CHAPTER XXXII 



LECTURING TOUR IN AMERICA — CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 



As my only lecture engagement on my way home was at the 

 Michigan Agricultural College on July 29, I proposed to spend 

 a fortnight among the alpine flowers of the Sierra Nevada 

 and the Rocky Mountains ; and as on my way to San Francisco 

 I had passed over the Sierra in the night, I left Stockton at 

 7 a.m. in order to proceed by a local mid-day train from Sac- 

 ramento to the summit level, where there is a small, rough 

 hotel, chiefly used by the men engaged in the repair of the 

 railway. 



I had three hours to wait at Sacramento, the State capital, 

 a pleasant town, with abundance of trees and gardens in the 

 suburbs. I bought here a very handy two-foot rule, which 

 folded up into a length of four inches, being thus most con- 

 venient for the pocket. It was also very usefully divided in 

 a variety of ways. The outer side of one face was divided into 

 eighths of an inch, and the inner side into tenths. The other 

 face was divided into sixteenths and twelfths of an inch, while 

 the outer edge was divided into tenths and hundredths of a 

 foot. It was well made, would go into my waistcoat pocket, 

 and has been very useful to me ever since. I have never seen 

 one like it in any English tool-shop, and though it was rather 

 dear (three shillings), it has served as a pleasant and useful 

 memento of my American tour. 



Leaving Sacramento at noon, we reached the foothills in 

 about two hours, and soon began to see the effects of hydraulic 

 mining in a fine valley reduced to a waste of sand, gravel, and 

 rock heaps, the fertile surface soil broken up and buried under 

 masses of barren and unsightly refuse, which may in time 

 become covered with trees, but will probably never be profit- 



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