By the way; “variation (inherent) in particular directions,” is your idea and mine, but is very anti-Darwin. Good-night.
A. Gray.
Dr. Gray greatly enjoyed his visit to California, with the long overland journey thither. It was an ever-renewed excitement to see plants growing which he had seen only as dried specimens, and the conductor of the train was at last almost in despair at the scattering of his passengers to grab what they could in the short halts, as they became inspired by seeing Dr. Gray rush as the engine slowed, to catch all within reach. Then when in motion again the specimens were brought from all sides to see what they were. And the preparing and drying went on to the wonder of some and the interest of all.
His ascent of Gray’s Peak was made a great occasion in the neighborhood. A large party gathered from Georgetown and Empire City, and started the afternoon before, after having been most hospitably dined by Judge McMurdy, in Georgetown; the night was passed in a mining-tavern cabin, and the ascent, some going on horseback, some on foot, was made the next morning. Speeches were made on the summit, and resolutions passed to confirm the names Gray’s and Torrey’s peaks given in 1862 by Dr. Parry, who was himself happily with the party. The ascent is not as difficult as in most mountains of that height, as one can ride on horseback to the top in August, when the snow lies only in patches; the trail is mostly over the rough shale, and for a month or two the summit, though over 14,000 feet, is almost bare. The view of the innumerable peaks is very magnificent.
At Dubuque he was the guest of an old Fairfield comrade. As the retiring president of the American Association he gave his address,[91] written mostly in the cars on the long overland journey, in which he explained still further some of his long-meditated conclusions on the distribution of the flora of Western North America.
TO R. W. CHURCH.
Cambridge, October, 1872.
My dear Church,—I promised to myself, if I did not to you, that I would write you from the other side of this continent; but writing and journeying are incompatible, at least in case where the time for the one is too short for your undertakings. But now we have been a month at home, and more; the accumulation of things to be seen to is worked off or nearly, and I mean now to tell you something of our summer’s doings.
As soon as we were free we set out.... At Chicago we had two nights and a day in which to see the desolated and fast rebuilding town. From this place, over a thousand miles west of Boston, we made our proper start.... A welcome rain cooled the air and laid the dust that morning, and not a drop more of rain did we see, any more than in Egypt, from that day onward, until, six or seven weeks later, we were back at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, when there was an evening thunderstorm, and the next morning I called Mrs. Gray to the window to see a novel sight,—the streets dripping and muddy! I wish I could describe to you our journey, and the sort of life we were leading. But if I go into particulars there will be no end.
At Omaha we were on the Pacific Railroad proper, and soon upon the plains, at first the larger part cultivated, but barer and drier as we advanced westward, and ascended imperceptibly; so that the next twenty-four hours brought us, with some fine views of the range, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains and a height of 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the sea; that afternoon over the Black Hills of the Platte, 2,000 or 3,000 feet higher, and the highest elevation of the road,—higher than the passes through the Rocky Mountains beyond,—and at nightfall we were traversing the wide grassy Laramie Plains, a vast, sequestered sub-alpine meadow. And when I rose early next morning, we were running through a dry desert “sage brush” (wormwood) region (desert, except for the botanist,—the first plant I saw and clutched proved to be Grayia), the scanty waters of which run into the Colorado of the West and the Gulf of California.