"To-day I have heard of a scientific association called the 'Scientific
Academy of St. Louis,' which is about a year old, and which is about to
publish a volume of transactions, containing an account of an artesian
well, and of some inscriptions just sent home from Nineveh, which Mr.
Gust. Seyffarth has deciphered.

"Mr. Seyffarth must be a remarkable man; he has translated a great many
inscriptions, and is said to surpass Champollion. He has published a
work on Egyptian astronomy, but no copy is in this country.

"Dr. Pope, who called on me, and with whom I was much pleased, told me
of all these things. Western men are so proud of their cities that they
spare no pains to make a person from the Eastern States understand the
resources, and hopes, and plans of their part of the land.

"Rev. Dr. Eliot I have not seen. He is about to establish a university
here, for which he has already $100,000, and the academic part is
already in a state of activity.

"Rev. Mr. Staples tells me that Dr. Eliot puts his hands into the
pockets of his parishioners, who are rich, up to the elbows.

"Altogether, St. Louis is a growing place, and the West has a large hand
and a strong grasp.

"Doctor Seyffarth is a man of more than sixty years, gray-haired,
healthy-looking, and pleasant in manners. He has spent long years of
labor in deciphering the inscriptions found upon ancient pillars,
Egyptian and Arabic, dating five thousand years before Christ. I asked