have been waiting and waiting for Oakes to give, not his New England
“Flora” (which I fear he will always leave unfinished), but a predromus
of it, for my use and for New England. The consequence of waiting is
that Wood[142] is just taking the market, against my “Botanical
Text-Book,” mostly by means of his “Flora.” Letters from Hitchcock--and
elsewhere--all point to the probability that they will have to use his
book (of which, by the way, he is preparing a second edition, which he
cannot but improve), and ask me to prevent it by appending a brief
description of New England or Northern plants to my “Botanical
Text-Book.” A plan has occurred to me by which this might be done, were
it not that I will not tread on the heels of anything that Oakes (who
has devoted a life of labor to this end) will actually do.
As something must be done at once, I have proposed to Oakes to make
myself the necessary conspectuses of orders, analyses, etc.; to join the
proposed thing on, or to dove-tail it into, the “Text-Book;” and also to
furnish the generic characters, and he is to write the specific
characters and all that for New England plants. I give him as limit 250
pages brevier type, 12mo (say 300), and insist upon having the greater
part of the copy on the 1st March, and that it shall be published on the
1st April. That I may cover the ground of Wood, and introduce it into
New York, I propose, if you think it right and proper, to add the
characters of the (about 150) New York plants not found in New England,
distinguishing that by a †.
Oakes promises to do it. But our understanding is explicit that if he
cannot get through with it in time, he is soon to let me know, and to
furnish me with New England matters, when I am to do, not exactly this,
but a more compendious manual of the botany of New England, New York,
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, that is, the Northern States proper. It
will be imperfect and hasty, but it will prevent Wood from fixing
himself so that he cannot be driven out.
I propose to have a sufficient number of copies of this (in whatever
form it may appear) bound up with the “Botanical Text-Book” to meet the
demands of the one-book system in New England and New York, and to
afford it at a price reduced to a minimum, so that nothing is to be made
out of it, at least out of the first edition.
How does this all strike you? I am convinced that something must be
done, and I will see if we can’t have a very popular, and at the same
time a pretty good book.
George[143] sends his warm regards.
21st November, 1845.
I have driven Oakes so absolutely into a corner that I think he will
work for once. The man’s preparations and materials are enormous! and
for his sake I hope he will. If he does not, I shall know in time,--that
is, as soon as I can use the knowledge,--and then the plan may take such
form as may be deemed best. I should then wish to make it more
absolutely a supplement of “Botanical Text-Book;” but only for the
proper North. In the way in which it would then be done, with
Persoonish[144] compactness and brevity, I doubt if you would care to
engage in it. As soon as we can get out the proper Botany of the United
States, I should wish it to supersede this to a great extent. In my
hands, I would sell it so cheaply as to make very little, except as it
promotes the sale of the “Botanical Text-Book.” I would sell the
“Text-Book” with it for $2, or less even. The great object is to keep
the ground clear by running an uncompromising opposition against the
threatening interlopers.
My lectures are to commence January 13th.
TO J. D. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, 31st December, 1845.
I was much pleased to receive your pleasant letter of the 29th October
last, and I read with interest the account of the debate on the occasion
of the election by the Edinburgh Town Council. Such defeats can do you
no harm. I suppose you are now going on with the “Flora Antarctica.” I
need not say that I should be very glad to see the Antarctic plants of
the Wilkes Expedition in your hands. The botanist who accompanied the
expedition is no doubt perfectly incompetent to the task, so greatly so
that probably he has but a remote idea how incompetent he is. I have not
seen him nor the plants. Certainly I would not touch them (any but the
Oregon and Californian) if they were offered to me, which they are not
likely to be. I consider myself totally incompetent to do such a work
without making it a special study for some years, and going abroad to
study the collections accumulated in Europe. Of course if they are
worked up at all in this country, they will be done disgracefully. I
publicly expressed my opinion on the subject in “Silliman’s Journal.”
But I have long been convinced that nothing can be done. The whole
business has been in the hands till now of Senator----, the most
obstinate, wrong-headed, narrow-minded, impracticable ignoramus that
could well be found.... If to this you add an utter ignorance of those
principles of comity and the spirit of interchange that prevail among
naturalists, and a total want of comprehension of what is to be done in
the scientific works in question, and you will see that nothing is to be
expected from such sources. They have thrown every obstacle they could
in the way of their naturalists--Dana and Pickering, for instance--so
much so that Pickering, though a patient man, once threw up his position
in disgust, I have heard, but, by some concessions made to him, was
finally persuaded to retain it.
Some of the scientific reports will soon be published, Dana on the
Corals, etc., which will, I suppose, be very creditable to him. When any
of the volumes appear I am somewhat inclined to call public attention to
some of this gross mismanagement and incompetency in these wrong-headed
managers, in a review. I thank you very much for all the botanical news
you give, and hope you will still favor me now and then with other such
epistles.
I have never worked so hard as for the last four years, nor accomplished
so much. Still it will not show for much in your eyes, and I receive
many an exhortation like yours to go on with the “Flora.” But a world of
work that could only be done by myself, the pressure of the duties of my
new position, and the necessity of taking, indeed of creating, and
maintaining a stand that should make my department felt and appreciated,
has indeed sadly interrupted the work which I am of all others most
desirous to complete. I have already a great deal of matter in a state
of forwardness, and another year (Deo favente) will, I trust, give you a
better account of me. My last course of public lectures in Boston
commences in a fortnight, and will be over towards the close of
February. You will admit that there is some temptation to a person who
has so many uses for money, when I tell you that I received twelve
hundred dollars for the delivery of twelve lectures, and that there are
strong reasons beyond what the institution that employs me may justly
demand, that I should do my best. This, however, will soon be over, and
the “Flora” shall be pushed with vigor.... I greatly long to revisit
England and to see you all once more. Nothing would delight me more; and
there is a world of work I want to do in the collections of England and
the Continent. Indeed you may look to see me one of these days, for I
cannot long be satisfied or quiet without such a visit; though I shall
hardly dare to show my face till the “Flora” is finished. How glad I
shall be to see you in your quarters at Kew, and renew my acquaintance
with all the family, of whom I retain so many pleasant memories. With
kind regards to all, believe me,
Ever your affectionate friend, A. GRAY.
TO JOHN TORREY.
CAMBRIDGE, January 26, 1846.
Your favor of the 22d I found this evening on my return from my
afternoon’s lecture. I am very tired and cannot write much this evening.
Four of my lectures[145] are off. You will be glad to know that they
have gone off very well--the three first admirably; indeed I was
surprised myself at the fluency, ease, and “enlargement” which was given
me. The fourth, both last evening and this afternoon, was
poorer--interesting details, but scrappy, and less comfort in speaking.
Splendid illustrations up though.... The pictures were worth something,
if the lecture was not. I shall spur myself up hard for those four to
come, which are fully illustrated, in fact a complete _embarras de
richesses_. Then come the four geographical lectures, which if Sprague
gets the illustrations ready will be very interesting, I think. I must
work them off well, for at least two of our seven members of corporation
are constant hearers.
... There is a formidable amount of work of various sorts that should be
accomplished (Deo favente) before the July vacation.... The
contemplated expedition is a land one, from Lake Superior by North Pass
to upper Oregon, down to Lewis River; up that, and then over to the Gila
River in California. I know of no botanist to go. Can you find one?
Sprague cannot be spared, and will not leave his wife and family for so
long.
... Some of our Congressmen must feel a little ashamed that England is
so cool and quiet in spite of all their bluster. Capital for peace that
the Peel ministry is still in. We owe much gratitude to the new Lord
Grey....
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
CAMBRIDGE, April 8, 1846.
What is Lindheimer about? Why is not his last year’s collection yet with
you? We have just got things going, and we can sell fifty sets right off
of his further collections, and he can go on and realize a handsome sum
of money, if he will only work now! And he will connect his name forever
with the Texan Flora!
I am at the “Flora” again and hope to do great things this year,--shall
work hard and constantly.
Besides, by the aid of my young and excellent artist Sprague’s drawings,
and Prestele to engrave cheaply and neatly on stone, I am going to
commence a Genera Illustrata of the United States, like T. Nees von
Esenbeck’s “Genera Germanica Iconibus Illustrata.”--the plates to be
equally good, and quite cheap too. The first volume, one hundred plates,
going on regularly from Ranunculaceæ, will be preparing this summer, and
will be out in the fall....
May 30.
Have done something at the “Flora;” shall do much work this season after
July 4th, when college duties are over. Drawings for “Genera” are
getting on well.
One word now on another point. We must have a collector for plants
living and dry to go to Santa Fé, with the Government Expedition. If I
were not so tied up, I would go myself. Have you not some good fellow
you can send? We could probably get him attached somehow so as to have
the protection of the army, and if need be I could raise here two
hundred dollars as an outfit. He could make it worth the while. He could
collect sixty sets of five hundred plants (besides seeds and Cacti) very
soon, which, named by us, would go off at once at ten dollars per
hundred. Somebody must go into this unexplored field! Let me know if you
think anything can be done, and I will set to work. The great thing is a
proper man.
July 15.
I duly received your favor of June 25th; am delighted that you found a
man to send to Santa Fé. I approve your mode of carrying out the plan,
and will not be slow to aid in it. I wrote at once to Sullivant, telling
him to forward fifty dollars for Fendler,[146]--to take his pay in
Mosses and Hepaticæ, and to give instructions about collecting these,
his great favorites. Before this reaches you, I am sure you will hear
from him. He is a capital fellow, and Fendler must be taught to collect
Mosses for him.
