Transcribe Ward, Henry A. Letter to Dewey, Chester (1857-03-21)

of the science to which I anticipate devoting myself in the future as also of the importance & seriousness of the preparatory studies which I shall require. The collateral advantages of my journey are as great as they are varied. - I have obtained a distinct connected, although of necessity a very ^superficial^ </u general, > acquaintance with the geology of a large part of Europe. I have become conversant with much of the geologies investigation which is at present being made on the continent. I have also received from the various geologists whom I have visited something like a hundred pamphlet publications., each containing from ten to three hundred pages of scientific matter, which I can always read, or refer to, with pleasure. The greater part of these are in German & Italian which languages now read with a much greater facility than if I had not been for months in the countries where they are spoken. Finally my </u collections > have been very large. -</u 14 > boxes in all. I have many fine valuable minerals, but I paid much less attention to their collection from the reason that they are of less importance to me than are characteristic rocks & fossils as also living shells. Of these two latter classes of specimens I have made large acquisitions. It is but a few days since that Prof. Sismondaz of Turin (Piedmont) sent me a large box with </u 300 species of Pliocene fossils, > all well represented & labelled. I have now the fossils of the different diverse of the tertiary series finely represented, viz. A large