PARIS, Sept. 20, 1787.
DEAR SIR,--Your favor of April the 28th did not come to my hands till
the first instant. Unfortunately, the box of plants, which were a day
too late to come by the April packet, missed the packet of June the
10th also, and only came by that of July the 25th. They are not yet
arrived at Paris, but I expect them daily. I am sensible of your kind
attention to them, and that as you were leaving New York, you took the
course which bade fair to be the best. That they were forgotten in the
hands in which you placed them, was probably owing to too much
business, and more important. I have desired Mr. Madison to refund to
you the money you were so kind as to advance for me. The delay of your
letter will apologize for this delay of the repayment. I thank you also
for the extract of the letter you were so kind as to communicate to me,
on the antiquities found in the western country. I wish that the
persons who go thither would make very exact descriptions of what they
see of that kind, without forming any theories. The moment a person
forms a theory, his imagination sees, in every object, only the traits
which favor that theory. But it is too early to form theories on those
antiquities. We must wait with patience till more facts are collected.
I wish your Philosophical Society would collect exact descriptions of
the several monuments as yet known, and insert them naked in their
Transactions, and continue their attention to those hereafter to be
discovered. Patience and observation may enable us in time, to solve
the problem, whether those who formed the scattering monuments in our
western country, were colonies sent off from Mexico, or the founders of
Mexico itself? Whether both were the descendants or the progenitors of
the Asiatic red men? The Mexican tradition, mentioned by Dr. Robertson,
is an evidence, but a feeble one, in favor of the one opinion. The
number of languages radically different, is a strong evidence in favor
of the contrary one. There is an American by the name of Ledyard, he
who was with Captain Cook on his last voyage, and wrote an account of
that voyage, who has gone to St. Petersburg; from thence he was to go
to Kamschatka; to cross over thence to the northwest coast of America,
and to penetrate through the main continent, to our side of it. He is a
person of ingenuity and information. Unfortunately, he has too much
imagination. However, if he escapes safety, he will give us new,
curious and useful information. I had a letter from him, dated last
March, when he was about to leave St. Petersburg on his way to
Kamschatka.
With respect to the inclination of the strata of rocks, I had observed
them between the Blue Ridge and North Mountains in Virginia, to be
parallel with the pole of the earth. I observed the same thing in most
instances in the Alps, between Cette and Turin; but in returning along
the precipices of the Apennines, where they hang over the
Mediterranean, their direction was totally different and various; and
you mention that in our western country they are horizontal. This
variety proves they have not been formed by subsidence, as some writers
of theories of the earth have pretended; for then they should always
have been in circular strata, and concentric. It proves, too, that they
have not been formed by the rotation of the earth on its axis, as might
have been suspected, had all these strata been parallel with that axis.
They may, indeed, have been thrown up by explosions, as Whitehurst
supposes, or have been the effect of convulsions. But there can be no
proof of the explosion, nor is it probable that convulsions have
deformed every spot of the earth. It is now generally agreed that rock
grows, and it seems that it grows in layers in every direction, as the
branches of trees grow in all directions. Why seek further the solution
of this phenomenon? Everything in nature decays. If it were not
reproduced then by growth, there would be a chasm.
I remember you asked me, in a former letter, whether the steam mill in
London was turned by the steam immediately, or by the intermediate
agency of water raised by the steam. When I was in London, Boulton made
a secret of his mill. Therefore, I was permitted to see it only
superficially. I saw no water wheels, and, therefore, supposed none. I
answered you, accordingly, that there were none. But when I was at
Nismes, I went to see the steam mill there, and they showed it to me in
all the parts. I saw that their steam raised water, and that this water
turned a wheel. I expressed my doubts of the necessity of the
inter-agency of water, and that the London mill was without it. But
they supposed me mistaken; perhaps I was so; I have had no opportunity
since of clearing up the doubt.
* * * * * * * *
I had a letter from Mr. Churchman, but not developing his plan of
knowing the longitude, fully. I wrote him what was doubted about it, so
far as we could conjecture what it was.
I am, with very great and sincere esteem, dear Sir, your friend and
servant.