He closes this letter by saying that politics is not a favorite subject with him, and that he would probably not introduce it again into their correspondence, unless in the view of communicating something which it might be important for Jefferson to know. However sincere may have been his intentions to abstain from writing on political matters, we find that in his next letter to Jefferson, written about four months later, he discusses at length the claim of Louisiana to West Florida, and gives a representation of the political outlook of Mississippi and of Louisiana.[38] In another letter, written three months later still, he opposes a resolution submitted to Congress "to deprive Jefferson College of thirty acres of land____and to give the same to the city of Natchez."[39] Dunbar's greatest claim to prominence is based upon the results of his scientific investigations. His researches in this remote and then unexplored field of inquiry brought him into fellowship with the wise and learned of all countries, and gained for him a reputation wider perhaps than that of any other scientist in the history of the State. Col. Claiborne, writing in 1876, said of him that he "was not only the most learned man of his time on the Mississippi, but we have had no man his equal since."[40] Dunbar's fondness for mathematics and astronomy made him the friend and correspondent of Sir William Herschel. He also numbered among his correspondents some of the foremost scientists of his time,--Hunter, Bartram, Rittenhouse, and Rush.