Transcription:
2 is light, and now uncle Dan please hold your sack for a half days dried illegible adint , for I feel full like Jobs comforter.
You shall first receive a dish of history well spiced with capital ego's then a generous dessert of heterodox ingredients
with a quantum of advisement sufficient for a three score then a short time after I recd your 1st letter, I, with two companions,
set out upon a geological botanical excursion, after many a long counsel and much preparation we capered arround sic a room
in full harness all ready, and eager for the tramp, as long confined colts for a canter We looked green enough as we turned
our backs on the good university, with tent, blankets, hatchet, spoons, books, portable presses? plant-papers with many et
ceteras but my illegible our certe? faces were relaxed to the full length many a time before we all got home. We first steered
for the Blue mounds not following roads but going through moor and mire over gude and guide . We often proved with the philosophic
shepherd that the properly of rain was to wet, yet we never caught cold. We then steered fro the Wis. river valley which
we followed to the Mississippi, here crossing the river we spent a few days in Iowa. When one of the company was called home
by a letter, and as we could not proceed very well without him, we severally made for home as we might, we intended to have
continued on through Iowa Minn to the St Anthony falls thence north to lake Superior, thence along its south ern? shore