Then came your letter of July 3d. All right. I immediately wrote to
Marcy, the Secretary of War, and to Colonel Abert, the head of the
Topographical Engineer Corps; asked for protection and transportation;
told the secretary to send anything he might be disposed to do to you at
St. Louis. I then inclosed your letter to Mr. Lowell, and have just
received it back again, with his letter, which I inclose to you! Is it
not handsome?... Now Fendler has money enough to begin with. As soon as
he is in the field, and shown by his first collections that he is
deserving, I can get as much more money advanced for him, from other
parties. If he only makes as good and handsome specimens as Lindheimer,
all will be well. His collections should commence when he crosses the
Arkansas; his first envoi should be the plants between that and Santa
Fé, and be sent this fall, with seeds, cacti, and bulbs, the former of
every kind he can get. These must be confined to yourself, Mr. Lowell,
and me, till we see what we get by raising them. Other live plants he
had better not attempt now.
His next collection must be at and around Santa Fé. But instruct him to
get into high mountains, or as high as he can find, whenever he can. The
mountains to the north of Santa Fé often rise to the snowline, and are
perfectly full of new things. But you can best judge what instructions
to give him. We can sell just as many sets of plants as he will make
good specimens of. But forty sets is about as many as he ought to
make....
It is said that a corps of troops is to be sent up through Texas towards
New Spain. Lindheimer ought to go along, and so get high up into the
country, where so much is new, and the plants have really “no Latin
names.”
October 8th.
By the way, meeting Agassiz last evening, I was pleased to learn that he
claimed you as a schoolmate, and spoke of you with lively pleasure. He
is a fine, pleasant fellow. We shall take good care of him here.
January 5, 1847.
I am glad so fine a collection is on the way from Lindheimer, and
greatly approve his going to the mountains on the Guadaloupe. How high
are the mountains? If good, real mountains, and he can get on to them,
and into secluded valleys, he will do great things....
We will keep ahead of the Bonn people. By the close of next summer (Deo
favente) we may hope to have the botany of Texas pretty well in our
hands.
Do you hear from Fendler? Hooker says that region, the mountains
especially, is the best ground to explore in North America! There is a
high mountain right back of Santa Fé. Fendler must ravish it.
TO JOHN TORREY.
Wednesday, [October, 1846].
A Mr. Baird,[147] of Carlisle, Pa., called on me yesterday, evidently a
most keen naturalist (ornithology principally), but a man of more than
common grasp. He talked about an evergreen-leaved Vaccinium, which I
have no doubt is V. brachycerum, Mx., that I have so long sought in
vain!...
13th October, 1846.
I leave Agassiz in New York. He will leave New York Wednesday morning;
join me at Princeton, and go on with us to Philadelphia that evening.
We shall probably go together to Carlisle, where he has something to do
with that capital naturalist, Professor Baird, and I have to get live
Vaccinium brachycerum. He will soon return to make ready his lectures
here.
Agassiz is an excellent fellow, and I know you will be glad to make his
personal acquaintance. I must make my stay, such as it can be, at
Princeton, on my return....
9th December, 1846.
Agassiz lectured first last evening; fine audience; he had a cold; was
very hoarse, so that he spoke with discomfort to himself, but it went
off very well. Though he by no means did himself justice, the audience
seemed well pleased, and the persons I spoke with at the time, the most
intelligent people, were quite delighted and impressed. He has repeated
to-day. I expect to hear him again on Friday....
I have sixteen proofs of “Genera Illustrata.” The engraving is clean and
neat, but except a few of the last, they are not done so well as we
expect, and do not do justice to the drawings, which, indeed, are almost
matchless. Prestele has, in some, altered the arrangement of the
analyses on the plate; consequently they must be done over again.
I am clear that Prestele can do what I want, so I have given him further
instructions, and have raised his pay to $2.50 each; increasing my own
risk thereby. Sprague has discovered some new quiddities about the
position of the ovule in Ranunculaceæ. The raphe is dorsal in all of
them, with pendulous ovules; also in Nelumbium.
He will go on very slowly; I can’t hurry him. He has not yet taken up
Croomia.
You have not told me about Chapman’s queer plant yet!...
Unless Nuttall has arrived, which I do not hear of, it is too late for
him till next fall; for his object was to secure three months’ absence
out of the present year, and three out of next.[148]
January 24, 1847.
Agassiz has finished his lectures with great eclât--most admirable
course--and on Thursday evening last he volunteered an additional one in
French, which was fine.
I gave you the explanation you asked for in my last letter, which I
still hope you will find. What I then said about the excellent tone of
his lectures generally was fully sustained to the last; they have been
good lectures on natural theology. The whole spirit was vastly above
that of any geological course I ever heard, his refutation of Lamarckian
or “Vestiges” views most pointed and repeated. The whole course was
planned on a very high ground, and his references to the Creator were so
natural and unconstrained as to show that they were never brought in for
effect.
The points that I. A. Smith has got hold of were a few words at the
close of his lecture on the geographical distribution of animals, in
which he applied the views he maintains (which are those of Schouw still
further extended) to man.
He thinks that animals and plants were originally created in numbers,
occupying considerable area, perhaps almost as large as they now occupy.
I should mention that he opposes Lyell and others who maintain that
very many of the Tertiary species are the same as those now existing. He
believes there is not one such, but that there was an entirely new
creation at the commencement of the historic era, which is all we want
to harmonize geology with Genesis. Now, as to man he maintains
distinctly that they are all one species. But he does not believe that
the Negro and Malay races descended from the sons of Noah, but had a
distinct origin. This, you will see, is merely an extension of his
general view. We should not receive it, rejecting it on other than
scientific grounds, of which he does not feel the force as we do.
But so far from bringing this against the Bible, he brings the Bible to
sustain his views, thus appealing to its authority instead of
endeavoring to overthrow it. He shows from it (conclusively) that all
the sons of Noah (Ham with the rest) were the fathers of the extant
Caucasian races,--races which have remained nearly unaltered from the
first, and that if any negroes proceeded from Ham’s descendants, it must
have been by a miracle. That is the upshot of the matter. We may reject
his conclusions, but we cannot find fault with his spirit, and I shall
be glad to know that Dr. I. A. Smith, in the whole course of his public
teaching, has displayed a reverence for the Bible equal to that of
Agassiz. I have been on the most intimate terms with him: I never heard
him express an opinion or a word adverse to the claims of revealed
religion. His admirable lectures on embryology contain the most original
and fundamental confutation of materialism I ever heard.
I make the “Manual” keep clear of slavery,--New Jersey, Pennsylvania (if
little Delaware manumits perhaps I can find a corner for it), Ohio,
Indiana or not as the case may be, leave out Illinois, which has too
many Mississippi plants, take in Michigan and Wisconsin, at least
Lapham’s[149] plants near the Lakes. That makes a very homogeneous
florula.
I have made as usual much less progress than I supposed; so now, pressed
at the same time with college duties, I have to work very hard indeed.
Carey is coming on to help me.... Sheet full.
July 20, 1847.
Did you not know that an application has come from Wilkes through
Pickering[150] to Sprague to make some botanical drawings for the
Exploring Expedition, which, as I supposed they were to be for your use,
I persuaded Sprague to promise to undertake, at ten dollars for each
folio drawing with the dissections full.... The price we fixed is as low
as Sprague can do them for, to any advantage, even if he had nothing
else to do. The price I fixed for the drawings of “Genera,” and which I
thought very large, ($6 per plate) does not thus far pay Sprague day
wages, he takes so much time and care with them. I can only hope that
the experience and facility he is getting will enable him to knock them
off faster hereafter. You see therefore that Sprague cannot afford to
make the drawings for Emory at the price he made those for Frémont--two
dollars apiece. He will do them better; having now such skill in
dissections he will display structure finely, but he must not undertake
them under six dollars apiece, since they will cost him as much time as
do my octavo “Genera” drawings. He might make what you want along this
summer and autumn; I am not crowding him.
September 28, 1847.
I had a pleasant visit to Litchfield of three days, including the
Sabbath. On the banks of a lake in the neighborhood I stumbled on a
species of Cyperus dentatus, which in the “Flora of the Northern States”
you credit to Litchfield, Brace.[151] This Mr. Brace, who is an uncle of
J.’s, I met for a moment at New Milford, where he now lives. There are
three great aunts, most excellent old ladies, who live in a simple and
most delightful manner at Litchfield. The youngest, who has been J.’s
guardian almost from infancy, returned with us to Boston for a week or
two. Their brother, Mr. Pierce, who died only last year, was, it seems,
an old friend of yours, through whom they feel almost acquainted with
you. He passed a part of his life in New York, was a mineralogist, and I
think I have seen his name as a member of the Lyceum. Pray tell me about
him.
I found it not easy to make an arrangement in New York for the
publication of the “Illustrated Genera,” by which I could get back
directly the money I have expended in it. I think, therefore, I shall go
on to defray the expenses of the first volume myself, which I think I
shall be able to do, and thus manage to get the immediate proceeds
myself. As to the “Manual,” I have unwittingly made it so large, in
spite of all my endeavors at compression, that I can make nothing to
speak of from the first edition, even if it sells right off.
TO J. L. L.
Monday evening, 9 o’clock, 1847.
When I reached home Henry and Agassiz were here. No one else came (as I
expected), and Agassiz insisted on returning in the nine o’clock
omnibus. Agassiz and Henry enjoy and admire each other so richly, and
talk science so glowingly and admiringly, that I think I should not have
been at all surprised to see them exchange kisses before they were done.
And Agassiz told him he meant to come to Cambridge, and they began to
talk of their children, and Agassiz read extracts from letters just
received from his wife and his son, who--to Agassiz’s great pride and
satisfaction--had just climbed the Fellenberg in the Breisgau, slept on
the summit in the open air to see the sun rise in the morning, then
descended and walked, I forget how many miles. Pretty well for a lad of
eleven.
It is not a year since I told Henry that he should have either Agassiz
or Wyman at Washington, but that we must have one of them at Cambridge.
Beyond all expectation we have them both!
