Four-and-a-Half Months’ Stay in New Harmony
Description of the region – Natural history – Messrs. Say, Lesueur, and Owen – Hunting excursions in Indiana and Illinois – Wabash, Fox River – Illinois prairies – Albion – Black River – Mr. Bodmer’s trip to New Orleans
November 25, 1832
In the morning at seven thirty, 1°R [34.3°F, 1.3°C]. Lightly overcast sky, weather calm. We had much work to do describing, measuring, and preparing our animals. Yesterday at the home of Mr. Lesueur I had met a gunsmith who lives 4 miles from here; he was exceedingly well pleased with my Morgenroth rifle-shotgun. He could not stop praising it and declared that in his entire life he had never seen anything like it and wished to be allowed to take it apart. Mr. Lesueur gave me the titles of the works in which he has published his individual treatises. He had received word that his last big shipment had arrived in France. At twelve o’clock noon, temperature of 10 3/4°R [56.2°F, 13.4°C]. The afternoon stroll was pleasant; the weather was very nice and warm but windy.
I visited Mr. Say in his little house in the garden, where he usually works. There he keeps his shells and insects, and [it] is his favorite place. He maintains a very extensive correspondence, very much of it with Europe, and receives very many cases. He does not think much of dainty collections; therefore, he has little interest in European insects. On the other hand, he is now looking especially for all kinds of marine crustaceans for purposes of comparison, since he is editing a work on all the crustaceans of North America, including the West Indies. Dreidoppel, too, was sick today; he is beginning to suffer from the same affliction that I have suffered from for six weeks. In the evening, [a] visit from Mr. Say, a really fine, pleasant man who comes just so that I will not be left alone.