Autobiographical Letter to Lyman C. Draper

4

...made without fee or reward. This map has been largely distributed among scientific men, societies, & libraries in Europe & America, and has done much towards making our mineral resources favorably known to the world.
But perhaps my most elaborate work is that on the 'Antiquities of Wisconsin' published in the __volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge with 55 quarto plates.
This work you know all about. Many of the ancient works there represented are now injured or destroyed by the progress of [improvement?] and all knowledge of them would soon have been lost forever, but for this work of mine!
It was in view of my contributions to the Transactions of the Wisconsin State Ag Society that a writer in Silliman's journal made this remark - 'Both to the matter which contain and the manner in which they are edited & printed, the legl trans. of the young state of Wisconsin compare most favorably with those of any of the older states. The communications, which make up a large part of the volumes are of a better, more correct scientific, and truly practical character than those which are generally met with in such publications, where the amount of chaff is apt to be grossly disproportianate to the grain.'
My observations on the climate have all been furnished to the Smithsonian Institution and go far towards making known the comparative advantages of our state in this respect.
They were furnished also to Mr. Blodgett and were used in making up his Climatology of the U. States.
I was the first to decide from careful observations that there was a slight lunar tide on L. Mich. a tide which is so slight that it can only be detected by very numerous observations, and by deducing the mean average for long periods .
These series of observations show other laws regulating...