NOTES OF AN AMERICAN TOUR. 
145 
NOTES OF AN AMERICAN TOUR.* 
BY W. P. MARSHALL, M.I.C.E. 
In this tour, which was taken last spring, the special 
objects aimed at were to see the great Yosemite Valley in 
California, within 150 miles of the Pacific Coast; the Pike’s 
Peak District of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado ; the 
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky ; and to visit again the wonder¬ 
ful Niagara Falls that I had seen the year before on the 
occasion of the British Association Meeting at Montreal in 
Canada. The route taken extended across the continent, 
from New York to San Francisco, going on the way down to 
the Mexican frontier in the South, and returning by a 
different route up to the Canadian frontier in the North 
on the way to New York, as shown on the map, plate II. 
The time of this trip was the two months of May and 
June, and that time of the year seems specially favourable for 
a visit to the North American continent, being clear of the 
winter snows, with the advantage of the recently melted 
snow for filling the waterfalls, and also clear of the great 
heat of summer, which is very oppressive in the greater 
portion of the continent, going up to a temperature of 100 
degrees and upwards in New York. That city is in the same 
latitude as Naples, about 40 degrees latitude; and the most 
southern point visited on the Mexican frontier is in the same 
latitude as Alexandria in Egypt. The northern boundary 
between the United States and Canada is in the latitude of 
Paris, and the dotted line of 50 degrees latitude shown 
through the southern portion of Canada is the‘same as the 
south of Devonshire. 
The most striking feature that claimed notice was the 
immense size of the country, which is nearly as far across 
from New York to San Francisco as the whole length of the 
voyage from England to New York (each about 3,000 miles), 
and on arriving at San Francisco you find yourself one-tliird 
way round the world, and your watch lias to be altered eight 
hours from English time, or one-tliird of the whole twenty- 
four hours. 
On the return to New York, at the end of this American 
tour, I found that I had travelled more than 8,000 miles without 
going out of the United States or going over any of the ground 
* Transactions of the Birmingham Natural History and Micro¬ 
scopical Society. Read March 30th, 1886. 