Henry gave me--I know not what led to it--a full detailed account of his
life from early boyhood, which was full of curious interest and
suggested much matter for reflection. In the evening we fell to
discoursing on philosophical topics, and Henry threw out great and noble
thoughts, and as we both fell to conversing with much animation my
headache disappeared entirely. There is no man from whom I learn so much
as Henry. He calls out your own powers, too, surprisingly....
I have been addling my brain and straining my eyes over a set of ignoble
Pond-weeds (alias Potamogeton) trying to find the
“difference there should be
Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee,”
and wasting about as much brain in the operation as your dear paternal
would expend in an intricate law case, for all of which I suppose nobody
will thank me and I shall get no fee. Indeed, few would see the least
sense in devoting so much time to a set of vile little weeds. But I
could not slight them. The Creator seems to have bestowed as much pains
on them, if we may use such a word, as upon more conspicuous things, so
I do not see why I should not try to study them out. But I shall be glad
when they are done, which I promise they shall be before I sleep.
10.45 P.M.--There, the pond-weeds are done fairly.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, December 1st, 1847.
I reply early to your kind letter of October 30th to assure you that I
shall with much pleasure contribute so far as I have opportunity to the
new Botanical Museum, which, under your charge, and with your great
opportunities for obtaining things from every part of the world, will
soon become a magnificent collection. I have already several things to
send you, such as two very large entwined stems of Aristolochia Sipho,
which I brought from the mountains of Carolina.; a Dasylirion from
Texas, etc. I have some time ago made arrangements for getting curious
stems from Para, through a friend in Salem, who will also incite the
masters and supercargoes of ships from that port which trade with
various out-of-the-way parts of the world. The first things sent from
Para were slabs rather than truncheons of wood (all ordinary exogenes),
but I am promised palm stems and woody climbers, of which I shall take a
portion to build up our general Natural History Museum at Cambridge,
which with the zeal of Agassiz and Wyman is now likely to grow; the rest
I will send to you. If you will send me a few duplicates of your
circular, I will have them placed in proper hands where they may turn to
good account. I am delighted to hear such pleasant things of Dr. Hooker,
which I had also heard last summer from Mrs. McGilvray. I owe him a
letter, but it is too late to send my congratulations, now that he is
probably far on the way to India. I admire his zeal and energy, and wish
him an excellent time and a prosperous return. The government has
behaved most handsomely in affording him such important aid in his
undertaking.
Proper specimens of maple sugar will keep perfectly well if placed in a
glass jar with a closed cover. I will surely send some in the spring.
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
CAMBRIDGE, December 20, 1847.
I got a parcel from New York on Saturday evening, containing a few
welcome plants of Wislizenus’[152] collection, and a set of Fendler’s
from Santa Fé, up to Rosaceæ. The specimens are perfectly charming! so
well made, so full and perfect. Better never were made. In a week I
shall take them right up to study, and they are Rocky Mountain forms of
vegetation entirely, so I can do it with ease and comfort. It is a cool
region that, and dry. If these come from the plains, what will the
mountains yield? Fendler must go back, or a new collector, now that
order is restored there.
All Fendler’s collection will sell at once, no fear, such fine specimens
and so many good plants. Pity that F. did not know enough to leave out
some of the common plants, except two or three specimens for us, and
bestow the same labor on the new plants around him.
Send on the rest soon.
Yours cordially,
A. GRAY.
TO CHARLES WRIGHT.
CAMBRIDGE, January 17, 1848.
DEAR FRIEND,--That I ought to have replied to your letter of the 19th
November, to say nothing of that of September 21 and June 18, there is
no doubt. The letter I have carried in my pocket a good while, hoping to
catch a moment somewhere and some time to write to you, especially as
the time approaches in which I may be sending a parcel to New Orleans
for you. But I have not had an hour’s leisure not demanded by letters of
immediate pressing consequence, or in which I was not too tired to
write.
There are many correspondents whom I have neglected almost as much as I
have you. I have worked like a dog, but my work laid out to be finished
last July is not done yet.
But from about the time of your last letter a providential dispensation
has prevented me from doing what I would, namely, the sickness, by
typhoid fever, of a beloved brother (a Junior in college here), who
required every leisure moment from the time he became seriously sick up
to the 9th inst.--a week ago--when it pleased the Sovereign Disposer of
events, to whom I bow, to remove him to a better world; and I am but
recently returned from the mournful journey to convey to the paternal
home (in western New York) his mortal remains. This has somewhat
interrupted the printing of the last sheets of my “Manual of North
American Botany;” which, with all my efforts at condensation, has
extended to almost eight hundred pages!! (12mo), including the
introduction. It will be difficult to get the volume within covers. A
year’s hard labor is bestowed upon it; I hope it will be useful and
supply a desideratum. As a consolation for my honest faithfulness in
making it tolerably thorough, and so much larger than I expected it
would prove, it is now clear that I shall get nothing or next to it for
my year’s labor. At the price to which it must be kept to get it into
our schools, etc., there is so little to be made by it, that I cannot
induce a publisher to pay the heavy bills, except upon terms which
swallow up all the proceeds; or at the very least I may get $200, if it
all sells, a year or two hence.
Meanwhile, I have paid the expenses principally incurred on the first
volume of “Illustrated Genera,” which I can’t print and finish till the
“Manual” is out; have run heavily into debt in respect to these works,
which were merely a labor of love for the good of the science and an
honorable ambition; and how I am going to get through I cannot well
see....
I should despond greatly if I were not of a cheerful temperament....
I wish I could write to you as you wish, all about botany, etc. I wish I
could aid you as I desire, but I fear it is impossible. I must have rest
and less anxiety. Two more years like the last would probably destroy
me. If I had an assistant or two, to take details off my hands, I might
stand it; as it is I cannot. Carey spent three months with me last
season, and was to study and ticket your Texan collection in my hands,
take a set for his trouble, and Mr. Lowell and Mr. S. T. Carey would
take what they needed and pay for them, so that I could pay your
book-bill at Fowle’s. The utmost Carey found time to do was to throw the
collection into orders; there they still lie, in the corner! There
perhaps they had best lie, now, till the collection of the past season
reaches me, when I will try to study them all together, along with
Lindheimer’s collections, a set of which still waits for me to study
them. Will you wonder that I am a little disheartened when, in spite of
every effort, I make so little progress? And in six weeks I begin to
lecture in college again; and in April the Garden will require more time
than I can give it. Such are merely some of the things on my hands, some
of my cares! Still I am interested in you, and in your collections, and
will do what I can....
Then if you will continue to send seeds (pretty largely), also bulbs,
cacti, tubers, etc., now in early spring (and root-cuttings of some
vines), taking pains that they are sent in a direct way, so as to come
alive in May, etc., I will get an appropriation allowed from the Garden
for you. Don’t try other live plants till we have better communication
with Texas. We have sunk money in this already and had to give it up....
Forgive my long neglect; accept my apologies. I’ll see if I can do any
better hereafter, when I have a wife to write letters for me.
March 10th.
Besides all the rest, the Academy’s correspondence presses hard on me. I
have written twenty-four letters for the steamer to-morrow. Fairly to
keep up my correspondence and answer all my letters would take full two
hours every day of the week except the Sabbath. So have mercy, and long
patience....
Meanwhile my “Manual” is out; but not published till the 10th February.
What can you expect from a man who takes up a job in February, 1847, to
finish in May or June certain; but who, though he works like a dog, and
throws by everything else, does not get it done till February comes
round again. So it is only now that I have anything to send you. I am
now printing off my “Genera Illustrata”--the text for one hundred
plates; mean to have it out in a month; but I will not wait any
longer....
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
CAMBRIDGE, February 29, 1848.
... Now for Fendler himself. He ought to go back, and without delay. He
has gained much experience, and will now work to greater advantage. He
makes unrivaled specimens, and with your farther instructions will
collect so as to make more equable sets. If he will stay and bide his
time he can get on to the mountains, and must try the higher ones,
especially those near Taos.
Let him stay two years, and if he is energetic he will reap a fine
harvest for botany, and accumulate a pretty little sum for himself, and
have learned a profession, for such that of a collector now is. Drummond
made money quite largely.
I had rather Fendler would go north and west than south of Santa Fé.
New Spain and Rocky Mountain botany is far more interesting to us than
Mexican.
TO JOHN TORREY.
March 29, 1848.
Your parcel came to-day; many thanks. After dinner I have just looked
over the Mexican Compositæ of Gregg,[153] which are numerous, and quite
a bonne bouche. My old love of the dear pappose creatures revived at the
sight, and I longed to take them by the beard. If at liberty to do so
(am I?) I think I will, at the same time I do the Santa-Féans; and at
the same time I will study any of Abert’s or Emory’s Mexican or North
Spain Compositæ you have not already disposed of. As to the parcel to be
divided, of which there are no duplicates, whoever packed your parcel
has taken care that there shall be pieces enough, if no specimens! They
were in longer paper than the other bundles; not protected by binder’s
board, and therefore both ends, for two or three inches, were nicely
bent up against the ends of the shorter bundle next them; which was very
pretty for the shape of the parcel, but death to many of the plants; for
the fold came just below the heads in most cases, too many of which were
decapitated like the victims of the (last but two) French revolution.
I have been going on with recitations for some time, twice a week (two
hours), and to-day I began my lectures to the whole Junior class, on
Geographical Botany for the present.
What with these duties, superintending gardener, and painting and
papering in the house, and Sprague drawing for the second volume of
“Genera,” and I printing the first, with the printer ever on my heels
for copy, and at the same time printing Memoirs and Proceedings of the
Academy, and managing large correspondence, you may conceive that my
hands are full.
