mules were greatly overburdened and we had to store a ton or so of 

 useless stufi at a friendly ranch. No plan of exploration had been made, 

 no localities suitable for collecting had been fixed; in fact, the expedi- 

 tion threatened to deteriorate into an aimless wandering about. At 

 Florissant we happened on some fossiliferous beds that afterwards be- 

 came famous for their beautifully preserved leaves, insects, fishes and 

 even birds. We made quite extensive collections there and arranged 

 with Mrs. Hill, owner of the land, to forward additional material to 

 Princeton. Our collections of plants were described by Leo Lesquereux, 

 palaeobotanist of the Hayden Survey, and the insects by Mr. Scudder, of 

 Cambridge, Mass. We had gathered many species new to science. 



Colorado Springs, the Garden of the Gods, through the Ute Pass into 

 South Park and thence to Twin Lakes was our itinerary, with an excur- 

 sion to the top of Pike's Peak. I make no attempt to describe Colorado 

 scenery, which profoundly impressed all of us, even those who had been 

 in Switzerland. My Mother wrote me that she was weary of the super- 

 latives in my letters. When we had become acclimated, our open-air life 

 was delightful, but most of us had first to go through agonies of sun- 

 burn; my hands were swollen and blistered beyond recognition and 

 Osborn's nose never did stop peeHng. He persisted in wearing a Httle 

 felt hat, with only an inch or so of brim. At a mining camp in the 

 mountains an "old timer" remarked to him: "Stranger, either you'll have 

 to widen out that hat-brim, or else call in that nose." 



The light, dry air, for which Colorado is famous, was, to us, extraordi- 

 narily exhilarating, like champagne, and we were all disposed to agree 

 with Bayard Taylor, when he wrote : "An air more delicious to breathe 

 cannot anywhere be found; it is neither too sedative, nor too exciting, 

 but has that pure, sweet, flexible quality that seems to support all one's 

 happiest and healthiest moods." The air, owing to altitude and dryness, 

 was astonishingly clear and had a most deceptive effect on one's judge- 

 ment of distance. Often it seemed impossible that hills, which we knew 

 to be thirty-five or forty miles away, could be more than eight or ten. A 

 story, illustrating this wonderful clearness of the atmosphere, was so 

 often repeated to us, that, in self-defence, one's first remark to a new 

 acquaintance was apt to be: "Please, don't tell me the story of the 

 EngHshman and the irrigating ditch." 



When I was last in Colorado (1934), I could find no one who had ever 

 heard the tale and therefore I will record it for the benefit of posterity. 

 An Englishman was observed to be undressing by the side of an irri- 

 gating ditch and, when asked the reason for such surprising behaviour, 



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