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 Sacramento 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 twelths 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 



171 



