Il8 MY LIFE [Chap. 



wintry, and so our first really good spring botanizing was on 

 March 27, when we went a rather long walk of about nine 

 miles to High Island, a locality for many rarities. Here we 

 found several pretty or curious spring flowers, the most 

 interesting to me being the strange little white-flowered 

 umbelliferous plant, Erigena bulbosa ; but other peculiar 

 American plants — Claytonia, Podophyllum, Jefifersonia, etc. — 

 I now saw in flower for the first time. During these excur- 

 sions we had many long talks and discussions while taking 

 our lunch. At that time I was not a convinced socialist, and 

 in that respect Lester Ward was in advance of me, though he 

 could not quite convince me. He was also an absolute 

 agnostic or monist, and around this question our discussions 

 most frequently turned. But as I had a basis of spiritualistic 

 experiences of which he was totally ignorant, we looked at 

 the subject from different points of view ; and I was limited 

 to urging the inherent and absolute differences of nature 

 between matter and mind, and that though, as a verbal pro- 

 position, it may be as easy to assume the eternal and necessary 

 existence of matter and its forces as it is to assume mind as the 

 fundamental cause of matter, yet it is not really so complete 

 an explanation or so truly monistic, since we cannot actually 

 conceive matter as producing mind, whereas we certainly can 

 conceive mind as producing matter. 



I also soon became very intimate with Major Powell, the 

 head of the Geological Survey, and also with Captain Button, 

 Mr. McGee, and other members of the survey. I spent a 

 good deal of time in their library, reading up the history of 

 the glacial phenomena and antiquity of man in America. At 

 twelve o'clock we all lunched together, in a very informal way, 

 on bread and cheese, fruit, cakes, and tea ; and at this time we 

 had many interesting conversations, as Major Powell was a 

 great anthropologist and psychologist, as well as a geologist, 

 and we thus got upon all kinds of subjects. 



I also spent a good deal of my time in the great collection 

 of prehistoric remains, stone implements, weapons, etc., of 

 early man in the National Museum, perhaps the most 



