JST. 68.] TO GEORGE BENTHAM. 691 



with that blessed tea-kettle, to a poor house, got a fire 

 made, and hot water. Another traveler going farther 

 got a pot of coffee, nice bread and butter and cold 

 boiled ham. And so we fared till omnibuses came 

 for us. At Wyethville a good hotel ; got word at 

 length to Shriver ; l and after a late dinner, an extra 

 train came down, took us to Lynchburg ; reached 

 Washington before 8 A. M. 



I will send you good specimen of original Saxif raga 

 Careyana from Negro Mountain. Send me a good 

 large one from Roan. I will compare them soon. 



TO GEORGE BENTHAM. 



CAMBRIDGE, July 4, 1879. 



Your last letter has gone to Engelmann, as I noti- 

 fied you ; those of May 29 and June 4 overtook me 

 in the mountains of North Carolina, where Mrs. 

 Gray and I were recuperating, but I was kept on the 

 move from morn to night. I could not thence write 

 you on the matters treated of, nor is there anything 

 left to say. . . . 



Nature sometimes does what you hit me for sug- 

 gesting, that is, " take away the essential character," 

 and we have to put up with it, and allow that we may 

 have overrated the character. 



But, when all is done, I will try on your view with- 

 out prejudice, and adopt it if possible. 



About Ceratophyllum : I never followed up that 

 early paper, of 1837, because I soon saw that I was 

 very wrong in supposing that the ovules of Cabomba 

 and Nelumbium were like that of Ceratophyllum, and 

 I concluded that my whole idea was baseless. I have 



1 Howard Shriver, M. D., formerly at Wyethville, Va., now at 

 Cumberland, Md. 



