^T. 60.] TO R. W. CHURCH. 619 



brick). It must have been the Law School the mov- 

 ing of which Mrs. Gray was describing. Tell Mr. 

 Horner that, like some other things, when once you 

 have seen it done it ceases to be wonderful or even 

 difficiilt. 



As to my lecture-room, etc., all work stopped for 

 near a month, including the fortnight or more when 

 I was away ; and now (September 11) all has been 

 clatter and hurry for the last week or so, and they 

 really seem determined to fulfill the terms of their 

 contract, to finish by the 15th instant. They cannot 

 do that ; but I trust the workmen may go out with 

 the month. These cares of building have sadly inter- 

 ferred with scientific work all summer. I have accom- 

 plished very little of what I intended. I attended, 

 and, when the last year's president retired on deliver- 

 ing his address, presided over, the American Associa^ 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, twentieth meet- 

 ing, at Indianapolis, capital of the State of Indiana, — 

 a journey of forty-eight hours, in very sultry summer 

 weather, over long stretches of country. I broke the 

 journey by a day in New York, to see two sons of 

 Mr. Darwin just as they landed, and by a three days' 

 stay, including Sunday, with my old friend Mr. SuUi- 

 vant, in Ohio. The meeting was a pleasant, though 

 not especially interesting one. I met botanical corre- 

 spondents of many years' standing whom I had never 

 seen. At the close we were invited to make an excur- 

 sion to the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, which I 

 counted on seeing. But I found that the excursion 

 was to be an overcrowded one. ... So I hastened 

 homeward, and was with Mrs. Gray at Beverly Farms, 

 where she had been passing holidays at Mrs. Loring's 

 at the paternal homestead on the seashore, — a place 



