forgetful.

It is also possible that the discovery did not at the time impress
either my companions or myself as having that importance and widespread
interest which I have at last come to believe it really possesses. In
any view of the case, there are reasons, personal to myself, why it was
less my duty than that of either of the others to place on record the
facts of the discovery. Had either of them, in all these years, in ever
so brief a manner, done so, I should have remained forever silent.

The narrative which it is my purpose now to put in written form, I have
at various times briefly or in part related to one and another of my
intimate friends; but they all mistook my facts for fancies, and
good-naturedly complimented me on my story-telling powers--which was
certainty not flattering to my qualifications as an historian.

With this explanation, and this extenuation of what some persons may
think an inexcusable and almost criminal delay, I shall proceed.

In the year 1877 I was compelled by circumstances to visit the States.
At that time, as at the present, my home was near Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
My father, then recently deceased, had left, in course of settlement in
America, business interests involving a considerable pecuniary
investment, of which I hoped a large part might be recovered. My lawyer,
for reasons which seemed to me sufficient, advised that the act of
settlement should not be delegated; and I decided to leave at once for
the United States. Ten days later I reached New York, where I remained
for a day or two and then proceeded westward. In St. Louis I met some of
the persons interested in my business. There the whole transaction took
such form that a final settlement depended wholly upon the agreement