RK-699

[printed letterhead] Chicago Academy of Sciences. Rooms Chicago, [written] Jan 11, [printed] 18 [written] 59

Dear Bob.

Your circular is received. I understand there will be some opposition from the Geol. Survey, & also from the State Society. Had nt[underlined] your friends at Springfield better canvass the prospects, & if the plan wont go as it is, make a combination with one or the other of the opponents?

Now, Bob, bend your ear to the following plan. My professional business must be attended to, as it grows, or

I shall starve out & never have any chance at science at all. Now suppose I should resign the Curatorship when you come home, and have you elected, with a salary of 800 dollars, with the understanding that you should not be obliged to stay here, nor be compelled to work at all with your own hands in the museum, but you would whenever you came to town, do head work, make plans, raise money, by donations or any other way, and be a steam

engine generally. I believe you might raise your own salary & the necessary expenses of the society besides, for after navigation opens money will not be so tight as now. At the same time you might contract & execute any field surveys you also[strikethrough] could get, make your deputies here do anything you want in your absence. but come here when you had nothing else on hand & stir up the animals. I think if you were here only eight weeks in a year

it would pay to employ you. We have here now a conchologist, a mineralogist a Coleopterist a Lepidopterist I would be Palaeontologist Woodworth Hemipterist, etc. etc. etc. We could work without salaries according to your direction in your absence. I dont believe I shall abandon my profession for a post up at Lake Forest. I cant afford it. I suggest to you to put in your oar & have your name before the folks favorably for the appointment there, if it would suit you. I think you

would find it pleasanter than a Methodist College. I will help you, unless I want to get the post myself, which I dont think I shall. I propose to get a first class Medical position and not take any position which would prevent that.

But about this Curatorship – Perhaps you might not actually get over 500. or 600 dollars of your salary, but then you need not spend much time, and might select your own times of coming, and it would not prevent you from field operations from