130 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



the Hermitage of Braid, which laid the foundation of a 

 warm and long friendship. 



The great event of 1876 was the American visit, 

 Huxley's " second honeymoon," in the course of which 

 he once more met (after a separation of thirty years), his 

 favourite sister Lizzie (Mrs. Scott), whose love and en- 

 couragement had done so much for him in early years. 

 The occasion of. the visit was the delivery of the opening 

 address at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 



New York was reached on August 5, and two 

 characteristic remarks made on first sight of the city have 

 been recorded by Mr. Smalley (London correspondent of 

 the New York Tribune). In response to a question as to 

 the names of two buildings : — 



" I told him the Tribune and the Western Union Telegraph 

 buildings. ' Ah,' he said, ' that is interesting ; that is American. 

 In the Old World the first things you see as you approach a 

 great city are steeples ; here you see, first, centres of intelligence.' 

 Next to those the tug-boats seemed to attract him as they tore 

 fiercely up and down and across the bay. He looked long at 

 them and finally said, ' If I were not a man I think I should 

 like to be a tug.' They seemed to him the condensation and 

 complete expression of the energy and force in which he delighted 

 (Life, i, p. 461). 



Huxley was naturally intensely interested in Prof. 

 Marsh's collection of fossils from the wonderfully rich 

 strata of the Western Territories, which demonstrated 

 the American origin of the horse, and proved of the first 

 importance in placing the doctrine of evolution on a firm 

 palaeontological basis. The geological history of the 

 horse was to be the subject of one of the New York 

 lectures, and the study of the Yale specimens necessitated 

 important alterations in what had been written for this 

 purpose. Marsh thus describes Huxley's attitude in the 

 matter : — 