Yours most cordially,
A. GRAY.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, 2d May, 1848.
I send ... a copy (roughly put into paper covers) of the first volume of
“Genera Illustrata,” regretting there is not time to send you a bound
copy. I hope you will like it. Sprague is improving fast, reads Brown’s
papers, etc., and is getting a good insight into structural botany, even
the nicest points. We mean to carry on the work, and I hope for
considerable London sale of it. The price is $6, or in London, £1 10s.,
which I trust will be thought low. Please notice it in the “Journal.”
The proceeds go principally to support Sprague in carrying on the work.
I put his name on the title-page without his knowledge and at the
expense of his great modesty.
I want to introduce the tussock grass on our eastern coast, where it
will thrive well. Is it too late to send this spring? Or will you send
in autumn?
P. S.--The last steamer brought good news of peace and strength in
England, dissipating the alarm of many, but I felt none myself, having a
strong confidence in the soundness of Old England and the durability of
her institutions, of which I am here esteemed an over admirer.
Dr. Gray was married, May 4, 1848, to Jane L., daughter of Charles
Greely Loring, a lawyer in Boston. In June they made a short journey to
Washington, that Dr. Gray might, on undertaking to describe the plants
of the United States Exploring Expedition, see Commodore Wilkes.
TO JOHN TORREY.
CAMBRIDGE, 8th May, 1848.
Yesterday I sent to Grant at Wiley’s for you a parcel containing some
“Linnæas,” etc., received from Hamburg, your copy of Seubert on Elatine,
and a bound copy of the “Genera Floræ Americæ Boreali-Orientalis
Illustrata,” which I ask you to accept, and which I trust you will like.
There is also a specimen inclosed of some vegetable product that has
lately become somewhat common here, and which I thought you might like
to examine. It is apparently of a rather complicated structure, in fruit
evidently, but syncarpous; the heterogenous and baccate or fleshy
ovaries being immersed without apparent order in a farinaceous
receptacle. If you should be at all puzzled. with it, and can’t find out
to what particular family it belongs, you might call in the aid of Mrs.
Torrey and the girls, to aid in the investigation. I dare say you will
make it out.
June, 1848.
I am just home this morning, and as I had no time yesterday to reply to
your kind letter of Saturday, I write at once now....
Friday evening we were at the White house, to see Madame Polk. We have
accomplished a great deal of sight-seeing and all in our week and a day,
and J.
[Illustration: THE BOTANIC GARDEN HOUSE IN 1852]
has enjoyed it much, except the drawback of not seeing Mrs. T. and the
girls and yourself at home, which she greatly wished....
Now as to Exploring Expedition. We will talk it over in full when you
come on here toward the end of this month.
Suffice it to say (as I am pressed for time) that I had made up my mind
what I would do it for before I left home; that on looking over the
collection, as to various parts of it, as far as time allowed, I found
it less ample than I supposed, but with many difficulties owing to
specimens in fruit only, or flower only. I think it no very awful job,
if done in the way I propose, which is, not by monographs by people
abroad, which the committee will not agree to, but by working up a part
abroad in Hooker’s, or Bentham’s, or Garden of Plants herbarium.
The chairman of the committee and Wilkes behaved very well, and told me
they were very desirous I should take it up.
On Friday evening Wilkes came in, before we went to the President’s;
asked me to say what I would do. I told him at once what I would do
(just what I had told J. before we left Cambridge), and Wilkes at once
accepted my terms, as I supposed he would. My terms were based on the
supposition that there is five years’ work in preparing for the press
the collections left on hand, and in superintending the printing....
We must settle together the typographical form of the work, etc., when
you come, and we will make the other writers conform to the plan we
agree on, which perhaps you have already fixed.
Now I want a careful and active curator. What young botanist can I
get?...
27th Nov., 1848.
Wright is up from Texas (with his mother at Wethersfield, Connecticut);
he will soon be here as curator to me, taking Lesquereux’s[154] place,
who has been with me a little, but now, as a consequence of his visit to
Columbus, goes to aid Sullivant, with a provision that makes the truly
worthy fellow perfectly happy. They will do up bryology at a great rate.
Lesquereux says that the collection and library of Sullivant in
muscology are “magnifique, superbe, the best he ever saw.”
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
January 24, 1849.
Halstead, I believe, has nearly decided to go on the Panama Railroad
Survey; I trust to get Wright attached to the boundary survey. I have a
letter from Fendler, in which he expressed his willingness to go to the
Great Salt Lake country, if he can get government protection and food,
etc. In a few days I shall write to Marcy; send him the sheets of
“Plantæ Fendlerianæ,” and make a vigorous application for this aid. No
doubt I shall get it, I think. But perhaps it might be almost as well
for Fendler to go over with a party of emigrants directly to Mormon
City. But probably there will be emigrants bound for the same place,
accompanying the regiment, as near as they go. Fendler can do admirably
well in that region, if he perseveres. But will he not take the
gold-fever and leave us in the lurch? Will not living, etc., be very
dear in Mormon City also? I fear it. I must leave. much to your
discretion. Only if you think Fendler has a strong tendency to
gold-hunting (which few could resist) let him go. And afterwards, if he
chooses to collect plants, very well. Few can withstand the temptation
when fairly within the infected region, and we hear the Mormons have
found gold also....
February 25, 1849.
I have just received from the secretary of war, Mr. Marcy, and inclose
to you, what I think will procure all the facilities that Fendler can
wish from United States troops. If, as I was informed, the secretary has
no right to issue an order for rations to Fendler, he has certainly done
the best thing by issuing a recommendation which will, if the commander
is favorably disposed, enable him to give all without any order. Indeed,
I think we could ask nothing better....
In my haste, and multitude of business, I have shabbily neglected to
send the copies of “Plantæ Fendlerianæ” to Hamburg for Braun. And now
the Danes have blockaded the Elbe....
I think I shall soon send the smaller things to you by express, and
retain the three volumes of “Memoirs” for some opportunity less
expensive. We want railroad all the way to St. Louis.
I am crowded--overwhelmed--with work. But college work will be over in
July, and the second volume of “Genera,” which I am now hard at work on,
will soon be printed off; a week more and I shall have finished the
copy.
I must then work at Exploring Expedition Compositæ, and soon at
Fendlerianæ, and (when the sets arrive) at Lindheimer’s, if you wish. I
have made a genus of the Texan Rue--between Ruta and Aplophyllum,--e.
g., Rutosma. I think there are some good remarks you will like in the
second volume of “Genera.”
I foresee an unusually good chance to get rid of the college work a year
hence, and must therefore try to overhaul the Exploring Expedition
plants, so as to get them into some shape, and next year (May or April)
go abroad with them, sit down in London and Paris, and work them off. I
will then drum up subscribers for Fendler and Lindheimer.
I want you to help me a little about Trees; our native trees up to
Cornus inclusive, for this year, for the report I have promised the
Smithsonian Institution.[155] I wish I had a good assistant; one who
could work at botany. Perhaps I can find one abroad.
TO JOHN TORREY.
February 26, 1849.
Having determined on an expedition for Wright, you may be sure I was not
going to be altogether disappointed. Accordingly I have got one all
arranged (Lowell[156] and Greene subscribing handsomely) which is as
much better than Emory’s as possible, and thus far everything has
wonderfully conspired to favor it. Wright has left me this morning to go
to his mother’s in Connecticut (Wethersfield); there to make his
portfolios and presses; comes on to New York soon; takes first vessel
for Galveston (I expect a letter from Hastings telling when it sails),
and to reach Austin and Fredericksburg in time to accompany the troops
that are about to be sent up, by a new road, across a new country, to El
Paso, in New Mexico. Look on the map (Wislizenus) and you will see the
region we mean him to explore this summer; the hot valley of Rio del
Norte, early in the season, the mountains east, and especially those
west in summer. He will probably stay two years, and get to Taos and
Spanish Peaks this year or next. We shall have government
recommendations to protection, and letters to an officer (commanding)
who, through Henry, has already made overtures to collect himself or aid
in the matter.
26th May, 1849.
I have finished all the copy of “Genera Illustrata,” vol. ii., at
length; the printer has yet two or three sheets to set up. The plates
are working off in New York. It will now soon be off my hands. It is
long since I have done anything at Exploring Expedition plants. I am now
going at them. It is a shabby, unsatisfactory collection....
CAMBRIDGE, November 2, 1849.
... Sorry I am that you could not be here while Harvey is here; he will
he south by Christmas. He desires me to say that he expects to spend the
first half of December in New York at Dr. Hosack’s, and will be most
glad to see you. I am sure you will like him. We are perfectly charmed
with him. A quiet, unaffected, pleasant man--extremely lovable. He works
away at a table in my study. His course is a very interesting one. He is
a beautiful writer, but not very fluent extempore, though with more
practice he would be a fine lecturer. He has a good audience....
Sprague has promised now to take up and finish your quarto drawings. He
says he can work but a little while at a time, from a difficulty of
breathing. Had I foreseen his health and vigor giving way, I should not
have undertaken the Trees, which, as to illustrations (as he is more
fond of them than of anything else, and has made fine drawings), we have
gradually enlarged our ideas about them much beyond the original plan,
as to the figures. He must get this volume off his hands this winter,
anyhow. The “Genera” will lie in abeyance....
My plan is only to bring out one volume of the Tree-Report next spring,
and not to go beyond the limits of the United States proper, those of
“Genera Illustrata,” except to mention the trees of the far West in a
general way; otherwise it would be far too formidable....
Sir John Richardson dropped in on me the very day Harvey arrived,
expressed regret he could not see you, learned here the rumored news of
Franklin. I wish you could have been here at a little dinner party we
made for them. He is at home by this time.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
December 3, 1849.
... We are glad to hear what fine discoveries your son is making in
Thibet, etc.
I saw to-day for the first time, at Green’s, the Himalaya
Rhododendrons....
