Sea voyage from England, a week of rough weather and seasickness followed by five days of calm; ships food; passengers, one the brother of a pupil at William's school, Cranleigh, William can tell him that his brother was not seasick and has a good appetite; charades, concerts, deck quoits and chess on board; description of Statue of Liberty, New York harbour and ships, with small ink sketch of a paddle steamer; visit to Central Park with Mr Browne; autumn colours; country between New York and Boston, painted wooden houses like toys; Boston hotel and food; has telegraphed family at Hurst, will write to Violet next week.

Visit to Prof Morse at Salem, Morse's Japanese artefacts and books, his 15 year old son's weekly natural history club meetings and collections of flints, shells and insects; visit to Prof Marsh at Newhaven Connecticut, his fossil collection including great animal skulls and skeletons; explosion of rotten ostrich egg in Marsh's museum (Peabody Museum, Yale); ARW's lecture to ladies' college at Poughkeepsie; route of travel to Baltimore via New York. Newhaven landscape; Prof. Marsh's 10 acre grounds and house of his own design with octagonal sitting room and rooms displaying china and artefacts including American Indian scalps and heads of animals shot by Marsh; Marsh's travels in the Rocky Mountains; Baltimore park, streets and buildings; Maryland a Slave state before the war, many people black, antics of waiters in hotels.

Newspaper reports of snow in England; snow in Washington, sleighs on the streets; stone artefacts from grave mounds displayed in American museums (ink sketch of five of these on p. 2 of letter); museum's orang-utan display; encloses some amusing cuttings (not present) from American papers; urges William to apply himself to carpentry lessons at school. "William Greenell Wallace" is written on the back of the letter in ARW's hand.

No summary available.

New house at Parkstone, Dorset; marking examination papers; packing fossils and birds eggs; spiritualism.