the deaf-mute is in a far less painful position than the blind; indeed, Professor Newcomb told them, in an address he gave at the college in 1885, that they were peculiarly fortunate in being so situated as to escape much of the idle, useless talk that is going on in the world. His own time, he said, was largely taken up by people who had nothing to say. Almost everything worth knowing that has been said is now to be found in print.

While at Washington I was asked by two American papers -The Nation and The Independent-to review a book just published by Professor Gope, with the rather catching title, "The Origin of the Fittest," made up by combining Darwin's title, "The Origin of Species," and Herbert Spencer's "The Survival of the Fittest." With such a title from a man who, owing to his extensive knowledge of anatomy and palæontology, was looked up to as a kind of American Haeckel, a really important work might naturally be expected. But this volume consisted almost entirely of a collection of lectures, addresses, and magazine articles, printed just as they were written or delivered, some in the first, some in the third person, with whole pages of the same matter repeated in different chapters, some of the illustrations having no reference in the text. In fact, a more egregious case of bookmaking with a misleading title was never perpetrated. Of course, there was good and original matter in it; but all those parts which attempted to justify the title by propounding a new theory of evolution were either quite unsound in reasoning or wholly unintelligible. When the second application came, I told the editor that I had already agreed to write one, but could easily write another from a different point of view. This was accepted, and as the reviews were unsigned, it was not difficult to make them appear to be by distinct writers. In the first (which appeared in The Nation, February 10, 1887) I gave a careful summary of the most important contents of the volume, pointing out the novel views and stating how he differed from the Darwinians and from the chief other schools of biologists. Only in one para

graph at the end I pointed out the great imperfections of the work, due to the absence of any attempt to weld the mass of heterogeneous matter into a consistent whole.

In the other article (The Independent, March 17, 1887) I presented my readers with a severe, but, I think, perfectly fair criticism, pointing out the extraordinary incongruity of the materials, the numerous repetitions, the illustrations without explanation on the plates or any reference to them in the text, and many other deficiencies. I showed how contemptuously he spoke of Darwin as a mere compiler of facts which every one knew, and the inventor of a theory that proved nothing, until he himself had now supplied the missing link— the new conception which cleared up everything! Then I dealt with his own supposed discoveries, his growth-force, his law of acceleration and retardation, and other such matters, showing that, so far as they were intelligible, they were all included in Darwin's writings; and I concluded by expressing regret that the talented author should have issued so incomplete a work. I do not think that any of my friends in Washington suspected that I was the author of either of the articles, which I heard spoken of as fair criticisms.

Before I left Washington, Judge Holman took me one morning to call upon the president, Mr. Cleveland. The judge told him I was going to visit California, and that turned the conversation on wine, raisins, etc., which did not at all interest me. There was no ceremony whatever, but, of course, I had nothing special to say to him, and he had nothing special to say to me, the result being that we were both rather bored, and glad to get it over as soon as we could. I then went to see the White House, some of the reception rooms being very fine, but there was a great absence of works of art, the only painting I saw being portraits of Washington and his wife.

Washington itself is a very fine and even picturesque city, owing to its designer having departed from the rigid rectangularity of most American cities by the addition of a number of broad diagonal avenues crossing the rectangles at different angles, and varying from one to four miles long. The broad

est of these are one hundred and sixty feet wide, planted with two double avenues of trees, and with wide grassy spaces between the houses and the pavements. Wherever these diagonal avenues intersect the principal streets, there are quadrangular open spaces forming gardens or small parks, planted with shrubs and trees, and with numerous seats. Conspicuous in these parks are the many specimens of the fine Paulowina imperialis, one of the handsomest flowering trees of the temperate zone, but which rarely flowers with us for want of sun-heat. It has very large cordate leaves and erect panicles of purple flowers, in shape like those of a foxglove. It was a great regret to me that I had to leave before the flowering season of these spendid trees.

It is, however, a great pity that when the city was founded it was not perceived that the whole of the land should be kept by the Government, not only to obtain the very large revenue. that would be sure to accrue from it, but, what is much more important, to prevent the growth of slums and of crowded insanitary dwellings as the result of land and building speculation. As it is now, some of the suburbs are miserable in the extreme. Any kind of huts and hovels are put up on undrained and almost poisonous ground, while in some of these remoter streets I saw rows of little villas closely packed together, but each house only fifteen feet wide.

My three months' sojourn in Washington, though a considerable loss to me financially, was in all other respects most enjoyable. I met more interesting people there than in any other part of America, and became on terms of intimacy, and even of friendship, with many of them. There was a very good circulating library of general literature to which I subscribed for a quarter, and was thus enabled to read many of the gems of American literature which I had not before met with. Among these I read a good many of the works of Frank Stockton, perhaps the most thoroughly original of modern story-writers. "Rudder Grange" and "The Adventures of Mrs. Leck and Mrs. Aleshine" are among the best known; but I found here quite a small book, called "Every Man his own Letter-Writer," which professes to supply a

long-felt want in giving forms of letters adapted to all the varied conditions of our modern civilization. The result is that these conditions are found to be so complex that to merely state them from "so-and-so" to "so-and-so" takes up much more space than the letter itself, and is made so humorously involved that I was, and am still, quite unable to read them for laughter. One day a small, active-looking man was pointed out to me as this very clever writer, and though I did not speak to him, it is a pleasure to recall his appearance when I read any of his delightfully fantastic works. For many reasons I left Washington with very great regret.

CHAPTER XXXI

LECTURING TOUR IN AMERICA-WASHINGTON TO

SAN FRANCISCO

I HAD two lecture engagements at Cincinnati, and had also an invitation to visit Mr. W. H. Edwards, the lepidopterist, whose book induced Bates and myself to go to Para, and who resided at Coalburgh in West Virgina. I was also very anxious to see a new cavern which had been discovered about ten years before, and which was said to be far superior to the Mammoth Cave in the variety and beauty of its stalagmitic formations, though not so extensive. I therefore took a rather circuitous route in order to carry out this programme. Leaving Washington April 6 at 3 P. M., I reached Harper's Ferry about 5.30, through a fairly cultivated country, a few fields green with young wheat and a few damp meadows with grass, but otherwise very wintry looking. Changing to a branch line up the Shenandoah Valley, I passed through a picturesque country like the less mountainous parts of Wales, but mostly uncultivated, and reached Luray station about 9 There was a rather rough hotel here, where I had supper and bed, and the next morning after breakfast a waggon took myself and a few other visitors to the cavern about a mile away, for seeing which we paid a dollar each, and it was very well worth it. We walked through the best parts (which are lit up with electric lights) for about two hours, through a variety of passages, galleries, and halls, some reaching a hundred feet high, some having streams or pools of water, and some chasms of unknown depth, like most caves in the limestone. But everywhere there are stalactites of the most varied forms, and often of the most wonderful beauty. Usually they form pillars like some strange architecture, some

P. M.