There is a peculiarity of the clay soil here, very remarkable. In the lowering and grading of streets incident to such a growing city, many houses are left twenty and even twenty-five feet above the grade, and yet when the soil is dug perpendicularly down within a foot of the foundation of these houses, brick ones as well as frame, they remain perfectly firm and secure for months and even years, a few little creases only being worn, by the rains and frosts, down the face of these walls of clay. The clay bluffs across the river, one or two hundred feet high, are nearly perpendicular now in some places, and yet they have been exposed to the weather for centuries, perhaps, long before the pale-faced white settler knew of them at least. After riding six hundred miles through the States of Illinois and Iowa, over the prairies, both level and rolling, I am frank to acknowledge that the prospect of five hundred miles more of the same kind of scenery did not make me over enthusiastic to travel it on my wheel. The riding, so far, has not been monotonous, and I did not want it to become so. The object of the trip was not to make or break records, and thus far, whenever I have found it desirable to take a train, I have done so. But the ride through Nebraska would be so very similar to what I had already experienced in Iowa, that I thought a day's ride on the cars would do me no harm and the time saved could be very profitably used in the mountains. The object of my trip is to see the most of the country in the best possible way, and thus far I think I have been fairly successful. The distance to Omaha traveled by rail has been about 250 miles, and by wheel 2,000 miles, and the total expense, including about eight dollars car fare, has been not quite forty dollars. This includes all repairs to wheel, clothes, and every expense whatsoever. I probably have stopped over night at farm-houses half the time, which has been the chief aid in making the expense so light, but the accommodations have many times been better than at some of the hotels. I have ridden till nearly dark and then taken a hotel or farm-house, just as it happened. Much of the time, seventy days, since leaving home has been spent in visiting friends, but one can travel over the same route, in the same manner, without a friend to visit on the way for less than a dollar a day.