Dieffenbach had corresponded with the German publisher Eduard Vieweg about the possibility of producing an encyclopaedia of science, but nothing came of the project (Bell 1976, p. 117).
This note, ‘If … Liebig’, was written on the cover. Dieffenbach had studied with Justus von Liebig and served as his agent in England in connection with a fertiliser enterprise (Bell 1976, pp. 18, 107–11).
[With the notation "If not there to be forwarded by favour of Prof. Liebig" on the address.] "I am very glad to hear that you are going to edit a German Geological Journal".