About the time I am now referring to, I was often congratulated by gentlemen of the Surveying Department, who were acquainted with my son, on his rapid progress in the difficult branches of the science.  One, in particular, said:  “I consider it wonderful that your son should have mastered this business almost by his own exertions, whilst I have cost my father nearly a thousand pounds in England, under first-rate teachers, and am glad to go to him for information on many points.”  Mr. Byerly too, who is not given to flatter, when I thanked him for having so ably instructed and brought my son forward in so short a time, replied:  “Don’t thank me; I really believe he has taught me quite as much as I have taught him.”  In my own experience, his queries and suggestions led me to investigate many things, which I had slightly considered, without thoroughly understanding them.  He had a rare gift of ascertaining in a very short time the use of any instrument put into his hands, and could detect at a glance its defects, if such existed.  In the early part of 1858, a gentleman who had made errors in his surveys asked him to look over some of his instruments.  William, on taking one into his hand, said at once, with a smile:  “If you work with this, you will find many errors.”  “That is why I asked you,” replied the owner.  “I have been surveying with it, and have committed nothing but mistakes.”  So much were people in the habit of praising him, that it carried my thoughts back to my Latin Grammar, and the quotation from Terence:—­

    Omnes omnia
    Bona dicere et laudare fortunas meas,
    Qui gnatum haberem tali ingenio praeditum.

For himself, he was perpetually lamenting to me that at school he had not received more mathematical instruction; that the time spent in classics exclusively, was, for many, time thrown away.  But I must do his late master the justice of saying, that when he first received him under his tuition, he showed little fondness for mathematics in general, although he had a taste for algebra.  The two following letters, to his brother and mother, bearing the same date, in the spring of 1858, were despatched from the out-station where he was engaged in a survey.

St. Arnaud, April 10th, 1858.

Dear Charley,

I do not think you have written a letter to me since we have been out here.  It gave me much pleasure to see yours to the Doctor.  I wish you could be here, instead of working for 40 or 50 pounds a year at home, out of which you can save very little.  Here you might be getting at least 100 pounds, and nothing to find yourself but clothes.  But it will not do for you to come until the Doctor goes home.  I want you to write and tell me if you have any taste for any particular profession, and if you have been making good use of your spare time, in reading useful works.  You should remember never to waste a minute; always be doing something.  Try and find