Autograph letter signed.
4to (195 x 250 mm). 3 pp. on bifolium. Stored in custom cloth portfolio.
€ 1,500.00
To the journalist Alexander L. Holley of the New York Times, discussing his Centennial Engine, the centrepiece of the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia: "The leading facts which you will need to use in the vindication which you have so kindly offered to make through some 'leading professional paper' I must verify by a reference to the correspondence and other papers which are in Providence. It will give me pleasure to avail myself of your offer [...] Some six months since I was called upon by a resident of Philadelphia to give the dimensions of my proposed Centennial Engine of '70.000. horse power'. And since the opening of the Exhibition I have received a newspaper from an inland city of Great Britain which informs the world that the Centennial Engine is 3400 horse power, and that I had been compelled to extend my very extensive works on Long Island in order to execute this great undertaking [...] Perhaps I ought to correct all these exaggerated statements and errors of geography - if so I must at once organize a new department and subsidize a newspaper [...]".
In excellent condition.
