By the way, meeting Agassiz last evening, I was pleased to learn that he claimed you as a schoolmate, and spoke of you with lively pleasure. He is a fine, pleasant fellow. We shall take good care of him here. January 5, 1847. I am glad so fine a collection is on the way from Lindheimer, and greatly approve his going to the mountains on the Guadaloupe. How high are the mountains? If good, real mountains, and he can get on to them, and into secluded valleys, he will do great things.... We will keep ahead of the Bonn people. By the close of next summer (Deo favente) we may hope to have the botany of Texas pretty well in our hands. Do you hear from Fendler? Hooker says that region, the mountains especially, is the best ground to explore in North America! There is a high mountain right back of Santa Fé. Fendler must ravish it. TO JOHN TORREY. Wednesday, [October, 1846]. A Mr. Baird,[147] of Carlisle, Pa., called on me yesterday, evidently a most keen naturalist (ornithology principally), but a man of more than common grasp. He talked about an evergreen-leaved Vaccinium, which I have no doubt is V. brachycerum, Mx., that I have so long sought in vain!... 13th October, 1846. I leave Agassiz in New York. He will leave New York Wednesday morning; join me at Princeton, and go on with us to Philadelphia that evening. We shall probably go together to Carlisle, where he has something to do with that capital naturalist, Professor Baird, and I have to get live Vaccinium brachycerum. He will soon return to make ready his lectures here. Agassiz is an excellent fellow, and I know you will be glad to make his personal acquaintance. I must make my stay, such as it can be, at Princeton, on my return.... 9th December, 1846. Agassiz lectured first last evening; fine audience; he had a cold; was very hoarse, so that he spoke with discomfort to himself, but it went off very well. Though he by no means did himself justice, the audience seemed well pleased, and the persons I spoke with at the time, the most intelligent people, were quite delighted and impressed. He has repeated to-day. I expect to hear him again on Friday.... I have sixteen proofs of “Genera Illustrata.” The engraving is clean and neat, but except a few of the last, they are not done so well as we expect, and do not do justice to the drawings, which, indeed, are almost matchless. Prestele has, in some, altered the arrangement of the analyses on the plate; consequently they must be done over again. I am clear that Prestele can do what I want, so I have given him further instructions, and have raised his pay to $2.50 each; increasing my own risk thereby. Sprague has discovered some new quiddities about the position of the ovule in Ranunculaceæ. The raphe is dorsal in all of them, with pendulous ovules; also in Nelumbium. He will go on very slowly; I can’t hurry him. He has not yet taken up Croomia. You have not told me about Chapman’s queer plant yet!...