Well, much as we miss and want you, yet we should have hurried you too much. We want to go over a good deal of ground cursorily, rather than a little thoroughly and leisurely. I do not write you about the oaks at Cañon City, because we had nothing new to say. We agree with you in the complete running together of the oaks down to Undulata. There is one very large-leaved state, looking very different; but it is mostly on fast-growing shoots, and no doubt is a state of the “Q. alba, var.” of Torrey. “Alba” indeed! But we did not find the entire-leaved form at the cañon, and Brandegee said it occurred only at the mouth of the cañon, and near the city. From Cañon City we--Mrs. Gray, Hayden, and I--went in one day south to La Veta by rail, and the next day, toward evening, up to La Veta Pass, 10,300 feet, and over and 300 feet or so lower, where we camped, nice tents having been provided by Fort Lyon en route, and other furnishings from Fort Garland. Abies concolor abounded, though there was more of A. Menziesii (Picea pungens) and Pinus contorta, and a good amount of P. aristata and P. flexilis. The A. Menziesii at that elevation is less prickly, sometimes almost as soft as A. Douglasii to the touch, and cones inclined to be shorter. The result is, we think we can trace A. Engelmanni into A. Menziesii. What say you to that? Botanizing up there and in Sangre de Christo Pass good, but only moderate; nothing new, and no great variety. We enjoyed camp life very well; but after three days broke up, and went over to Fort Garland, and thence, while the ladies and General Strachey went off to a Mexican village, we had a two days’ trip up the Sierra Blanca. Alpine plants the same as on Gray’s Peak, but scanty, owing to more southern latitude and greater dryness. A longer time and a searching of the interior of this very rough range might, and doubtless would, furnish much we did not see.