Boston Feby. 23. ’55.
Dear Sir,
Yesterday by steamer, I received a letter from Sir Wm. Jardine, by which it appears that, he is not inclined to buy specimens, having a great collection, but desirous to obtain- he has however, authorised me to purchase a few on your terms, that is, a dollar apiece.- If, therefore, you will put up fifteen or twenty specimens, the best you can afford, and pack them so as to go safely to
John Collins Warren writes to Roswell Field that he has been contacted by Sir William Jardine, the well-known Scottish ornithologist and author of The Ichnology of Annandale or illustrations of footmarks impressed on the New Red Sandstone of Corncockle Muir, about purchasing fossil footprints from the Connecticut River Valley. Sir William's interest in fossil footprints was first recorded in 1837, the year after Edward Hitchcock's publication on the topic of similar prints in the same kind of rock in western Massachusetts.
The letter is the start of a series between Warren and Roswell Field orchestrating an exchange of fossils between Jardine and Field. Unfortunately, only Warren's side of the correspondence still exists, but it is clear that he became increasingly exasperated as Jardine was slow to respond to letters and even slower to repay Warren for shipping costs. Dr. Warren, son of an elite family of physicians who had helped to found the Massachusetts General Hospital, was no snob, as evidenced in this letter, in which his respect for Field, who had only a common school education, as a local expert, comes through clearly.