TOUR IN THE UNITED STATES. 185 



and fishes — innumerable beautiful and grotesque forms. Agassiz 

 is a very remarkable man, and if be lives a few years will do 

 wonders in Zoology. At present he is working out the history 

 of embryo animals — tracing the development of the young 

 creature through every tribe from the lowest to the highest, 

 and he has already made out many remarkable facts which will 

 be of the greatest service in fixing systematic Zoology on a 

 firm basis. It is delightful to see and to hear him speaking, 

 for his whole countenance lights up with his subject, and 

 with true enthusiasm. At other times he enters into general 

 conversation, and is pleasant, and quiet, with perfectly simple 

 manners. 



Among the striking trees here, I am delighted chiefly with 

 the American Elm, which has a tall, straight trunk, dividing into 

 a great many erect branches, and these crowned with a wide 

 umbrella of leaves and branchlets, goodly to behold. Here, on 

 Cambridge Green, is an old elm, called Washington's Elm, said 

 to be the tree under which he first drew his sword in the great 

 struggle. It is in full vigour, and duly protected by iron railing 

 from mischievous attacks. 



2Sth. Two of my lectures are now over ; the first, a written 

 one, rather fatiguing, owing to the size of the room ; the 

 second being delivered from notes, much less so. Some say 

 they are interested, but I am not able to Jill the house. About 

 four or five hundred attend, but that is not thought large in these 

 parts. The evening audience are chiefly men ; the afternoon one 

 women. I find they don't want poetry, and are quite contented 

 with the drier details. On one of my idle days, Dr. Gray and I 

 went by rail to Beverley, where his father-in-law has a sea- 

 side residence. The railroad took us through some old towns, of 

 which a noted one was Salem, an early settlement, and a primitive- 

 looking place. Another was Lynn, where every man is a shoe- 

 maker and fisherman — fishing in the summer, aud sewing leather 

 all the hard weather. This trade is the great staple manufacture 

 of these parts, 18,000,000 of dollars being the annual value of 

 the shoe-trade in Massachusetts. The coast round Beverley is 

 very pretty, hill and dale, with large masses of natural rockwork 

 peeping through the soil. Mr. L.'s place is quite on the shore, 

 sixty acres, tastefully laid out, the ornamental not intruding on 

 the wild spots, and these adding a charm to the others. There 



