TOUR IN THE UNITED STATES. 209 



booked for the 8th of March, when I intend to return to 

 Charleston for the meeting of A. S. Association. Thence to 

 Washington, Philadelphia, and New York ; and then home ! I 

 am beginning to wish to be back again once more, notwith- 

 standing the heavenly climate and flowery soil. Excuse stu- 

 pidity, for know that we are here out of the habitable world, 

 without post or newspaper. 



Washington, March 24, 1850. 

 I left Charleston on Saturday last, where I spent a week 

 very agreeably in attending the meeting of the American 

 Assembly for the advancement of Science. I arrived here on 

 the Monday following, and have delivered three lectures at the 

 Smithsonian Institute. I did not intend more, but was pressed 

 for a fourth, so agreed to it. The audience is a highly respect- 

 able and intelligent one, and they seem pleased with what they 

 hear, notwithstanding that my manner is the very reverse of 

 Yankee fluency. I give it to them in the same stumbling, 

 blundering way that I practise in Dublin, and yet they seem 

 to like it. 



The meeting at Charleston, though small, was a very pleasant 

 one, perhaps more so than if it had been larger, for all the 

 sections met together ; and thus we had a variety of papers and 

 subjects, and the observations of different classes of men were 

 brought out, on each other's pursuits. Thus we had physical 

 science men, making remarks on natural history papers, and 

 vice versa — and often the mutual connection between the most 

 opposite pursuits and sciences was thus made apparent. Even 

 my Alga? were lugged in, by men who had been investigating 

 the course of the sea currents ; and I was surprised to hear 

 incidentally (since I came to Washington) that some random 

 observations which I had made about the distribution of the 

 Algse on these coasts had preceded me here, and were thought 

 interesting. I repeat one little story : — 



Professor Bache, the superintendent of the coast survey — a 

 man of first-rate reputation in physical science — gave us an 

 account of the examination of sand, dredged at various depths 

 on the coast by the officers attached to the survey. Many 

 hundred bottles of this sand were put up — carefully labelled, 

 depth and situation noted, &c. — and were then submitted to a 



p 



