oculist, & I pronounce him magisterially--for I speak with authority on this point--the first oculist living.

Graefe & his followers--I have tried them--are scarecrows, and begin all their counsels with: Fee, faw, fum! To blindness you'll come! They wouldn't even let me revile the wicked for fear of bursting a blood vessel inside the eye, but since I have seen Dr Menser, I do nothing but curse bankers--Cleur & Co. ruined me by their failure--and booksellers all day long and are neither sick or sorry afterwards.

The Italians are going ahead in all manner of ways, & if we can only manage the sanitary question, we shall make Rome as grand a city as ever, before AD 1900.

I wrote an able paper on Irrigation last summer for the Comm. of Agriculture. I don't know whether he will print it, as he gave me to understand he did not think much of it. Well, I don't think much of him, and so we are even, and besides, I have the advantage of knowing what I was writing about, which he doesn't, more's the pity. Such people should hold their peace, and learn of the wise.

We were glad to hear so good accounts of you from the Edmunds last summer. Your society is of great value to them. I am greatly distressed about our poor niece Carrie, who, we hoped, would be with the E's & in reach of your family this winter. Her case is truly hard. I dined

with Prince Ham[...] & his beautiful wife last evening. I wish I could give Lucy a glimpse of these entertainments. They are not stiff and the Princess is one of the most charming young women I ever knew.

Well, I must gossip no longer. So with Mrs M's love & mine to you all I conclude

Yours trulyG. P. Marsh

Prof Baird

References in this letter:

John Ball (1818-1889) was a British geologist and botanist.

Frederich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe, 1828-1870, was an eye doctor, and the designer of angular iris forceps.

George Perkins Marsh, Irrigation: Its Evils, the Remedies, and the Compensations. Rome, July 24, 1873. February 10, 1874; 43 Congress I Session; Senate Miscellaneous Documents 55.

George Franklin Edmunds (1828-1919) began his career practicing law in Burlington. He served in the Vermont State House of Representatives and in the State Senate. In 1866 he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican to fill the vacancy caused by Solomon Foot's death and served for four terms. He resigned in 1891. Edmunds was married to Susan Edmunds, the daughter of Marsh's sister and Wyllys Lyman, his Burlington friend.

Carrie Marsh Crane, Caroline Marsh's niece, daughter of her brother Thomas, accompanied the Marshs for a number of years during his tenure as minister to Italy. She died in a shipwreck in 1874.