WCP134

[1]

Broadstone

Tuesday Morning

[in WGW’s hand] [April 9 1908]

My dear Will¹

I enclose a few more notes, which I hope will enable you & Benham to go on. I will gladly give him the book you say he wants.

The Wall is getting on well, though slowly. We have had now 41 cart loads of gravel & sand, & barely enough to finish! Over 100— 10 foot 1" boards, and 60, 2x2 and 2x4 struts are in use [2] and barely enough to keep it going! A bricklayer, a labourer, gardener helping, and ^a carpenter all the time— the fitting up and taking down the piers & bays ^&c. being always going on.

But it will be a permanent & handsome job— & I shall (in the autumn) use the boards & struts to put up a wooden 6 ft. to 7’6". fence along the top boundary!

[3] I am grinding away at the D. N. [Daily News] Questions— but have given up all hope of getting even the smallest £1 prize! There ^are evidently thousands of very clever young fellows who read (or have read for them) every line of the paper, and devote great time & care in writing their answers. The²£1000 prize has brought these to compete.

Mr Slater discovered a few weeks back, a lot of 65 of Spruces^{3 large} drawings— in of Peru— one, a fine finished view [4] of the Mountains of Tarapoto— the others in the same district in careful outline or partially shaded. I have got Mr Young (here) a good artist, to finish them all, & 2 others of the Rio Negro & Orinoko [sic]— which he has done exceedingly well, and they will form together 7 full page illustrations, which are a great addition. I have now too— 1^st & 2^nd proofs coming in 2-3 times a week—, so I am pretty full of work.

Your affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]