I have just parted from Harvey, who has passed seven weeks with us, and
having finished his course at the Lowell with much acceptance now joins
his friends at New York and Philadelphia till Christmas, and then goes
south to Florida, Alabama, and probably either to Jamaica (where Dr.
Alexander now is) or to the mountains at the St. Iago end of Cuba, a
terra incognita nearly. Harvey is a most winning man; my wife and I have
become extremely attached to him, and are sorry to part with him.
We do not mean to let any naturalist be idle who comes to this country,
so he is already engaged to give illustrations of our peculiar Algæ for
the Smithsonian contributions and to prepare (after his return home, of
course) a manual of United States Algæ after the fashion of his second
edition of “British Algæ.” There will be no small demand for it....
P. S.--Mr. Wright got through to El Paso in southern New Mexico, and is
on his way back, with, he says, a fine collection.
We got some fine daguerreotypes of Harvey, so much better, he says, than
he has seen in England that he has had an extra one taken for Lady
Hooker.
TO GEORGE BENTHAM.
CAMBRIDGE, January 7, 1850.
Your letter of December 4th and your very flattering article in the
December number of “Hooker’s Journal” were both most gratifying; and the
remarks on the Mimosa were timely, as I was just about consigning the
manuscript of the earlier part of the new “Plantæ Lindheimerianæ” to the
printer. I like what you say about “deduplication” much, and freely
accept almost all. I took the name coined to my hand, not feeling at
liberty to coin a new one. I think the production of new organs one
before the other can be pretty well explained morphologically and
anatomically, in accordance with your hint, and shall attempt to work it
out in the third edition of my “Botanical Text-Book,” which I am now
preparing for the press. I shall be most glad of any further hints.
May I ask you what you think of Adrien de Jussieu’s way of explaining
the regular alternation of organs in the flower? I greatly incline to
it....
I have to finish this Lindheimer collection, finish Fendler’s,
distribute and study Wright’s collection when I get it, carry the
“Botanical Text-Book” through the press, rewriting and expanding it
(thus far I have made it all over), write the first volume of an
elaborate report on the Trees of United States for the Smithsonian
Institution, in fact a Sylva, with colored plates by Sprague (which I
could not resist taking in hand, as that institution promised to bring
it out, and handsomely, at their expense), and give my course of
lectures in the college from March to June. When all this is done I can
cross the Atlantic.... By engaging a brother professor to take the
duties which I have for the autumn term (assigning to him pro rata from
my salary), I shall be free until 1st March ensuing. But I mean to ask
for leave of absence for a year, and trust I shall get it....
As far as it has yet shaped itself my plan is ... to sit down hard to
work for the autumn and winter on the Exploring Expedition plants, to go
to Paris in the spring and settle such questions as must be settled
there after I come to know better than I now do (except in the
Compositæ) what they are. Excepting the Oregon and Californian plants,
which are assigned to Torrey, and the Sandwich Islands Collection, a
fine one, the collection is a poor one, often very meagre in specimens,
too much of an alongshore and roadside collection to be of great
interest. I am not familiar with tropical forms and have no great love
for them. I dislike to take the time to study out laboriously and
guessingly, with incomplete specimens, and no great herbaria and
libraries to refer to, these things which are mostly well known to
botanists, though not to me, and I want to be taken off from North
American botany for as short a time as possible. I must therefore come
abroad with them, which the pay that is offered will enable me to do. I
have found a good deal to interest me in the Compositæ, especially those
of Rio Negro, of north Patagonia and of the Andes of Peru....
Now, will you take it as a bore, an imposition on your kindness, if I
frankly ask whether I can possibly offer you any sort of inducement to
aid me, at least so far as to run over the collections with me, and name
those that are familiar to you as we pass, and refer others, as nearly
as one can without study, to their proper places? Your mere comments in
running through would save half my time.
It is most natural that you should not incline to any such trouble, and
I know your hands are always full; so, if you say no, I shall feel it is
quite right, and do the best I can....
We shall be most glad to visit you at Pontrilas house at whatever time
best suits Mrs. Bentham and yourself, whether in summer or in autumn,
any time before we settle down into our winter quarters....
With best wishes to Mrs. B. and yourself for the new year, I am very
faithfully yours,
A. GRAY.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
April 2, 1850.
We were most glad to receive your kind favor of January 29, which,
however, lay over a fortnight in England, and in the mean time we heard
not only of Dr. Hooker’s capture, but also, with much gratification, of
his release. What an indefatigable man he is!
Finding myself greatly behindhand, on account of various hindrances and
miscalculation of time, and utterly unable to accomplish half the work I
had intended to do this spring, I have decided to break off; and to
sail, in a packet-ship from Boston, on the 5th of June, with Mrs. Gray,
for Liverpool, which we may hope to reach by the close of that month.
This will give us an opportunity of seeing England in its summer dress,
and to make, almost immediately following the sea voyage, a trip up the
Rhine to Switzerland. On our return I must set to work diligently, and
for a little while with Mr. Bentham, who has kindly offered to look over
the tropical collections, which I know little of, and love as little.
The rewriting of all the structural parts of my 3d edition of the
“Botanical Text-Book,” which I was inadvertently drawn into, has proved
a most time-consuming business. It is not yet through the press.
Wright’s collection of seeds I had divided into two parts, and I send
you one by the hands of Mr. Lowell, who with his whole family goes out
by this steamer. You will receive them in good time to raise them....
Mr. Lowell is of great use to us, in helping on these explorations, and
I look to his visit to Europe, the sight of the great collections, and
the society of naturalists to strengthen his tastes and fire his zeal in
these respects.
I long to have him and Mrs. Lowell, a very good. friend of ours, make
your acquaintance.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This colony was composed of rigid Presbyterians, who desired
to leave Ireland to escape various persecutions. They sent out the
Rev. Mr. Boyd, early in 1718, with an address to the Governor of
Massachusetts. The address, now in the Archives of the New Hampshire
Historical Society, was signed by three hundred and nineteen persons,
nine of whom were clergymen. The report brought back by Mr. Boyd of
his reception by the governor and of the prospects of the country was
so favorable that the addressors converted their property into money,
and embarked in five ships for Boston, which they reached August 4,
1718. In Boston they separated for different places, but the larger
part were sent to Worcester, then a frontier settlement of fifty-eight
dwellings and two hundred inhabitants, but needing a larger population
as protection from the Indians. John Gray--there were two of his name
in the original party--went to Worcester, where he owned considerable
land, and was evidently a man of influence in the colony, to judge
from the various public offices held by him.
[2] Robert Gray, one of John Gray’s sons, was twenty years old when
he came to America. There is a tradition in the family that the
acquaintance and courtship began on the voyage.
[3] Sauquoit was a settlement in the eastern part of the town of
Paris, the township so named in grateful recognition of a supply
of food, sent by a Mr. Paris, of Oswego, at a time when the early
settlers were near starving.--A. G.
[4] Moses Gray was the eighth child,--a boy and a girl were born
later,--and one step-brother, Watson, survived Moses Gray. Moses Wiley
Gray made the journey to Sauquoit, on horseback, taking before him
his son Moses, then a boy of eight. The Mohawk Valley at this time
was the far West, with only slow and tedious communication beyond
Schenectady, but opening, in its lovely tributary valleys, tempting
regions of hill and valley, well wooded, with clear, sparkling
streams. The land offered good farming opportunities when cleared of
trees, and the rapid streams gave good promise of water power. Here
Moses Wiley Gray took a farm on the top of a hill, and cultivated the
land for ten years. He was injured by the fall of a tree, and his leg
was amputated. He died the next day, May 8, 1803, leaving his son
Moses, with his stepmother and her children largely dependent on his
assistance.
[5] She was married in 1788.
[6] The house is still standing which, built in 1648 by an ancestor of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, was bought by William Howard, in 1669.
[7] Asa’s mother was but four years old, when the family moved to
Sauquoit, and well remembered her mother’s crying at the crossing of
the Hudson River, which must have seemed formidable in the small boats
of that time. Joseph Howard was a man of a very lovable character, as
shown from the affectionate remembrances of him by his grandchildren,
the eldest of whom, Asa, was much with him. He was a deacon of the
First Church in Sauquoit for forty years, and one of the leading men
in the town. He died in 1849.
[8] Moses Gray was a man of great activity and energy. He soon added
a shoe-shop to his tannery, where he hired a few hands to make shoes
from the hides he tanned, taking these again by wagon to Albany, a
journey of many days, where he bought his skins and some necessary
supplies. Money was scarce in the newly settled country, and the
things needed were mostly got by exchange. Meantime, as the chance
came, he was buying land on the hills around. Clayville is where the
valley narrows towards the source of the Sauquoit Creek, as “rivers”
are called in that neighborhood in old Dutch fashion, and the hills
are sharper and rougher. The scenery, however, is still beautiful,
and the house which Moses Gray built two or three years later yet
stands, with a lovely near view of stream and hill and wood. Asa
Gray remembered his father building it. Busy as the father was out
of doors, the mother was perhaps busier still. Asa, the younger
brother by the first wife, was dying of consumption; he was moved on
a bed from Sauquoit to Paris Furnace, and died very soon after, in
May, 1811, aged twenty-three. When the child was born, November 18,
1810, it was carried to him to see, and he said he wished they would
call it Asa, if it had had no name as yet decided on. He was of a
singularly sweet and gentle character. The step-brothers were taken
in turn to be taught and trained. The hands employed on farm or in
trade were generally lodged and boarded. Often their clothes were
mended or made. The wheat and grain were home-raised, as were all
the vegetables. There was little fresh meat, except when a sheep or
beef was killed, and that meant salting and curing. Butter and cheese
were all homemade, and could be taken to Albany for sale, as was also
grain; as the farm grew, more cows were added. Then the clothing
was homemade. The wool for flannel sheets and underclothing and for
the men’s clothes was home-spun, the nicer portions taken off and
carded separately, and spun as worsted for the children’s and women’s
dresses; also the yarn for socks for the whole family. A spinning-girl
was hired for part of the year, for flax was also spun for the house
linen and for wearing-apparel. The weaving was hired out. The tailor
came by the week to make up the clothing with the mother’s help, and
after the tannery was given up, the shoe-maker came at intervals to
make the shoes. As the girls grew older they took their share at the
wool and flax wheels. It is said that the first spinning of flax on
the small wheel was introduced by the party of Scotch-Irish emigrants
of 1718; that the women gave lessons to the women of Boston on Boston
Common, and the fashion was so set for that spinning. It is also said
that the Irish potato was first introduced into New England by these
same colonists.
