From Alexander Agassiz   9 December 1872

I have to thank you for the trouble you have taken in sending me a copy of your “Expression of the Emotions,” which has duly come to hand.¹ I have not had a moment to look into it, in part on account of the work of distributing some collections which have lately arrived, and in part owing to the great fire which has devastated Boston, and which has affected us all more or less seriously.² I have been hit pretty hard, not in a money way, but what is worse infinitely, I have lost a year’s work by the destruction of six Plates of anatomy with the original drawings, of which I have not even a sketch. They had been sent to Boston the morning of the fire to be lettered preparatory to printing. In addition I lost all the stones of the first parts of the “Revision of the Echini;” fortunately about three fifths of the edition of the Plates had been struck off and was safely housed at the Museum. This leaves us with rather a short supply, but the remainder of the book, which I hoped to get out before spring, must be delayed a long time, as I feel neither heart nor have I the time to start fresh and do all this again just as it was completed.³ I have sent to the Zoölogical Society a package for you, which please claim from Mr. Sclater.⁴ I presume it should arrive a few days after this letter. I have made pretty extensive use of the new processes of photographic printing in my book, and from what I have succeeded in obtaining trust it will hereafter be possible to supersede the old lithographic processes, which are wasteful in time and money, and not half as accurate.⁵