740 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1882, 



A good number of our English acquaintances have 

 been over this autumn. Dr. and Mrs. Carpenter are 

 among the last to return. He has just closed a pop- 

 ular course of Lowell lectures, and they go back a 

 week or two hence. One hardly knows what brought 

 Herbert Spencer. He seems most to have enjoyed 

 Niagara, where he stayed a week. I do not think the 

 dinner demonstration for him at New York amounted 

 to very much ; nor do I take stock in the statement, 

 the truth of which he took for granted, that the hair 

 turns gray in the United States ten years earlier than 

 in England. I should say the only difference is, that 

 there is more hair remaining here to turn gray at 

 middle age or later. Spencer also told us of a dis- 

 covery he had made, that all Americans had the outer 

 corners of their eyes lower than the inner, the oppo- 

 site of our antipodes, the Mongols. 



I have just returned from a " sleigh ride." Snow, 

 though a nuisance in towns, is a convenience in the 

 country, greatly facilitating travel, and a drive upon 

 runners instead of wheels, well wrapped in furs and 

 with buffalo robes, is much enjoyed. 



At the end of August, Mrs. Gray and I went to 

 Montreal, to the meeting of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, where we were guests 

 of the president, Dr. Dawson. We made an excursion 

 to Ottawa, the new seat of government, and another 

 down the noble St. Lawrence and up its picturesque 

 tributary, the Saguenay. Otherwise we have been 

 at home all the summer and autumn. And so we 

 expect to be all winter, save perhaps a week in Wash- 

 ington. 



... I think I have long owed your son Ports- 

 mouth a letter, but, though I should be glad to hear 