A widowed sister came with her children to make her home under the
same roof when the Grays moved later to a larger farm, and there
seemed always some boy to be housed and taught and trained. Though
his aid might tell out of doors, the home care came upon the mother.
But Mrs. Gray was a woman of singularly quiet and gentle character,
with great strength and decision, and possessed a wonderful power of
accomplishing and turning off work; a woman of thoughtful, earnest
ways, conscientious and self-forgetting.
The father was quick, decided, and an immense worker; from him the
son took his lively movements and his quick eagerness of character,
perhaps also his ready appreciation of fun.
[9] His mother, having another child, was probably glad to have the
active boy safe for a few hours. Her young sisters lived not far away,
and the youngest aunt, a girl of ten, was proud to take him to school;
she had already taught him his letters. His father promised him a
spelling-book of his own as soon as he reached _baker_, which was a
marked spot of advance in the spelling-book. A few weeks saw him far
enough on, and the coveted prize was given. He went proudly to school
the next day, and as he could not speak to the teacher to proclaim
his triumph, he walked in front of her desk to his seat, waving the
book with a great flourish before her! It was just before he was three
years old.
[10] Of one of these, his friend, now over eighty years old, gives an
account in the succeeding letter:--
SAUQUOIT, _February 19, 1888_.
DEAR A.--I would like to give you some information of your uncle’s
early life if I were well informed, but, I have only one little
incident, and perhaps that would be of small account at the present
era, though at the time it took place it was of great moment to us
both as children. Asa lived with his parents at Paris Furnace, now
Clayville. I lived where Mr. Bragg afterward built his new house.
Well, we had a lovely teacher that summer by the name of Sally
Stickney, living at Colonel Avery’s. She ruled by gentleness. For our
class she had an old-fashioned two-shilling piece, with a hole through
to insert a yard of blue ribbon. She put this over the head of the one
that stood first in our class. So it traveled every night, all that
summer, with some one of us, until the ribbon was worn and faded. But
more than all that, the one that stood at the head on the last day
of school was to be the owner of that two-shilling piece that we had
watched with jealous eyes so many weeks, and studied Webster’s old
spelling-book so hard to gain. I think our eyes must have magnified
it, for I have never seen a coin since that seemed so large. I think
it was the same in Asa’s eyes. Well, with hearts beating fast, and
eyes on the coveted prize, we were called on the last day of school
to spell; we took our places; I was at the head, Asa next. I missed
and he went above me; my all was gone, but it was worse to have him
point his finger at me and say out loud “kee-e-e.” I braved it without
a tear; a few more words would end the strife. It came around to
him, and he missed; how quick I went above him; but in an instant he
dropped his head on the desk before him and wept as though his heart
would break. School was dismissed, scholars were leaving; still he
did not move, until our kind teacher came to him, whispered to him,
soothed and petted him; then he jumped up and ran, I suppose wishing
me in Halifax. I felt sorry for him and would have been willing to
divide with him if he had not crowed over me so. I ran nearly all
the way home--a good mile--with my treasure, in great haste to have
some one tell me the best way to invest my money. I was told to go
another three quarters of a mile to Stephen Savage’s store, spend it
for calico, piece it up, to keep forever. I could get only one yard
for my two-shilling piece, not nearly as good as can be bought now for
three cents a yard. Not a trace of the quilt is left, nor of the old
schoolhouse, or of those merry children; perhaps a few have wandered
on to fourscore years. So it is little I can relate of his childhood,
as the next year we moved from that district, but as years passed on I
often heard of his rising fame with pleasure. If Eli Avery were living
he would have been his best biographer in this place.
The time has flown so fast since all this transpired, it seems as if
his tears had hardly dried before my grandchildren were studying his
Botanies.
Two years ago the 9th day of September, when the doctor was visiting
in Sauquoit, he called here and remarked, in his smiling way, “that he
had got all over feeling badly about _that_.” I said, “And well you
may when you have received so many honors since then.”
Your loving friend,
HARRIET ROGERS.
A neighbor who survived to a great age also told a story of Dr. Gray’s
boyhood, which he said he had from Dr. Gray’s father:--
One day he had been set to hoe a certain amount of corn, and his
father found him reading instead of at his work. He gave him his
choice, to finish his task and then read comfortably, or to sit there
in the field all day in the hot sun, which one knows is no pleasant
thing in August, and read. He chose the reading, and his father said
then, “I made up my mind he might make something of a scholar, but he
would never make a farmer!” And so his farther education was decided.
[11] Asa Gray was the eldest of eight children, three sisters and four
brothers, of whom there survive two sisters and two brothers.
[12] Dr. Gray visited Fairfield again in the summer of 1860 or 1861.
He pointed out his old room, and told about some of the pranks he and
his room-mate Eli Avery had played there as boys, especially once
when they barred their room, escaped through the window by clambering
down a rope, and then enjoyed the efforts of the master to break the
door down. Oddly enough there was then a fresh panel in the door, as
if a later generation had tried the same trick. There were a great
many stories told of his exploits as a boy. But he said everything
had been fathered upon him, and that few were really true. He was no
doubt restless and active, and learning quickly and easily would have
leisure for some mischief, but he said, “I always learned my lessons.”
He loved to recall the long rambles through the woods on Saturday
holidays, and how in early spring he and his companions would climb
to a lookout and see where columns of smoke could be seen above the
trees, and so aim for the spot where they were making maple sugar.
There they would beg a little syrup, and, boiling it down over their
own fire and cooling it on snow, make a candy more delicious than any
confectionery of after life. He remembered how he trained himself to
know the trees by their bark as he ran through the woods, without
looking up at the leaves, having then the keen power of observation
though no especial interest in botany. For, as he always said, his
first fancy was for mineralogy rather than for botany.
And he told how when he was a medical student, as so many about him
were smoking, he tried it too; it made him very sick at first, and
took him some time to get accustomed to it. At last, as he sat one
evening before the fire and smoked, he said to himself, “Really, I am
beginning to like it. It will become a habit; I shall be dependent
upon it.” And so he threw his cigar into the fire and gave up smoking
entirely.
[13] In later life the novels were always saved for long journeys. The
novel of the day was picked out, and one pleasure of a long day’s ride
in the train was to sit by his side and enjoy his pleasure at the good
things. The glee and delight with which he read Hawthorne, especially
the _Wonder-Book_ and _Tanglewood Tales_, make days to remember. So he
read George Eliot, and Adam Bede carried him happily through a fit of
the toothache. Scott always remained the prime favorite, and his last
day of reading, when the final illness was stealing so unexpectedly
and insidiously on, was spent over _The Monastery_, which he had been
planning to read on his homeward voyage in 1887.
[14] It was established as a college in 1812, having existed as a
school in the academy since 1809. There were then only five others
in the United Stated: Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Dartmouth,
and Baltimore. The war of 1812 with Great Britain made a demand for
army surgeons along the frontier, and New York and Boston were too
far to send the young men to be educated. Dr. Hadley was professor
in the literary academy, and Dr. Willoughby, who had a wide medical
reputation, was also in Fairfield. They planned a medical college, and
applied to the legislature for aid; the sum of $5,000 was granted,
and later, in 1812, $10,000. The first Faculty was organized by the
Board of Regents of the New York State University, which had control
of the educational institutions in the State. It grew rapidly in
favor, and soon outnumbered the schools of the large cities. In 1820
the school had one hundred students, and increased to two hundred and
seventeen later, and was the largest medical school in the country,
except the one at Philadelphia. After the Albany and Geneva medical
schools were established, it was seen there was no need of three so
near together, and Fairfield Medical College was discontinued in 1840.
In the list of graduates of Fairfield Academy were Albert Barnes,
the noted expositor, General Halleck, of the United States Army,
and James Hadley, professor of Greek at Yale and the distinguished
linguist. In the records of the academy it is stated that “Asa Gray
entered Fairfield Academy in the fall of 1825, and at the second
weekly meeting joined the Calliopean Society of the institute. His
handwriting on the register is still preserved, as well as all his
doings as a boy while here, since he entered at an early age, being
in fact much younger than the majority of the students.” He graduated
from the medical college January 25, 1831 in a class of forty-four.
His rank was seventeen in the class on graduation. The subject of his
thesis was “Gastritis.” Two old catalogues are preserved at Fairfield.
In the first there is the programme of studies at the academy for the
year 1826; the other, dating January, 1832, contains a list of the
professors of the medical college, the cost of instruction, and the
outlines of two courses of lectures. One of them was given by Dr.
Mather, who was a fellow student of Asa Gray’s, and who still, at over
eighty, retains a lively recollection of the eager, active young man
whom his friends already thought would make his mark in the world;
the other by Dr. Gray himself. This was one of the first courses of
lectures which he delivered. The ticket-fee was four dollars. He
kept through life a certain love for medicine and surgery, and a
lively interest in its science and progress. These old studies and
the country practice he had with the physician who was always his
good friend, Dr. Trowbridge, often served him on his journeys, when a
regular practitioner was not within easy reach.
