Lacock
31 Oct. 59

Prof^r Balfour

D^r Sir

According to your request I forward the plate by todays post – I would have sent it sooner but thought you were absent from Edinburgh.

The plate should be sent an engraver [sic] (I should recommend M^r Banks ^<1> in Waterloo place)<.> He should remove with a burnisher a number of small specks in the sky above the tree ^<2> and make the sides of the picture perfectly straight and the angles square, and perhaps draw a line round the picture. It will then look better

I remain Yours vy truly
H. F. Talbot

P.S. Can you inform me whether Prof^r Kelland ^<3> has returned to his house in Edinburgh?

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Notes:

1. William Banks (b. 1809), engraver, Edinburgh.

2. See Doc. No: 07931. This was published as "Young Dragon trees, near Orotava, Teneriffe" " in the Transactions of the Botanical Society (Edinburgh), March 1859, pl. 6.

3. Prof Philip Kelland (1808–1879), Scottish mathematician. See Doc. No: 07960.