A letter of this date from Professor Silliman, of New Haven,
Connecticut, marks the beginning of his relations with his future
New England home, and announces his first New England subscribers.
YALE COLLEGE NEW HAVEN, UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, April 22, 1835.
. . .From Boston, March 6th, I had the honor to thank you for your letter of January 5th, and for your splendid present of your great work on fossil fishes—livraison 1-22—received, with the plates. I also gave a notice of the work in the April number of the Journal* (* "The American Journal of Science and Arts".) (this present month), and republished Mr. Bakewell's account of your visit to Mr. Mantell's museum.
In Boston I made some little efforts in behalf of your work, and have the pleasure of naming as follows:—
Harvard University, Cambridge (Cambridge is only four miles from
Boston), by Hon. Josiah Quincy, President.
Boston Athenaeum, by its Librarian.
Benjamin Green, Esquire, President of the Boston Natural History
Society.
I shall make application to some other institutions or individuals, but do not venture to promise anything more than my best exertions . . .
Agassiz little dreamed, as he read this letter, how familiar these far-off localities would become to him, or how often, in after years, he would traverse by day and by night the four miles which lay between Boston and his home in Cambridge.
Agassiz still sought and received, as we see by the following letter, Humboldt's sympathy in every step of his work.