Lacock Abbey
March April 17. 1872
My dear Father
I enclose a post card that arrived for you & I forward something to Madame Petit. <1>
I have just returned from the meeting of the Council of the Archaeological Society at Devizes. We are to have another on Tuesday next, so tell Rosamond <2> that I shall be engaged on that day, but I hope the Weston business may be made out before that.
I took one of the vertebrae found at Nethermore <3> to Devizes & showed it to Mr Cunnington. <4> He pronounces it to be Pleiosauros [sic]. He cannot understand its being found in Lower Green-Sand, but should have supposed it had been from Kimmeridge Clay. <5> The field when it was found is lower than the plantation; perhaps we shall find it to be just below the Green Sand. He also remarks as unusual its exf extreme lightness, the fossil being usually very heavy. I think under the circumstances we had better try for the remainder. You see Mr Awdry’s <6> guess of Mammoth was very wide of the mark.
In haste Your affect son
Charles H Talbot
[envelope:]
H Fox Talbot Esq
4 Circus
Bath
Notes:
1. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
2. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter.
3. Nethermore Farm and Wood, Lacock, Wiltshire.
4. William Cunnington (1813–1906), archaeologist.
5. A clay well developed at Kimmeridge, in Dorset.
6. West Awdry (1807–1892), solicitor, Chippenham.