672 TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. [1877, 
Satr Lakes, August 8. 
I have yours of the 30th July, and I return in- 
closure. Write hereafter to the Palace Hotel, San 
Francisco. 
I trust, and expect, that the strike days are over, 
and that you will severely punish the ringleaders.! 
Glad you have had nice weather; but you have no air 
like that of Colorado and Utah. .. . 
Well, much as we miss and want you, yet we 
should have hurried you too much. We want to go 
over a good deal of ground cursorily, rather than a 
little thoroughly and leisurely. 
o not write you about the oaks at Cafion City, 
because we had nothing new to say. We agree with 
you in the complete running together of the oaks 
down to Undulata. There is one very large-leaved 
state, looking very different ; but it is mostly on fast- 
growing shoots, and no doubt is a state of the “Q. 
alba, var.” of Torrey. “ Alba” indeed! But we did 
not find the entire-leaved form at the cafion, and 
Brandegee said it occurred only at the mouth of the 
caiion, and near the city. 
From Cafion City we — Mrs. Gray, Hayden, and I 
—went in one day south to La Veta by rail, and the 
next day, toward evening, up to La Veta Pass, 10,300 
feet, and over and 300 feet or so lower, where we 
camped, nice tents having been provided by Fort 
Lyon en route, and other furnishings from Fort Gar- 
land. Abies concolor abounded, though there was 
more of A. Menziesii (Picea pungens) and Pinus 
contorta, and a good amount of P. aristata and P. 
flexilis. The A. Menziesii at that elevation is less 
prickly, sometimes almost as soft as A. Douglasii to 
1 The bad railroad strikes of the summer of 1877. 
et neem 
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