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The following letters were written to me in response to a request to furnish a few appropriate words to be placed in collections of Wisconsin mosses prepared by Dr. I. A. Lapham for several fairs held during the Civil War for the benefit of the sailors and soldiers. The mosses were mounted on cards and placed in albums, one hundred in each, and were sold for $25.00 or $80.00 each at the Sailor's Fair, Boston Nov. 1864 Northwestern Sanitary Commission Fair, Chicago and the Soldiers Home Fair Milwaukee the summer of 1865.
1865 Oliver Wendell Holmes W.C. Bryant L. G. Whittier L. G. Holland R. W. Emerson H. W. Longfellow Geo. H. Boker Elbert Parker Homells & Harriet Hoomer's letters explain themselves. Julian Ralph
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Milwaukee Jan 3 1865 Dr Brother
The inclosed copy of a Photograph so closely represents Agassiz and Scammon that I send it to you for the purpose of asking you to ascertain whether they ever sat together for their pictures in the manner represented. I wish you to do this more especially as there is much dispute here as to who the parties represented are.
The copy was made by Brown from another made in Boston.
We all join in sending the compliments of the season & I remain Yours truly I. A. Lapham
Col.Saml. Stone
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[Left Page] Mark as blank
[Right Page] Office U.S. Lake Survey Detroit January 3rd 1865 I. A. Lapham Esqr
Dear Sir: We have sometimes considerable difficulty in determining the exact time both on the self registering tide gauge and anemograph in consequence sometimes of the stoppage of the clock and a neglect of making the time at which it stopped, and at other times the loss or gain of time with running of the clock. Another thing almost all our observers are serious in aim that is in not marking the hour exactly on the sheet every day when it is visited for the purpose of winding the clock
It would be easy by turning the wheel to make a vertical mark with the recording pencil from the top to the bottom of the sheet and there recording on the sheet the exact time of its occurrence.
If this were done every day at the winding of the clock it would save us a great deal of trouble as well as uncertainty. Some of our observers let it run on indefinitely sometimes three or four days, a week, or even a whole month without marking the day or hour on the sheet except perhaps at the beginning and ending of the month.
We would like if possible some explanation with regards to the characters of the pencil marks on the water sheets. These appear to be there or from fluids, differing some of them only in degree
