We are just back via Niagara; Hooker and I via New York, and the former having the Sunday with Eaton at New Haven. All well and happy to get home after a prosperous and, as you may imagine, laborious journey of ten and a half weeks. The trip to Shasta involved long stagecoach journeys, but they were most interesting. Returning to Sacramento we went on to Truckee, where Lemmon[103] joined us by appointment. We gave one day to Mount Stanford and one to Tahoe, then took the overland train as it came on at midnight, and thence had no stationary bed till we reached Niagara. And we live to tell the story! I want to tell you what we are led to think about Firs and Spruces. I will give in this my own opinions, which lie yet open, but are likely to settle down, except you convince me to the contrary on some points. Hooker comes to the same conclusions or nearly, but I will keep to my own only in this letter, and ask what you think of them, off-hand. Your reply will come to hand before Sir Joseph sails.... Some day you must have a picture of our camp on La Veta Pass. I wish there could have been one of the Shasta camp of the Bidwells. TO CHARLES DARWIN. CAMBRIDGE, September 27, 1877. MY DEAR DARWIN,--Returning from our ten and a half weeks of travel, which has been every way prospered and pleasant, I find your book.[104] I can now barely thank you for it, and for the great compliment of the dedication. I must not open it till Hooker leaves me, a week hence, the work we have to do before we part being so great and pressing. Then I shall turn to it, with enjoyment, and as soon as I can find time I must notice or review it. Hooker sends his love; is very glad Cohn has taken up your son’s experiments on Dipsacus, which reminds me to send my best thanks to him for the copy addressed to me. For perusal, even for a glance, that, too, must wait till we have worked up the collections and observations we have made in our journey to the Pacific. Let me add, being sure of your sympathy, that our poor dog Max peacefully breathed his last to-day, after a happy life of twelve or thirteen years. We are glad he lived till we returned, and greeted us with his absorbing and touching affection. In a few days came a partial paralysis, some convulsions, and then a quiet and seemingly painless ending. He is immortalized in your book on Expression, and will live in the memory of his attached master and mistress. Max was a black and tan terrier, not remarkable in any way for beauty or intelligence, but interesting from his warm affection and the power it had in developing his intelligence. To be near and to please his beloved master was enough for him. Anything his master did was right and to be submitted to. Max had conscience, but it did not restrain him from showing his vexation when left at home, by throwing Dr. Gray’s hat and gloves, etc., on the floor; but his shame and penitence always betrayed him. It seemed as if the joy of his master’s return had killed him.