For Stith’s History of Virginia, annotated with a quotation from this letter, see no. 463.

Taylor is reputed to be the author of a work entitled Historical Sketches of the internal improvements of Virginia , but it is not listed in any bibliography consulted, and no copy has been traced.

In the following year, in reply to Lewis Caleb Beck, who had sent him a pamphlet with an account of the climate of the Mississippi Valley (probably the General Geographical and Statistical View of the State of Missouri , published in A Gazetteer of the States of Illinois and Missouri ), Jefferson wrote on July 16, 1824: “ I thank you, Sir, for your pamphlet on the climate of the West, and have read it with great satisfñ. altho’ it does not yet establish a satisfactory theory, it is an addñal step towds it. mine was perhaps the 1 ^st. attempt, not to form a theory, but to bring together the few facts then known and suggest them to publick attention. they were written between 40. & 50 y ago, before the close of the revolutionary war, when the Western country was a wilderness untrodden but by the foot of the savage or the hunter. it is now flourishing in population and science, and after a few years more of observation & collection of facts they will doubtless furnish a theory of solid foundñ. years are requisite for this, steady attention to the thermometer, to the plants grown there, the times of their leafing and flowering, it’s animal inhabitants, beasts birds, reptiles & inspects, [ sic -- Ed. ] it’s prevalent winds, quantities of rain and snow temperature of fountains and other indexes of climate. we want this indeed for all the states, and the work should be repeated once or twice in a century to shew the effect of clearing and culture towds change of climate. my Notes give a very imperfect idea of what our climate was, half a century ago, at this place, which being nearly central to the state may be taken for it’s medium. latterly after 7. y. of close & exact observñ, I have prepared an estimate of what it is now, which may some day be added to the former work; and I hope something like this is doing in the other states, which, when all shall be brought together, may produce theories meriting confidence.

" I trust that yourself will not be inattentive to this service, and that to that of the present epoch you may be able to add a 2 ^d. at the distance of another half-century. with this wish accept the assurances of my respectful considñ. ”

Jefferson’s own account of the history of the Notes on the State of Virginia as described by him in his autobiography reads: . . . Before I had left America, that is to say in the year 1781 I had recieved a letter from M. de Marbois, of the French legation in Phidelphia [sic] , informing me he had been instructed by his government to obtain such statistical accounts of the different states of our Union, as might be useful for their information; and addressing to me a number of queries relative to the state of Virginia. I had always made it a practice whenever an opportunity occurred of obtaining any information of our country, which might be of use to me in any station public or private, to commit it to writing. these memoranda were on loose papers, bundled up without order, and difficult of recurrence when I had occasion for a particular one. I thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did in the order of m ( ^~ r) Marbois’ queries, so as to answer his wish and to arrange them for my own use. some friends to whom they were occasionally communicated wished for copies; but their volume rendering this too laborious by hand, I proposed to get a few printed for their gratification. I was asked such a price however as exceeded the importance of the object. on my arrival at Paris I found it could be done for a fourth of what I had been asked here. I therefore corrected and enlarged them, and had 200. copies printed, under the title of Notes on Virginia. I gave a very few copies to some particular persons in Europe, and sent the rest to my friends in America. an European copy, by the death of the owner, got into the hands of a bookseller, who engaged it’s translation, & when ready for the press, communicated his intentions & Manuscript to me, without any other permission than that of suggesting corrections. I never had seen so wretched an attempt at translation. interverted, abridged, mutilated, and often reversing the sense of the original, I found it a blotch of errors from beginning to end. I corrected some of the most material, and in that form it was printed in French. a London bookseller, on seeing the translation, requested me to permit him to print the English original. I thought it best to do so to let the world see that it was not really so bad as the French translation had made it