Sam[ue]l L. Mitchill ALS to [Catharine Mitchill], December 30, 1806

No 16

Washington Decr. 30. 1806

My dear Girl

Together with this you will receive
Senator Adams's oration on Rhetorick and oratory, delivered
at Harvard College near Boston, when he was installed
the Bostonian Professor. It is a neat performance;
and will not only serve to amuse you, but answer for
a select theme of conversation among your literary, and
particularly, your clinical acquaintance.

Capt Lewis has reached this place after the
performance of a journey across the Continent of North
America, quite across to the Pacific Ocean, and back
again. The distance is computed to be considerably
more than three thousand miles across. He and his
party went away from Washington in the Summer of 1803,
and owing to the lawness of the water in the Ohio, got
no farther than Kahokia on the Mississippi, and