Before referring further to the meetings at Philadelphia, I may just mention the other journeys that I took.  My holiday having been broken by the rupture of the union to which I have alluded, I had to devote it then to other purposes, and, in addition to Montreal and Philadelphia, I went to New York (to which I shall refer again), from New York to Buffalo, then to Lake Erie and Cleveland, and on to Chicago, where I spent a week or more.  From Chicago I went to see the great artery of the West—­the Mississippi.  I stopped for a day or two at St. Louis.  One remarkable fact came to my knowledge, and I dare say it is new to many present, and that is, that the Mississippi, unlike other rivers, runs uphill.  It happens, rather curiously, that, owing to the earth being an oblate spheroid, the difference between the source of the Mississippi and the center of the earth is less than that of its mouth and the center of the earth, and you may see how this running up hill is accounted for.

From St. Louis I went to Indianapolis, thence to Pittsburg, where they have struck most extraordinary wells of natural gas.  Borings are made in the earth from the crust to a depth of 600 or 700 feet, when large reservoirs of natural gas are “struck.”  The town is lighted by this gas, and it is also employed for motive power.  In Cleveland, also, this natural gas is found, and there is no doubt that it is going to economize the cost of production very much in that part of the country.  From Pittsburg I went to Baltimore, where Sir William Thomson was occupied in delivering lectures to the students of the Johns Hopkins University.  In all these American towns one very curious feature is that they all have great educational establishments, endowed and formed by private munificence.  In Canada there is the McGill University, and in nearly every place one goes to there is a university, like the Johns Hopkins at Baltimore, where Johns Hopkins left 3,500,000 dollars to be devoted entirely to educational purposes; and that university is under the management of one of the most enlightened men in America, Professor Grillman, and he has as his lieutenants Professors Rowland, Mendenhall, and other well-known men, and each professor is in his own line particularly eminent.  Sir William Thomson delivered there a really splendid course of lectures.  From Baltimore I went through Philadelphia to Boston.  I visited Long Branch, and I spent a long time in New York, so that from what I have said you will gather that I spent a good deal of my time in the States.  Wherever I went I devoted all my leisure time to inquiry into the telegraphic, telephonic, and electric light arrangements in existence.  I visited all the manufactories I could get to, and I did all I possibly could to enable me to return home and afford information, and perhaps amusement, to my fellow-members of this Society.