[15] Amos Eaton, 1776-1842. Graduated from Williams in 1799. Teacher,
lecturer, and author of _Manual of the Botany of North America_, as
well as of many reports on geological surveys.
[16] College catalogue of Fairfield, 1830-31.
[17] Lewis C. Beck, 1798-1853; professor in Albany Academy; author of
_Botany of the United States North of Virginia_.
[18] Lewis David Schweinitz, 1780-1834; the first American who studied
and described the fungi of the United States. He wrote also on other
North American cryptogams and carices.
[19] John E. Le Conte, 1784-1860; formerly major in United States
army. His first botanical publication was a catalogue of the plants on
the island of New York, in 1810. He later wrote chiefly on entomology.
[20] It appears that in December, 1834, I read to the Lyceum of
Natural History my first paper, _Monograph of North American
Rhynchosporæ_, and my second, _New or Rare Plants of the State of New
York_. They must have been printed early in 1835.--A. G.
[21] J. G. C. Lehmann, 1793-1860; professor at Hamburg.
[22] George Francis Reuter, 1815-1873; directer of the Botanical
Garden at Geneva; curator of Boissier’s herbarium.
[23] Edward T. Channing; professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard
University.
[24] Daniel Treadwell; professor in Harvard University of applied
physics; distinguished inventor in mechanics, especially in the
welding of steel.
[25] John H. Redfield; curator of the herbarium of the botanical
department of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science.
[26] _American Jour. Sci._, xxv. 346-350.
[27] Dr. Trowbridge.
[28] _North American Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ_, of which Part I. was
issued in 1834, Part II. in 1835. This was the first separate and
individual publication by Dr. Gray. Sir W.J. Hooker said of it:--[It]
“may fairly be classed among the most beautiful and useful works of
the kind that we are acquainted with. The specimens are remarkably
well selected, skillfully prepared, critically studied, and carefully
compared with those in the extensive and very authentic herbarium of
Dr. Torrey.”
[29] Alluding to the then popular squib of Major Jack Downing’s
letters.
[30] S. Wells Williams, 1812-1884. Went as missionary to China in
1833. Wrote a Chinese dictionary and other works; translated Genesis
and Matthew into Japanese also. Later was secretary of the American
Legation to China; returned to America in 1875.
[31] _Elements of Botany._
[32] Chester Dewey, 1784-1887; professor in Williams College,
Massachusetts. Removed to Rochester, N.Y., 1836, where he died.
“Carried on the study of Carex and published on them for more than
forty years” [A. G.].
[33] Jacob Whitman Bailey. 1811-1857; professor in the Military
Academy at West Point. One of the earliest students of American Algæ,
and distinguished also for his microscopic researches in botany.
[34] Charles W. Whipple, died in 1855. Was educated at West Point,
where probably he was a pupil of Dr. Torrey. He was never in the army,
but studied law and practiced in Detroit; was made Judge, then Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan. Ex-officio regent of the
State university.
[35] David Bates Douglass, 1790-1849. He held the professorship of
natural philosophy and civil architecture in the University of New
York, and was afterward president of Kenyon College. He laid out
Greenwood Cemetery.
[36] Dr. Thomas Raffles; a distinguished Congregational clergyman in
Liverpool from 1812 to 1863.
[37] John Shepherd, b. 1764. For thirty-five years at the Liverpool
Botanic Garden.
[38] Peter D. Knieskern, M. D., 1798-1871. “Botanized over the
pine-barrens of New Jersey with utmost assiduity and skill, a
simple-hearted, unpretendingly good and faithful man.... Few botanists
have excelled him in their knowledge of the plants of the region in
which he resided, and none in zeal, simplicity, and love of science
for its own sake.”--A. G.
[39] Thomas Nuttall, 1784-1859; a great traveler and explorer. Came to
the United States in 1807. His writings are intimately connected with
the development of North American botany.
[40] Robert K. Greville M. D., 1794-1866; author of _Scottish
Cryptogamic Flora_, _Flora Edinensis_, and _Algæ Britannicæ_.
[41] Robert Graham, M. D., 1786-1845; professor of botany in the
University of Edinburgh.
[42] William Nicoll. Invented section-cutting of recent and fossil
woods in 1827.
[43] James Forbes, 1809-1861; professor of natural philosophy in the
University of Edinburgh.
[44] Robert Jameson 1774-1854; professor of natural history in the
University of Edinburgh.
[45] John Hutton Balfour, M. D. 1808-1885; professor of botany in
Glasgow, and afterwards in the University of Edinburgh.
[46] Sir Charles Bell, 1774-1842; a very distinguished surgeon; author
of _Anatomy of Expression_ and many celebrated works. He accepted the
chair of surgery at Edinburgh, 1836.
[47] John Abercrombie, M. D., 1781-1844; celebrated Scotch physician
and author.
[48] Sir Robert Christison, 1798-1882; professor of materia medica in
the University of Edinburgh.
[49] James T. W. Johnston, 1796-1865; agricultural chemist; professor
at Durham. Lectured in the United States.
[50] Francis Boott, 1792-1863. Born in Boston, United States. Early
removed to London, where he studied and practiced medicine a few
years. “A good botanist, and in his later life devoted to the study of
Carices” [A. G.].
[51] John Joseph Bennett, 1801-1876; keeper of the herbarium of the
British Museum. “One of the most learned and modest of men” [A. G.].
[52] Sir John Richardson, M. D., 1787-1865. “The well-known Arctic
explorer, zoölogist, and botanist” [A. G.].
[53] David Don, 1795-1856; librarian of the Linnæan Society; professor
of botany in King’s College, London.
[54] Frederic Pursh, 1774-1820. Emigrated to America, 1799. Traveled
and collected much; settled later in Montreal, where he died.
[55] Aylmer Bourke Lambert, 1762-1842; author of the _Genus Pinus_ and
the _Genus Cinchona_. Owned a very large herbarium comprising plants
of Pursh, who published under his liberal patronage.
[56] John Forbes Royle, M. D.; a surgeon in the East India Company.
Wrote on the botany of the Himalaya.
[57] John Edward Gray, 1800-1875; keeper of the zoölogical collections
of the British Museum for many years. “Of persistent ardor,
indomitable energy, and great practical power” [A. G.].
[58] William Clift, 1775-1849; curator of the Hunterian Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons.
[59] Peter Mark Roget, M. D., 1779-1869; secretary of the Royal
Society, London. Wrote _Animal and Vegetable Physiology_, and the
well-known _Thesaurus_.
[60] Richard Taylor; printer; for many years secretary of the Linnæan
Society.
[61] Francis Bauer; botanical artist to George III.
[62] Thomas Horsfield, M. D., 1774-1859. Born in Pennsylvania. After
sixteen years in Java, passed the rest of his life in London as keeper
of the museum of the East India Company. Brown & Bennett published
part of his collections, _Plantæ Javanicæ Rariores_.
[63] I forgot to mention also some bricks from Babylon, covered with
arrowhead characters, which were the most interesting relics of
antiquity I almost ever saw.--A. G.
[64] Nathaniel R. Ward, 1791-1868; inventor of the Wardian case.
[65] Archibald Menzies, 1754-1842; the botanist who accompanied
Vancouver in his voyage to the west coasts of North and South America.
His collections are in the Edinburgh and Kew Herbariums.
[66] Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist.
[67] Edwin J. Quekett, 1808-1847. Wrote much on the microscopic
structure of plants and animals.
[68] John Miers, 1789-1879; a botanist who studied in South America
and wrote many papers.
[69] Thomas Walter, d. 1788, in Carolina, U. S. Wrote _Flora
Caroliniana_.
[70] James Scott Bowerbank, 1797-1877. Wrote on Sponges and the Fossil
Fruits of the London Clay.
[71] Edward Forster, 1765-1849. Made vice-president of the Linnæan
Society in 1828.
[72] Herbert Gray Torrey, born just before Dr. Gray sailed, was his
godson.
[73] Mr. George P. Putnam; the American publisher and bookseller, at
this time established in London.
[74] William Valentine, a very promising young botanist, who wrote
valuable papers on the structure of mosses. Went early to Tasmania,
where he died.
[75] Pulled down in 1891.
[76] Theodore Hartweg, died in 1871. Explored in Mexico and
California, 1836 to 1847; later director of the Grand-ducal Gardens,
Swetzingen, Baden.
[77] Philip Barker Webb, 1793-1854; a “distinguished English botanist
residing in Paris, of vast and varied knowledge. He accumulated one of
the largest herbaria, bequeathed to the Duke of Tuscany.”--A. G.
[78] Beaupré Charles Gaudichaud, 1780-1854; French botanist. Went
round the world in the Bonite, and published the Botany of the
expedition.
[79] Jacques Gay, died 1863. Born in Switzerland, and a pupil of
Gaudin.
[80] Jean F. Camille Montagne, 1794-1865; surgeon in the French army.
Retired in 1830, and devoted himself to cryptogamic botany.
[81] Achille Richard, 1794-1852; professor of botany in the Ecole de
Médecine, Paris; son of L. Claude Richard.
[82] Edouard Spach, 1801-1879; native of Strasburg, many years keeper
of the herbarium at the Jardin des Plantes.
[83] Charles François Brisseau Mirbel, 1776-1854; one of the
most distinguished vegetable anatomists of the age. His earliest
publication in 1801.
[84] Auguste de St. Hilaire, 1779-1853. Accompanied the Duke of
Luxembourg on his voyage to Brazil, where he spent six years, and
published a _Flora of Brazil_, 1825, and many other works.
[85] Baron Benjamin Delessert, 1773-1847; a French financier and
philanthropist. Associated with De Candolle in the publication of the
_Icones Selectæ_.
[86] Jean Louis Berlandier, died 1851; a Belgian. Established as an
apothecary at Matamoras, 1827 or 1828. The first botanist to explore
New Spain. He also made large collections in western Texas.
