146 MY LIFE 



m. There was nothing for it but to make some rough 

 sketches from memory; so we went to the lecture-room, got 



me large sheets of paper, and I sketched out the four or 



five diagrams (of curves of variation, lines and dots showing 

 amounts of variation, etc.) on a small scale, and then Dr. 

 Branner and myself, with the assistance of one of the students, 

 set to work to enlarge them, and draw then in thick black 

 ink, the result at a distance being almost as good as the more 

 accurate originals, which turned up after I had left, and were 

 sent after me. Then we had to hurry back to dinner at 6.30, 

 to which several professors were asked to meet me, and then 

 to the lecture at 8, which went off very well, notwithstanding 

 the makeshift diagrams. 



My next destination was Sioux City via Kansas City, but 

 I stopped for a day at St. Louis in order to see the Trelease 

 Botanic Garden, recently given to the town, and which I had 

 heard highly spoken of. I travelled mostly through various 

 kinds of prairie country level or rolling, with occasional hilly 

 tracts covered with wood. Everywhere some wood was in 

 sight, and the land seemed very rich ; but the general effect 

 was usually ragged from the ugly, rough wood fences. Cross- 

 ing the fine three-arched bridge over the Mississippi to St. 

 Louis, I went to the Laclade Hotel. After breakfast next 

 morning I called on Dr. Trelease, who was out. I then went 

 on to the gardens, a little outside the city. Though rather 

 poor as a botanical garden, there were a number of fine con- 

 servatories and plant-houses, and plenty of seats. The many 

 American, Rocky Mountain, and other plants I wanted to see 

 were not to be found, ordinary South European garden plants 

 and a few Cape and Australian species being the chief occu- 

 pants of the garden. In the afternoon Dr. Trelease called 

 on me. He was a youngish, pleasant man, and we had two 

 hours' talk on natural history and other subjects. He kindly 

 offered me plants, seeds, etc. 



I left at 8.20 in a sleeping-car for Kansas City, and at 

 sunrise next morning saw the Missouri river on our right, 

 from half to three-quarters of a mile wide, the opposite bank 

 wooded. We soon left it, crossing the prairie in a nearly 



