New Haven August 6, 1835
Dear Sir,
I am much gratified that you are seriously at work upon the turkey tracks, or bird tracks of whatever kind they may be & you may rest assured that I shall publish nothing upon the subject until I receive it from you. I will therefore expect you to do justice to Dr. Deane as you are perfectly acquainted with the circumstances & if you see Dr. Deane I will thank you to intimate to him what I have just said. My impressions are so strong in favor of the genuineness of the discovery–judging only from the imperfect copy I have in plaster–that I feel increasingly desirous to have the matter investigated & I do not know in whose hands it can be better placed.
It would be a most interesting geological conclusion to establish that there were birds at so early an era as the new sandstone & especially that turkeys were gobbling & strutting so long before their rival man.
Sooner or later I shall hope to publish your translation of the memoir of
Benjamin Silliman promises Edward Hitchcock to publish Hitchcock's writing on the "turkey tracks" first, but asks Hitchcock to give some credit to James Deane for discovering the tracks. He goes on to discuss the works of Ami Boué, Henry Samuel Boase, and his opinions of "F___". "F." was George William Featherstonhaugh (pronounced, in true English fashion, "Fanshaw"), an Englishman who emigrated to America and ensconced himself as the first official geologist to the United States government, much to the irritation of American geologists. Silliman ends his letter with a request for how he might obtain or make an electromagnet.