[87] Adolphe Theodore Brongniart, 1801-1876; distinguished French
botanist, more especially in fossil botany; professor of botany at the
Jardin des Plantes.
[88] The rediscovery of Shortia in 1878 is described on p. 682.
[89] Nicolas Charles Seringe, 1775-1856; professor at Lyons. Seringia
named for him.
[90] Esprit Requien,1788-1851; a pupil of A. P. de Candolle at
Montpellier. Often quoted in the _Flore Française_.
[91] Michel Felix Dunal, 1789-1856; professor of botany at
Montpellier. “One of the earliest friends of A. P. De Candolle. Author
of several important monographs” [A. G.].
[92] Alire Raffeneau Delile, 1778-1850; director of the Garden of
Agriculture established at Cairo. Later he succeeded De Candolle in
the Botanic Garden, Montpellier. A celebrated botanist.
[93] There is a gigantic statue of Columbus, placed in a conspicuous
place and looking down into the harbor. They make very much of him
now, as well they may; they derided him when living, they set up his
image long after he is dead. Of course we are very much obliged to
him, for if he had not discovered America what would have become of
us!--A. G.
[94] Gaetano Savi, 1769-1844.
[95] Antonio Targioni-Tozzetti, 1785-1856; distinguished Florentine
botanist.
[96] Giovanni Battista Amici, 1784-1863; an Italian astronomer,
especially skilled in the construction of optical instruments.
[97] Horatio Greenough; the American sculptor in Florence.
[98] Roberto de Visiani, 1809-1878; professor of botany at Padua;
author of a _Flora Dalmatica_.
[99] B. Biasoletto, M. D., 1793-1858. Triest. “A botanist of merit and
investigator of Algæ of the Adriatic” [A. G.].
[100] M. J. Tommasini, 1794-1879. Triest. Author of a Botany of Mt.
Slavonik, Istria.
[101] Stephen Ladislaus Endlicher, 1804-1849; professor of botany in
the University of Vienna; author of _Genera Plantarum_.
[102] Aloys Putterlich, 1810-1845; keeper of the Botanical Museum,
Vienna.
[103] Edward Fenzl, 1807-1879; professor of botany and director of the
Botanic Garden at Vienna.
[104] Dr. Heinrich Schott, 1794-1865; director of the Imperial
Gardens, Schönbrunn. “He was the highest authority on Aroideæ” [A. G.].
[105] A. C. J. Corda, 1809-1849. Prague. A distinguished mycologist.
Lost at sea on returning from America.
[106] Karel B. Presl, 1794-1852; professor at Prague and curator of
the herbarium.
[107] Christian Gottfried Nees von Esenbeck, 1776-1858; professor of
natural history at Bonn and Breslau.
[108] Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini, 1797-1848; professor of botany at
Munich. Among other publications he assisted in describing the plants
collected and described by Siebold in the _Flora Japonica_.
[109] Julius Hermann Schultes, 1804. Died in Munich, 1840.
[110] Jean Etienne Duby, 1797-1885; long one of the Genevese clergy
and a botanist and colleague of Augustin Pyramus do Candolle.
[111] Dr. Gurdon Buck.
[112] Hugo von Mohl, 1805-1872. Born at Stuttgart. Professor of botany
at Tübingen. “Chief of the vegetable anatomists of this generation”
[A. G.].
[113] Eduard Friedrich Pöppig, 1798-1868; professor of zoölogy at
Leipsic. Made collections of plants in Cuba, Chili, Peru, and on the
upper Amazon.
[114] Christian Friedrich Schwägrichen, 1775-1853; professor of
natural history at Leipsic.
[115] Heinrich Gottlieb Reichenbach, 1793-1879; professor of botany
at Dresden. A voluminous author, especially of illustrated works on
European plants.
[116] D. F. L. von Schlechtendal, 1784-1866. University of Halle.
Editor of the _Linnæa_ and _Botanische Zeitung_.
[117] Christian Schkuhr, 1741-1811. _History of Carices_, 1802.
[118] Dr. J. H. Klotzsch, 1805-1860; keeper of the Royal Herbarium at
Berlin.
[119] Karl Sigismund Kunth, 1788-1850. Appointed professor of botany
at Berlin, 1819. Author of _Enumeratio Plantarum_ and other well-known
descriptive works.
[120] Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, 1794-1876. Berlin. Student of
the microscope, and author of works on the lower forms of plants and
animals.
[121] Heinrich Friedrich Link, 1767-1851. Professor at Breslau, then
at Berlin. Wrote _Anatomy of Plants_ and _Elements of Botanical
Philosophy_.
[122] _A Flora of North America_; containing abridged descriptions
of all the known indigenous and naturalized plants growing north of
Mexico; arranged according to the natural system. By John Torrey and
Asa Gray. New York. 8vo; vol. i., 1838-1840, pp. xvi, 711; vol. ii.,
1841-1843, pp. 504.
[123] S. Constantine Rafinesque-Schmaltz, d. 1840. A Sicilian by
birth. First arrived in the United States, 1802, for three years;
returned in 1815, and explored the Alleghanies and Southern States.
“An eccentric but certainly gifted personage, connected with the
natural history of this country for the last thirty-five years” [A.
G.].
[124] Benjamin D. Greene, 1798-1862. First studied law; then medicine
in Scotland and Paris. Devoted himself to botany. “His very valuable
herbarium and botanical library were bequeathed to the Boston Natural
History Society. He was always a most liberal and wise patron of
science” [A. G.].
[125] Jacob Bigelow, M. D., 1787-1870; an eminent Boston physician;
author of the _Floral Bostoniensis_, 1814.
[126] George B. Emerson, 1797-1881; an eminent teacher in Boston,
Mass.; author of _Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts_.
[127] Director of Kew Gardens.
[128] Ferdinand Lindheimer, 1801-1879. Died at New Braunfels, Texas. A
German. “An assiduous and excellent collector and a keen observer; his
notes, full and discriminating, add not a little to the value of the
collections” [A. G.].
[129] Edward Tuckerman, 1817-1886; professor at Amherst. “The most
profound and trustworthy American lichenologist of the day” [A. G.].
[130] Benjamin Peirce, 1809-1880; professor of mathematics, Harvard
University.
[131] Carl Geyer, 1809-1853; a German botanist who explored the
basin of the upper Mississippi with Nicollet under the Bureau of
Topographical Engineers, 1836-1840. Afterwards crossed the Rocky
Mountains to Oregon.
[132] Lecture to his class in college.
[133] Dr. Gray imported a quantity of small evergreens from England
and planted the ground extensively, adding also many other kinds.
[134] Dr. Rugel came to America, 1842; settled in eastern Tennessee
and collected in the southeastern States.
[135] To his college class.
[136] Dr. Jeffries Wyman.
[137] This was Dr. Gray’s second course of Lowell lectures. Dr. John
A. Albro, the Congregationalist minister of Cambridge, was his pastor.
[138] G. J. Mulder, 1802-1880; professor of chemistry in the
University of Utrecht. Wrote on Animal and Vegetable Physiology.
[139] Carl H. Schultz-Schultzenstein, 1798-1871; professor of
physiology in the University of Berlin. Wrote voluminously upon
Cyclosis and the Vessels of the Latex, etc.
[140] Dr. Charles Danbeny, G. B., 1795-1867; professor of botany and
rural economy at Oxford; chemist and geologist.
[141] William Oakes, 1799-1848. “The most thorough and complete
collector and investigator of New England plants” [A. G.].
[142] Alphonse Wood, 1810-1881; author of popular botanical text-books.
[143] His brother, then living with him in Cambridge to enter Harvard.
[144] Christian Hendrik Persoon, 1755-1838; a botanist at the Cape of
Good Hope. Died in Paris at a very advanced age. Fungologist.
[145] The third course of Lowell lectures.
[146] Augustus Fendler, 1813-1883. Came from Prussia to America
in 1840. Collected in New Mexico, and on the Andes about Tovar in
Venezuela, and in Trinidad. “A close, accurate observer, a capital
collector and specimen-maker; his distributed specimens are classical.
Of a scientific turn of mind in other lines than botany” [A. G.].
[147] Spencer F. Baird, afterward widely known as secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution.
[148] A relative left Nuttall a comfortable little estate and property
on condition that he should not be away from it more than three months
in the year. He managed to come to America again by taking the three
last months of one year and the three first of the next.
[149] Increase Allen Lapham, 1811-1875; author of a Catalogue of
Plants in the Vicinity of Milwaukee.
[150] Charles Pickering, 1805-1878. “Author of _Geographical
Distribution of Plants and Animals and Man’s Record of his own
Existence_, largely a record of changes in the habitat of plants. A
monument of wonderful industry” [A. G.].
[151] John P. Brace, Litchfield, Conn.; an early botanist and
mineralogist. His herbarium went to Williams College.
[152] A. Wislizenus, M. D., b. 1810. Explored New Mexico and Mexico;
was arrested as a spy. On returning to the United States published a
memoir of the tour, 1846-1847.
[153] Josiah Gregg, died in California, 1850; made excellent
collections in Chihuahua and in the Valley of the Rio Grande. Author
of the _Commerce of the Prairies_.
[154] Leo Lesquereux, 1806-1889; the leading fossil botanist of
America, and a distinguished bryologist.
[155] Sprague made, under Dr. Gray’s directions, some drawings in
color of the work planned, _The Trees of North America_. The work was
never completed, too many things, expense, etc., coming in the way,
but the few plates printed and colored by Prestele were issued in a
small quarto pamphlet by the Smithsonian Institution in 1891.
[156] John Amory Lowell, 1798-1881; a Boston merchant, and a liberal
patron of botany. He bought many valuable books and collected a fine
herbarium. He shaped the policy and direction of the Lowell Institute
founded by his cousin, John Lowell.