WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 151 



way out of the town, on a plateau of rock almost like a 

 natural pavement. There are fine views over the plains of 

 Kansas all round, something like the view from Blackdown 

 over the Weald, but less woody and less cultivated. In the 

 museum I saw a good collection of the fossil plants from West 

 Kansas. They are found in a fine-grained iron sandstone, 

 mostly in nodules which split open showing the leaf most 

 beautifully, often with the stalk and articulation perfect and 

 in one case a complete bud in the axil of a leaf. The inter- 

 esting thing is, that they are mostly Dicotyledons of very 

 peculiar forms, though the rock is of cretaceous age. Icthyo- 

 saurus remains are also found, sometimes with portions of the 

 skin and keeled scales. 



After my lecture in the evening there was a reception of 

 the professors and their families. I heard much of the co- 

 education system, and, as usual, all in its favour. A lady is 

 professor of Greek, and at Des Moines a lady is the prin- 

 cipal, although there are pupils of both sexes up to eighteen 

 years old. Everywhere the girls hold their own with the 

 boys, and are often superior to them in languages. At the 

 last high school examination here, thirteen girls and eleven 

 boys " graduated." 



Next day I went on to Manhattan, where there is a State 

 Agricultural College, at which I was to lecture. During the 

 journey of about one hundred miles, I passed through much 

 rich alluvial land, with rolling prairies in the distance. Some- 

 times there were bluffs of horizontal strata, with frequent 

 projecting masses of rock, many of which had broken off and 

 lay at the foot of the slope. There were many wooded gul- 

 lies with the trees nearly in full leaf, but no flowers anywhere. 

 About the farmhouses there were usually a few trees, also 

 some good-looking orchards and a few vineyards. 



At Manhattan, which I reached early in the afternoon, it 

 was very hot and very dusty. At five o'clock President Geo. 

 F. F. Fairchild called, and we had some interesting talk about 

 the college. This, too, is open to both sexes, and one-third of 

 the pupils are women. Some come direct from the common 

 and high schools, others are adults. The men learn the theory 



