Volney wrote again on April 28, 1804, and on May 7, sending other copies of his work.

Jefferson replied in a long letter dated from Washington, February 8, 1805: “ Your letter of Nov. 26. came to hand May 14. the books some time after; which were all distributed according to direction. the copy for the E. Indies went immediately by a safe conveyance. the letter of Apr. 28 & the copy of your work accompanying that did not come to hand till August. that copy was deposited in the Congressional library. it was not till my return here from my autumnal visit to Monticello that I had an opportunity of reading your work. I have read it, and with great satisfaction. of the first past I am less a judge than most people, having never travelled Westward of Stanton, so as to know any thing of the face of the country; nor much indulged myself in geological enquiries, from a belief that the skin-deep scratches which we can make or find on the surface of the earth do not repay our time with as certain & useful deductions as our pursuits in some other branches. the subject of our winds is more familiar to me. on that the views you have taken are always great, supported in their outlines by your facts, and though more extensive observations, and longer continued may produce some anomalies, yet they will probably take their place in this first great canvas which you have sketched . . . ”

Jefferson then wrote a long comparison of the climate of the United States with that of Canada, and with that of Europe, with its effect on the inhabitants.

Following this dissertation on climate, the letter continued: “ . . . The account you give of the yellow fever, is entirely agreeable to what we then knew of it. further experience has developed more & more it’s peculiar character . . . ”

The latest developments in knowledge of the causes, treatments, and means of prevention of yellow and other fevers follow, after which this paragraph: “ . . . The genus irritabile vatum could not let the author of the Ruins publish a new work, without seeking in it the means of discrediting that puzzling composition. some one of these holy calumniators has selected from your new work every scrap of a sentence, which, detached from it’s context, could displease an American reader. a Cento has been made of these which has run thro’ a particular description of newspapers, and excited a disapprobation even in friendly minds, which nothing but the reading of the book will cure. but time and truth will at length correct error . . . ”

The next paragraph has nothing to do with Volney’s works but is of the greatest interest to the Jefferson scholar, as it introduces for the first time the invention of, and Jefferson’s use of, the polygraph. “ . . . Our countrymen are so much occupied in the busy scenes of life that they have little time to write or invent. a good invention here therefore is such a rarity as is lawful to offer to the acceptance of a friend. a m ( ^~ r) Hawkins of Frankford near Philadelphia has invented a machine which he calls a Polygraph, and which carries 2. 3. or 4. pens. that of 2. pens, with which I am now writing, is best, and is so perfect that I have laid aside the copying-press for a twelve-month past, & write always with the Polygraph. I have directed one to be made of which I ask your acceptance. by what conveyance I shall send it while Havre is blockaded, I do not yet know.

" I think you will be pleased with it, & will use it habitually as I do; because it requires only that degree of mechanical attention which I know you to posses . . . ”

A postscript to this letter reads: “ the sheets which you recieve are those of the copying pen of the Polygraph, not of the one with which I have written.”

Constantin François Chasseboeuf, Comte de Volney[,] 1757-1820, came to the United States in 1795, to obtain material for this book. In 1797 he was accused of being a French spy sent to obtain information preparatory to the reoccupation of Louisiana by France, and in the following year was compelled to return to France. He became a friend of Jefferson, who acquired, by gift or purchase, a number of his writings, including a copy of the Ruines , mentioned in the above quoted letter. Volney’s Vocabulaire de la Langue des Miamis was mentioned to Jefferson by Johann Severin Vater, in sending him his Untersuchungen über Amerika’s Bevölkerung [see no. 443]: “. . . I need not tell You, Sir, how important are extensive collections of the words of the American languages, but how little sufficient a collection of words, however, extensive, can be for the pur- ”