15. Soon after retiring from the presidency, General Grant, with his family and a company of personal friends, set out to make a TOUR OF THE WORLD. The expedition attracted the most conspicuous attention both at home and abroad. The departure from Philadelphia on the 17th of May, 1877, was the beginning of such a pageant as was never before extended to any citizen of any nation of the earth. General Grant visited Europe, India, Burmah and Siam; China and Japan. In the fall of 1879 the party returned to San Francisco, bearing with them the highest tokens of esteem which the great nations of the Old World could bestow upon the honored representative of the New. [Illustration: Oliver P. Morton.] 16. The CENSUS OF 1880 was undertaken with more system and care than ever before in the history of the country. The work was intrusted to the superintendency of Professor Francis A. Walker. In every source of national power, the development of the country was shown to have continued without abatement. The total population of the States and Territories now amounted to 50,182,525--an increase since 1870 of _more than a million inhabitants a year_! The center of population had moved westward about fifty miles, to the vicinity of Cincinnati. [Sidenote: =Oliver P. Morton.=] 17. During the administration of Hayes several eminent Americans passed from the scene of their earthly activities. On the 1st of November, 1877, the distinguished senator, Oliver P. Morton, died of paralysis at his home in Indianapolis. His reputation in his own State and throughout the Union was very great, and his sterling character had won the respect even of his political enemies. As War Governor of Indiana, he had been one of the main pillars of support to the Union in the trying days of the Civil War. After that event he had become one of the foremost men of the nation. Although but fifty-four years of age, he had risen to be a recognized leader in American statesmanship. His death was regarded as a public calamity, and the Nation, without distinction of party, joined with his own State in doing honor to the memory of the great dead.