1 84 MY LIFE 



plants to send home to England, we bade farewell to our 

 kind friends, the miners, walked down to Graymonnt and 

 took the train to Denver, noticing many fine plants on the 

 way, as well as the grand precipices of Clear Creek canon, 

 where the strata are seen to have been " twisted and tortured 

 into indescribable forms,'' as I noted in my journal. In the 

 evening I had a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Eastwood, and the 

 next day, at 8:30 a. m., left Denver for Chicago. For some 

 time I had the sleeping-car, eighty feet long, all to myself, 

 there being three alternative lines to Chicago, all starting at 

 the same time. I was now going by the northernmost, so as 

 to see the prairie country along a new line, about two hundred 

 miles north of that by which I had come. 



For some time after starting I had a fine view of the 

 range of the Rockies, Long's Peak, to the north-west, being 

 the most conspicuous object. At Julesberg, two hundred 

 miles from Denver, we stopped to allow the train for Cali- 

 fornia to pass us, and I took a short walk out on the prairie. 

 All around was a boundless expanse of slightly undulating 

 country, covered irregularly with short wiry grass, with a few 

 patches of weeds here and there, a purple and a yellow cleome, 

 and a dwarf entire-leaved golden rod. There was also a 

 yellow-flowered prickly solanum and a small white-flowered 

 asclepiad, with linear crowded leaves, like a mare's tail. The 

 soil was mainly gravel, composed of small crystalline pebbles, 

 not much rounded. The smallest of these, about the size of 

 very small peas, were gathered into many anthills about a foot 

 high. Coming near the North Platte river, the fine blue Iris 

 missonriensis was seen in the marshes. There was good grass 

 here, and plenty of cattle grazing. The river was about a mile 

 wide, but shallow and full of mud-banks. 



The next morning (Wednesday, July 27) we were near 

 Omaha, in a flat but fertile and cultivated country of un- 

 dulating prairie, with meadows, and even hedges! The hay- 

 stacks, horses, and cattle near the farmhouses having a more 

 homely aspect than the usual half-desert waste of prairie. 

 After crossing the Missouri, and leaving Council Bluffs, the 

 country became more undulating, wkh fields of maize and 



