Letter from GEORGE PERKINS MARSH to SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD, dated January 16, 1849.
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Dear Baird
I shall be glad of anything of Rafinesque's, which you don't want. Gen. C. brought Nilsson, & I was glad to see him & Mrs C. & hope they will return before we leave. When the Smithson. begins to publish Reps. of the Prog. of Sci., I'll try to help you to a chance.
Garrigue says he can pay you $1. per page for the Translation of the Bilder-Atlas,
which will run up to about 2000 pages, you paying all your own
. He is disposed first to publish the Nat. Hist. in a vol. of about
800 pp & 138 plates. Any books you want to aid you, he will furnish at just
what they cost him. I think you can get all the assistance you need for less than $
1000. & so get $ 1000 for merely revising & correcting it.
It seems to me a good bargain for you, but don't undertake it on my advice.
I know nothing of the "learned body" you speak of. I hope the members
enjoy
sinecures and 'salaries': I being both lazy and poor.
What is the "learned body" -- Bezonian!
Speak or die!
Write Garrigue yea or nay. Mrs
Marsh is getting back again where she was last winter & is barely able to
get up & down stairs, with much pain & difficulty.
Give my love to the verehrterte Frau Professorin, with whom I hope to schwatzen in High Dutch next March. We expect to abide here certain weeks after the adjournment. I don't know how long. Yours truly
G P M.
References in this letter:
A Turkish born natural historian, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840) traveled extensively in the United States. He published over 900 works on a various of topics but specialized in botany and ichthyology.
Sylvester Churchill and Lucy Hunter Churchill were Mary Churchill Baird's parents. A Vermont native, Sylvester Churchill (1783-1862), served in the War of 1812, was Inspector General in the Mexican War, and Brigadier General during the Civil War.
Sven Nilsson, Illuminerade figurer till skandinavisk fauna, med beskrifningar. 2 vols. Lund, 1829-1838.
Charles Rudolph Garrigue, a New York publisher, obtained the plates to F. A. Brockhaus's Bilder Atlas zum Conversations Lexicon (Leipzig) with the intention of republishing them with an English text. Marsh suggested that Baird translate and revise the work. It was a massive undertaking on which Baird spent four years. Published in 1852 as The Iconographic Encyclopedia of Science, Literature, and Art, it established Baird's reputation.