As to the “Botany of the South Sea Exploring Expedition,” the manuscript and the drawings are ready up nearly to the Leguminosæ; and the printing, which is not under my control, is about to commence. The work will probably make three quarto volumes and 300 folio plates. I shall be sure to have a copy to send you. As to the specimens, there are few duplicates; and of these I am not myself allowed to retain any. Possibly, hereafter, some may be awarded to me. That expedition did not land on the high Antarctic coasts it saw, and therefore made no collections there. Its Antarctic collection is all from Orange Harbor, Tierra del Fuego, and has little that is new. The most interesting part of the collection was made at the Sandwich and Feejee islands. My wife and I well remember what a charming place Vallon is, and retain pleasant memories of our trip to the Salève under the charge of Madame De Candolle, despite the bad weather which spoiled the view. We should delight to revisit Switzerland. Having no children, it is not impossible that we may do so; but the time, I fear, is far in the future.... I have written a much longer letter than I had intended when I began. Believe me to remain, yours very faithfully, ASA GRAY. TO GEORGE ENGELMANN. CAMBRIDGE, July 14, 1853. MY DEAR ENGELMANN,--This cover has been addressed to you for a long while, but I have delayed to fill and close it, not so much because you had not written, for I knew you must be very busy now, but because the convenient time has not exactly come. For I have been very busy. College work done up only last week; printing of “Exploring Expedition Botany,” in which I have read proofs up to 220 pages, and gave to-night finished manuscript (except a few crooked points to settle in a family or two) up to the end of Rosaceæ (which will make about 450 pages. It fills up fast with the open pages adopted in these reports). I shall carry on the volume to 550 or 650 pages, and the plates folio, already 56, shall carry up to 100, if I can. There is next some tough work in Myrtaceæ and Melastomaceæ; but as to the latter Naudin has much cleared the way. Those done, and I think I may venture to work part of the time on the Lindheimer, Fendler, and Wright Monopetalæ. Agassiz returned most delighted with his visit to you, and we talked much of you.... I am afraid to touch Gregg’s Mexican plants, for fear of the time they would consume. In “Exploring Expedition,” I branch out little or none, except a few notes in Malvaceæ, and probably more in Compositæ. If I could do the work abroad, I could work up collateral things most advantageously; but the means here at disposal are too poor. Still, you will be pleased with my volume i. when I finish and send it to you (the letterpress this fall!). No specimens scarcely of Cactaceæ in collection Exploring Expedition,--a drawing or two. I shall send them on to you presently....