06 BOTANY OF THE 
but the gauge being, I believe, the same throughout, the amalgama- 
tion of the various portions is complete, and, apparently, under excel- 
lent management. Auburn, where I stopped for the night, is 173 
miles from Albany, and is not exactly what Goldsmith has depicted it, 
lovely and deserted, a most unromantie smartness, and a thriving 
population being its present characteristics. The state prison here is 
an immense structure, and much celebrated for the system of discipline 
pursued towards its unfortunate inmates, which, had time allowed, I 
should have liked much to have visited. The town, from what little 
I saw of it, has that air of extreme cheerfulness, so characteristic of 
American cities of recent formation, and which the glorious brightness 
of a transatlantic autumn day, contributed greatly to enhance. The 
morning was very cool and fresh when the railway cars started for the 
west, but became quite warm as the day advanced, though not oppres- 
sively so during any part of it. The soil in that portion of the State 
of New York passed over yesterday, seemed generally poor and rocky, 
the country undulating, and in some places hilly, and almost every- 
where well timbered, the trees small, or at most of medium size. At 
Schenectady, a very pretty and thriving-looking town, I remarked 
many trees of the Honey Locust (Gleditschia triacanthus), small but 
healthy, with pods on them. Beyond Chittenango observed the 
White or Soft Maple (Acer dasycarpum), very abundant in the woods. 
Some Tulip trees were also seen here and there of very diminutive size, 
scarcely more than bushes. Composite were now abundant, and the 
fields and moist woods were richly ornamented with a Solidago, having 
recurved branches to the panicle (S. Canadensis ?), similar to, if not 
the same with, one extremely common in our cottage gardens. A small 
pale yellow butterfly (Colias Philodice), plentiful from Canada to Caro- 
lina, was abundant along the line from Troy to Utica, though not 
swarming in such infinite numbers as I have seen it do about West 
Chester. In England the speceis of Colias are seldom visible till to- 
wards the end of summer or in the autumn; in America, on the con- 
trary, this and other kinds of the genus appear in spring, and C. Philo- 
dice, in particular, flutters over the fields in infinite myriads the whole 
summer through. The country gone over on this day's route, from 
Auburn to Buffalo, was beautiful all the way, and for the most part 
undulating or hilly ; a great deal of forest ground in process of being 
cleared, as I remarked the blackened stumps of those lately felled in 
the corn (Maize) fields, whilst in many places they were still burning. 
