My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

214 MY LIFEthus became intimate with Mr. Mitten and his family.Mr. Mitten was an enthusiastic botanist and gardener,and knew every wild plant in the very rich districtwhich surrounds the village, and all his family werelovers of wild flowers. I remember my delight, onthe occasion of my first or second visit there, at seeinga vase full of the delicate and fantastic flowers of thelarge butterfly-orchis and the curious fly-orchis, neitherof which I had ever seen before, and which I wassurprised to hear were abundant in the woods at thefoot of the downs. It was an immense delight to meto be taken to these woods, and to some fields on thedowns where the bee-orchis and half a dozen otherspecies grew abundantly, with giant cowslips nearlytwo feet high, the dyers' broom, and many otherinteresting plants. The richness of this district maybe judged by the fact that within a walk more thantwenty species of orchises have been found. Thissimilarity of taste led to a close intimacy, and in thespring of the following year I was married to Mr.Mitten's eldest daughter, then about eighteen yearsold.After a week at Windsor we came to live inLondon, and in early autumn went for a month toNorth Wales, staying at Llanberris and Dolgelly. Itook with me Sir Andrew Ramsay's little book on" The Old Glaciers of Switzerland and North Wales,"and thoroughly enjoyed the fine examples of icegroovingsand striations, smoothed rock-surfaces,roches viontonnees, moraines, perched blocks, and rockbasins,with which the valleys around Snowdon abound.Every day revealed some fresh object of interest aswe climbed among the higher cw7ns of Snowdon ;and from what I saw during that first visit the IceAge became almost as much a reality to me as any