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 384 which I am sensible would by no means recommend me to one of your calm and equable disposition. You are already so well convinced what weight your opinion has with me, that, should I tell you, how much fonder I have been of that mode of instruction, on which I have providentially fallen, since it has obtained your approbation than I was before, I foresee, you would in your next charge me with saying what is superfluous. That, which you tell me you have so happily pursued in the education of my cousins, seems excellently calculated for answering all the good ends proposed. Although, perhaps, it may not be so proper for public instruction, especially in such extensive parishes as some in Virginia, yet I have so great an opinion of it for the education of a small community, that, God willing, I propose to make experiments of it in my own family, as soon as the winter evenings come on. I can well remember when it was my own misfortune to receive words without the proper ideas; which has doubtless been the misfortune of many others. And, in that case, as you remark, words are of but little use.

Hereabouts I thought to have closed, but remembering that I have not mentioned some places to my uncle John, which are either not set down in the map, or have received new names since the map was published, I imagine you will readily excuse the following directions.

In the map I perceive the name of a river erased, emptying itself into New River, and in its general tendency for some considerable distance, pointing towards the angle between the south boundary of Pennsylvania and the west of Maryland, and thence through several meanders penetrating into the Alleghany mountains, between Spring Head and Laurel Thickets. The word erased I guess to be