Transcribe Ward, Henry A. Letter to Brooks, Gary (1877-09-01)

concerned in the cabinets for the University of Virginia except in the single item of the great </u Mammoth model > for which </s we > I gave him a written statement dated July 28 of this year. Our cabinets at the University of Virginia are now fast approaching completion. I hope to do the last work upon them in October, and to take the Mammoth down and mount it in November. Tho I shall myself supply the Archoological cabinet (somewhat reduced in size) at my own expense. - my contribution toward this great work. The books can perhaps be </s sought and > ^in part^ selected </s from and stand > from the Main Library of the University and in part donated by some one in Washington.

  But the Botanical Cabinet  </s surly > remains unprovided for.

The Botanical </u Hall > is there (as you will see on the enclosed photograph - "second floor plan" - taken in 1876) but there is nothing to put upon its shelves. This is a very </s sad > serious defect, as it is a very sad one. It leaves out one most important science in a building which proposed to represent all the circle of the Natural Sciences. Its absence is a flaw and a blank in an otherwise perfect structure, one of the very few perfect Scientific Structures in America. It is very bad and very sad that this is so. He would have been most un- willing to have had this omission, It was the </s completeness and > symmetry of his great work, leaving it incomplete and im- perfect. I am horribly troubled about this defect in one of the otherwise, most perfect and excellent scientific [Mounts] of our country. I have told you that Mr Brooks had not