altogether escaped it, and I was one of that small number. Thank God, I never was in better health, and could I have but a few moments with you, I might add, in excellent spirits. Even the employment of writing to you, tends to enliven my mind. It is singular, that while my left eye is become infinitely more delicate and clear in its power of vision, the sight of my right eye is utterly gone; and, under every circumstance it is to me as dark as midnight. If I look through a telescope or microscope, I generally see objects pretty well at a short distance, but the least fatigue brings on a doubling of the object, with a surrounding vapory haze, that soon conceals everything. These results were owing to an attack of opthalmia. in 1826, followed by snow-blindness, and rendered irretrievable by the scorching heat of California. I use purple goggles to diminish the glare of the snow, though most reluctantly, as every object, plants and all, is thus rendered of the same colour.
If you happen to be acquainted with Mr. James Wilson,[1] of Edinburgh, brother of the celebrated Professor of that name, I beg you will offer him my sincere respects, and say that I have a few things for his "Illustrations," and a fine collection of birds for the College Museum.
I am two letters in your debt, for last autumn, at the Columbia River, I had the great pleasure to receive, through Dr. Meredith Gairdner,[2] a very long letter from you: and the same happiness was conferred on me on the 16th of April, by your last, which was exactly a year old, and in which you mention having addressed me just two two months previously. I imagine this last letter must have been sent by Captain Back, or the annual express of the Hudson's Bay Company; but I had left [for] the sea before the express arrived.
My meeting with Dr. Gairdner afforded me heart-felt satisfaction, not only because he is a most accomplished and amiable young gentleman, devotedly attached to Natural History, and warmly recommended by you, but also because he told me of your health, and that of your family: the additions to your Herbarium, etc. I endeavored to show him the attentions to which every friend of yours is justified at my hands, and only regret that our time together was so short; for he is a person whom I highly respect. Mr. Tolmie had quitted the Columbia
- ↑ Mr. Wilson was, at the time, engaged in publishing his beautifnl Zoological Illustrations. Ed.
- ↑ This accomplished gentleman, together with Mr. Tolmie, one of my most zealous botanical students, I had the pleasure of recommending to medical appointments in the Hudson Bay Company's possessions on the North-West Coast of America. The latter gentleman is stationed at Fort McLoughlin in Millbank Sound, N. lat. 52°.
