ET. 68.] TO GEORGE BENTHAM. 691 
with that blessed tea-kettle, to a poor house, got a fire 
made, and hot water. Another traveler going farther 
got a pot of coffee, nice bread and butter and cold 
boiled ham. And so we fared till omnibuses came 
for us. At Wyethville a good hotel; got word at 
length to Shriver ;! and after a late dinner, an extra 
train came down, took us to Lynchburg; reached 
Washington before 8 A. M. 
I will send you good specimen of original Saxifraga 
Careyana from Negro Mountain. Send me a good 
large one from Roan. I will compare them soon. 
TO GEORGE BENTHAM. 
CAMBRIDGE, July 4, 1879. 
Your last letter has gone to Engelmann, as I noti- 
fied you; those of May 29 and June 4 overtook me 
in the mountains of North Carolina, where Mrs. 
Gray and I were recuperating, but I was kept on the 
move from morn to night. I could not thence write 
you on the matters treated of, nor is there anything 
left to say... . 
Nature sometimes does what you hit me for sug- 
gesting, that is, “take away the essential character,” 
and we have to put up with it, and allow that we may 
have overrated the character. 
But, when all is done, I will try on your view with- 
out prejudice, and adopt it if possible. 
About Ceratophyllum: I never followed up that 
early paper, of 1837, because I soon saw that I was 
very wrong in supposing that the ovules of Cabomba 
and Nelumbium were like that of Ceratophyllum, and 
I coneluded that my whole idea was baseless. I have 
1 Howard Shriver, M. D., formerly at Wyethville, Va, now at 
Cumberland, Md. 
