★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
take into your possession, as some part at least of the contents
is more likely to be to the taste of your acquaintance than of
my father's. Not however that I mean that you should give away
the contents of this box as I have nothing more of the sort.
The 2 sorts of black silk you may make breeches waistcoats &c of, one
sort may serve for winter the other for summer, I have cut off a part
from each for that use. You will find also in this box a small wooden
box of tea of a sort not to be purchased here, but made me a present
of by a lady as a great rarity. This you may take in your pocket when
you go to drink tea with any of our friends and give them a taste of it.
provided always that it proves better than ordinary tea.
Irkutsk April 15th ) I send by the same Courier who takes this letter to Petersbourg two
more parcels which I desire some of my friends there to send by
sea to you. The largest is sewed up in raw hide and consists of 3 small boxes
in each of which is a very small collection of the principal mineral productions of the environs of
Herchinsk. There is a billet with a number on it put up with every piece. These numbers refer to a
Catalogue which you will receive also. Some pieces you may find at the top of the case without
billets, these are duplicates of some of the specimens which being overplus were only put in to fill
up the boxes. The small parcel consists of a box in which I have packed up some other
specimens either from Nerchnisk or other more distant parts which I have received after the
first parcel was packed up. These likewise have each of them a number referring to
the catalogue: but as the first parcel contained 3 collections so I have endeavoured to put up
in this parcel a triplicate of each specimen. You will therefore distribute these three
each to the collection to which on account of its size it is but adapted.
I have upwards of a dozen different collections of such minerals besides these 3 which
I send you some of them more compleat others less so, some of them consisting
of pieces from 2 to 10 pounds weight each. I have not weighed these my riches
but people here guess that I brought with me from Nerchinsk about 30 pouds each
poud 36 English pounds. It will however be two years & half before those can reach
England as they take their course chiefly by water. I regret that I did not in like manner
send you 2 or 3 small collections of the minerals about Catherineberg. One of those 3 keep for
yourself till I send you one of my larger ones which I have destined for you: the others give to whom you please
but I would wish that Mr Carew should have one. In the same little parcel I have put up the fossil
Alkali (see other page)
|
Identifier: | JB/539/285/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 539.
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
1782-04-15 |
|||
|
539 |
|||
|
285 |
|||
|
002 |
|||
|
Correspondence |
|||
|
Samuel Bentham |
|||