Riley had expected to return from Africa in June 1871 and then spend July through October in Buffalo to inspire Clemens’s writing of the diamond mine book. But he did not return to London from Africa until August and probably did not reach the United States until September or early October. Clemens, busy with the move to Hartford and preparing to lecture (and with weeks of proof-reading to do on Roughing It), was not free to begin the collaboration. His present justification for postponement was not entirely candid, however. Langdon Clemens’s illness had interrupted his work on Roughing It in late August and early September, but so had the garment strap invention. Moreover, he had long known that his lecture tour would end in early February. His selection of May 1872 as a likely starting date apparently was influenced by a consideration he refrained from mentioning: his wife was now about three months pregnant, and he expected to be occupied with a new baby by early spring 1872. Finding Clemens unavailable, Riley went to California, returning in late November. Plans for him to come to Hartford were discussed early in 1872, then abandoned because of his deteriorating health (2 Dec 70 to Rileyclick to open link; 8 Sept 71 to OLCclick to open link; 6 Oct 71 to Leggettclick to open link; 4 Jan 72 to Riley, NN-B; 27 Mar 72 to Riley, ViU; Riley to SLC: 3 Dec 71, 27 June 72, 22 July 72, all in CU-MARK, and 16 May 72, CtY-BR).

See 2 Dec 70 to Rileyclick to open link.

Riley had conceived of a “Diamond sifting and washing machine,” but by early December had “done nothing yet towards getting it patented” (Riley to SLC, 3 Dec 71, CU-MARK). He did not receive a patent before dying of cancer in September 1872 (“Death of J. H. Riley,” San Francisco Alta California, 18 Sept 72, 1).