I don't know the young man in the Coast Survey office, & it is utterly out of my power to see him. I am told he works cheap & well. Write him directly, addressing Mr. Hilgard, Coast Survey, Washington, & I presume you will soon hear from him. As to terms you will save time & trouble both by corresponding directly with Garrigue.

References in this letter:

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.