xxxi] WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 151 



into leaf, hardly so forward as with us at the same time of 

 year, though twelve degrees further south. 



At Lawrence, a small town of ten thousand inhabitants, is 

 the State University, where I was to lecture on the " Colours 

 of Animals." The buildings are on the top of a hill a little 

 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 sand- 

 stone, mostly in nodules which split open showing the leaf 

 most beautifully, often with the stalk and articulation per- 

 fect and in one case a complete bud in the axil of a leaf. 

 The interesting thing is, that they are mostly Dicotyledons 

 of very peculiar forms, though the rock is of Cretaceous age. 

 Icthyosaurus 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 

 gullies with the trees nearly in full leaf, but no flowers any- 

 where. 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 



