From Richard Twopeny   15 June 1823

Blair Atholl

15 June 1823

My dear Henslow,

I am afraid that I give you a great deal of trouble in sending you the first fruits of my labours in Scotland; I am just commencing to collect, & have sent you a package which I find very inconvenient to carry with my knapsack, but which I carry fear is hardly worth the carriage to Cambridge; you must not pay the slightest attention to the names I have marked down, many of wch are by guess not always having had a book with me. I wish you would dry them & poison them & if any suit you take what you like. Nothing scarcely is out here, the summer being just in its commencement, the snow not off the mountains & when Gwatkin wanted a pudding yesterday the gooseberry trees were not out of flower. However at present we have spent our time very pleasantly & have enjoyed the scenery very much. Gwatkin is quite a geologist, & discovered a great deal of coal & bituminous matter on the top of Calton Hill in Edinburgh, & it was not until we had framed our hypothesis that we discovered that it was part of the ruin of the bonfire & tar barrel at the king’s last visit to Scotland. I will be much obliged to you to write me word of the arrival or non arrival of the plants, & also any Cambridge news which you have to communicate, & let it be in the post office at Glasgow by the first of July under which expectation I drink your health in Atholl Brose.

Your sincere friend | R.Twopeny

Please cite as “HENSLOW-11,” in Ɛpsilon: The Correspondence of John Stevens Henslow accessed on 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/henslow/letters/letters_11