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

"A LECTURE-TOUR IN AMERICA 273from nature, so as to exhibit the most strikingexamples of these curious and beautiful phenomena.I left London on October 9 in a rather slowsteamer, in order to have a cabin to myself at amoderate price, and landed at New York on the23rd, after a cold and disagreeable passage.My tour in America lasted about ten months, andextended from New York, Boston, and Washingtonto San Francisco, and back to Montreal and Quebec.I visited and lectured at many of the great cities, andmet many well-known and intellectual people, includingamongst others Oliver Wendell Holmes, JamesRussell Lowell, and Edward Waldo Emerson, sonof the philosopher. I also had the opportunity oseeing some of the finest scenery and most interestingobjects in North America.Whilst in California I once more had the pleasureof meeting my brother John and his wife, neither ofwhom I had seen for nearly forty years.As American cities have been so frequentlydescribed, I will here only give an account of a fewof the interesting sights or natural objects which mostimpressed me, with some remarks on my generalimpression of the country and people.The first excursion I made in America was a tripup the Hudson River to West Point, passing thecelebrated " Palisades " —a continuous row of cHfifsabout two hundred feet high, and extending fornearly twenty miles on the south bank of the river.They look exactly like a huge fence of enormoussplit trees, placed vertically, side by side, but arereally basaltic columns like those at the Giant'sCauseway, crowning a slope of fallen rock. In placesthe well-wooded country was very beautiful, with theautumnal tints of bright red, purple, and yellow,T