His ascent of Gray’s Peak was made a great occasion in the neighborhood. A large party gathered from Georgetown and Empire City, and started the afternoon before, after having been most hospitably dined by Judge McMurdy, in Georgetown; the night was passed in a mining-tavern cabin, and the ascent, some going on horseback, some on foot, was made the next morning. Speeches were made on the summit, and resolutions passed to confirm the names Gray’s and Torrey’s peaks given in 1862 by Dr. Parry, who was himself happily with the party. The ascent is not as difficult as in most mountains of that height, as one can ride on horseback to the top in August, when the snow lies only in patches; the trail is mostly over the rough shale, and for a month or two the summit, though over 14,000 feet, is almost bare. The view of the innumerable peaks is very magnificent. At Dubuque he was the guest of an old Fairfield comrade. As the retiring president of the American Association he gave his address,[91] written mostly in the cars on the long overland journey, in which he explained still further some of his long-meditated conclusions on the distribution of the flora of Western North America. TO R. W. CHURCH. CAMBRIDGE, October, 1872. MY DEAR CHURCH,--I promised to myself, if I did not to you, that I would write you from the other side of this continent; but writing and journeying are incompatible, at least in case where the time for the one is too short for your undertakings. But now we have been a month at home, and more; the accumulation of things to be seen to is worked off or nearly, and I mean now to tell you something of our summer’s doings. As soon as we were free we set out.... At Chicago we had two nights and a day in which to see the desolated and fast rebuilding town. From this place, over a thousand miles west of Boston, we made our proper start.... A welcome rain cooled the air and laid the dust that morning, and not a drop more of rain did we see, any more than in Egypt, from that day onward, until, six or seven weeks later, we were back at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, when there was an evening thunderstorm, and the next morning I called Mrs. Gray to the window to see a novel sight,--the streets dripping and muddy! I wish I could describe to you our journey, and the sort of life we were leading. But if I go into particulars there will be no end.