In July, 1845, a destructive fire devastated a large section of the city of New York, including the warehouse in which the copperplates of Audubon's Birds were stored; many believed that the plates had been ruined, and one of these was the writer who after witnessing the event gave the following dramatic account:[204]
But who had lost most of all that pale crowd that hung like ghosts around the scene, and gazed with watery eyes, and blue compressed lips, over the ruin? An erect old man, with long white hair, glanced his strong bright eye as coldly over the glowing, smoking desolation, as an eagle would, who watched the sunrise chasing mists up from the valley. J. J. Audubon looks over the grave of the labor of forty years!
The Plates of the Birds of America are buried beneath those smoldering piles! Ye money changers dare not break the stillness with a sob, though the last cent of your sordid hoards be gone! ... go away! Ye have lost nothing!... Yet that dauntless old man is not dismayed; he and Fate knew each other's faces in battle long ago. Let those who know how to love and venerate such labors—to sympathize with such grievous calamities, exhibit it in their prompt patronage of the new work now issuing—The Quadrupeds of America—and in the care which shall be taken to preserve the volumes of the Plates of the Birds, now in existence—the value of which will be five-fold increased!
When Baird heard the untoward news, he wrote from Carlisle, August 4, 1845: "It is with sincerest regret that I see by the papers that your copper plates were injured or perhaps ruined by the fire which occurred a few weeks ago. Various reports are circulated respecting your loss, and among so many contradictory ones it is difficult to get at the truth of the case. Might I ask you to let me know the truth of the matter." In a postscript to this letter he added: "I forgot to say that I have been elected professor of Natural History in Dickinson College. The situation is entirely nominal, nothing to do & no salary whatever." Audubon replied promptly on the 7th of August:[205] "You have been too well-informed about the plates of our large work. They have indeed passed through the great fire of the 19 ul°; but we are now engaged in trying to restore them to their wonted former existence; although a few of them will have to be reingraved for use, if ever that work is republished in its original size at all."
Bachman, who paid a long visit to the Audubons in the late summer or early autumn of 1845, said that while he was at "Minnie's Land," Audubon painted "Le Conte's Pine Mouse" with his usual facility and skill, but he detected a change in his mental powers. For a long time Bachman had complained of the want of books, which the younger Audubons failed to supply, and of lack of specimens, which no doubt their father wished to retain for use in his own studies, until at length his patience was gone and he tried another form of appeal. The following letter[206] to their mutual friend, Edward Harris, shows that he was then determined to throw up the responsibility which had been assumed in the Quadrupeds unless what he regarded as "reasonable requests" were complied with forthwith:
John Bachman to Edward Harris
Charleston, Decem. 24, 1845.
Friend Harris, you can be of service to me, to the Audubons & the cause of science. I will tell you how.
I find the Audubons are not aware of what is wanted in the publication of the Quadrupeds. All they care about is to get out a No. of engravings in two months. They have not sent me one single book out of a list of 100 I gave them and only 6 lines copied from a book after having written for them for 4 years. When he published his birds he collected hundreds of thousands of specimens. In his Quadrupeds—tell it not in Gath—He never collected or sent me one skin from New York to Louisiana along the whole of the Atlantic States. Now he is clamorous for the letter press—on many of the Quadrupeds he has not sent me one line & and on others he has omitted even the geographical range—I know nothing of what he did in the West having never received his journal & not twenty lines on the subject. I am to write a book without the information he promised to give—without books of reference & above all what is a sine qua non to me without specimens. In the meantime my name is attached to the book, and the public look to us to settle our American species, and alas I have not the materials to do so.
Now this you can do for me. I am willing to write every description and every line of the book. I do it without fee or reward. But—1. Books of reference or copies of them he must obtain. 2. He must publish no species without my approbation. He has made some sad mistakes already. 3. He must procure such information as I shall write for. 4. He must send some person—say when John returns—to make a tour for collecting specimens through the states of the west especially. I find the smaller Rodentia differing every 600 miles. Richardson's species differ from those of New York—ours are once more different from those of N. Y. Leib [?] found a number of new species in Illinois. The New Orleans squirrels differ from ours—California once more new. Now on this last particular—the necessity of giving me specimens to describe from I wish you to speak to Audubon. I cannot consent to impose on the public. I cannot settle the species without specimens. [Tell] him what I have written and [of what I have] complained. Show him this letter if you should [think] it will accomplish the end. I shall soon have the volume finished as well as I am able from the scanty materials with which I am furnished. Then they will be clamorous for the second volume. Now I do not like to make any threats, but if my reasonable requests are not complied with I have made up my mind not to write another line at the end of the first volume. I have not made up my mind hastily. It is the result of four years remonstrance, mortification, and disappointment. Once and for nearly a year I gave up the matter in hopeless despair. I again resumed it on the solemn promise of Victor to do all I wished. Three months have since gone round and not one book sent—only ten lines copied—and a constant clamor for the letter press. But I am called off.