[Illustration: Asa Gray]
LETTERS OF ASA GRAY
EDITED BY
JANE LORING GRAY
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1894
Copyright, 1893,
BY JANE LORING GRAY.
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
V. SECOND JOURNEY IN EUROPE.--CORRESPONDENCE. 1830-1859 369
VI. LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. 1800-1868 454
VII. TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. 1808-1880 565
VIII. FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. 1880-1888 701
NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS. The frontispiece portrait of Dr. Gray is a
photogravure from a photograph taken in 1880. The plate of Dr. Gray in
his study, facing page 529, is from a photograph taken in 1879. The view
of the present Range of Buildings in the Botanic Garden, facing page
614, is from a photograph taken for this work.
LETTERS OF ASA GRAY.
CHAPTER V.
SECOND JOURNEY IN EUROPE.--CORRESPONDENCE.
1850-1859.
Dr. Gray sailed for England with Mrs. Gray in a sailing packet June 11,
1850. The steamers made regular trips, but the fine packets were still
running, and it was thought desirable to try the longer voyage for Mrs.
Gray’s health.
Dr. Gray renewed acquaintance with his old friends, and made many new
ones, meeting at his friend Mr. Ward’s, where they first stayed, many of
the younger men, Henfrey, Forbes, etc., who had become known in science
since his former visit in 1839.
TO JOHN TORREY.
GHENT, BELGIUM, July 16, 1850.
I surely meant that you should have heard of us long ere this. But there
seemed not to be a moment of time during the fortnight we spent in
England; Mr. Ward kept us so busy with every sort of engagement and
sight-seeing that J. could enjoy. I meant to have written at Dover last
evening; but it was not convenient, so now that we are for the first
night in a strange country (which England is not) I must tell you, what
I trust you have learned from Carey (to whom I had occasion to write
hurriedly, last mail), that we had a very pleasant voyage of seventeen
and a half days and came near making it in fourteen, as we made land
early on the morning of the twelfth day out, no storms, but gentle
favoring breezes till we made the Irish coast; and then, to our
disappointment, we had head winds to beat against all the way up to
Holyhead, and reached Liverpool Saturday morning....
On Monday we left Liverpool, which has vastly improved since you saw it;
stopping at Coventry and turning off to Leamington to see, at
Darlington’s desire, the descendants of old Peter Collinson,[1] and
deliver some books and letters from him, which I did. Mrs. Collinson was
ill with a severe fall, but her daughter received the things I brought,
and showed me a portrait of Peter. Then Mrs. Gray and I made an
excursion to Warwick Castle, the fine ruins of Kenilworth, and
Stoneleigh Abbey, driving through six or seven miles of fine park. The
next day on to London, to Ward, who had insisted on our visiting him. He
lives three and a half miles out of London, in a pleasant and quiet
suburban house; his son being established in Wellclose Square.
Boott I saw the same evening I arrived, and two days later, with J., but
not later. He has been quite sick with an influenza, and a slight but
not altogether pleasant inflammation of the lungs.
To Hooker I went at once also, and got your kind letter there, and saw
Kew. Hooker is quite well; but Lady H. is very poorly.... She inquired
most particularly and affectionately after yourself, and asked about all
your family....
On Monday I made another visit to Kew Gardens, (a grand affair) to show
the lions of the place to four or five young Americans I knew, one of
them young Brace,[2] J.’s cousin, who is making with two friends a
pleasant and profitable pedestrian excursion in England.[3] I cannot
begin to tell you the half we have done and seen in England, but we were
most busy: Saturday, conversazione of Royal Botanical Society in
Regent’s Park. Wednesday, excursion with Linnæan Club to Hertford; saw a
great Pinetum, 600 species of Coniferæ, etc., and the Panshanger Oak. (I
wrote Carey a few words of this.) Thursday, a most pleasant day with
Hooker. Miss Hooker looks quite well; all send their love to you, all
most kind and sweet to us. Hooker has altered little, but looks older.
Brown looks older perhaps, but decidedly stronger, is as healthy as
possible and very lively. In talking with him and showing him about it
he gave up about Krameria, and said I must be right. He formerly
unequivocally referred it to Polygalaceæ. Bennett is large and fat. I
fear he does not work hard enough.
Yesterday we came down to Dover early in the afternoon (a striking
place), and embarked late in the evening on steamer for Ostend, which we
reached early this morning; came right on to Bruges, which listless and
very curious old-world town, and its curiosities, we have all day been
exploring, till six o’clock, when we came on twenty-eight miles further
by railway to the famous and more lively town of Ghent,--where I have
been running about till the dusk arrived, and must now to bed, as we
have to finish Ghent to-morrow before dinner, and go on to Antwerp
afterwards, thence to Cologne. I think we shall cut Brussels.
At Ghent saw the Belfry and the strange old Town Hall.... I went to the
Botanic Garden (did not find Professor Kickx),--hardly as large as ours
at Cambridge, and by no means so rich or half so well kept, though said
to be the best in Belgium; explored the university library, and strolled
through the streets and along the canals....
Antwerp.--Imagine us settled comfortably at Hotel du Parc, Wednesday
evening, overlooking the Place Verte, our windows commanding a near and
most advantageous view of the finest cathedral in Belgium, with light
enough still to see pretty well against the sky the graceful outlines
and much of the light tracery and Gothic work of this gem of a steeple,
one of the loftiest in the world (403 feet, 7 inches) and probably
unsurpassed by any for lightness, grace, and the elaborateness of the
carved work. Napoleon compared it to Mechlin lace. And such sweet
chimes, every fifteen minutes! The chime at the beginning of the hour
still rings in our ears. We have never tired of listening to it....
BONN, July 22.
We drove through the city (Cologne) to the station of the Bonn railroad.
But on the way the driver, of his own motion, stopped at the door of the
cathedral. Finding that we had time enough to take a good look before
the train left, we could not resist, and saw this wonder and masterpiece
of true Gothic architecture; which by the united efforts of most North
German powers is going on toward completion, in the style and plan on
which it was commenced seven hundred or eight hundred years ago, and in
which the choir was finished, and the transepts and nave commenced. It
is most grand; the grandest thing we ever saw, though the nave bears
only a temporary roof, at thirty or forty feet less than the full
height. The ancient stained glass comes fully up to one’s expectation. I
have never seen the like.
We went up to Poppelsdorf; such charming and picturesque view of the
Siebengebirge (seven mountains) and the Godesberg, etc., from the
professor’s windows and the Botanic Garden; the museums rich and
curious, and parts of the old château in which they are (now surrendered
to the university) not less so. The botanical professors, Treviranus[4]
and Dr. Roemer, very kind; some collections to be made ready here for me
to examine when we come back, so that I must then spend a day here....
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
GENEVA, August 16, 1850.
We went up the Rhine to Coblenz, Bingen, and Mayence; thence to
Frankfort. By some mistake in the post office in giving me the address,
your letter to Dr. Fresenius[5] I took to a law-doctor Fresenius, who
was away in Switzerland. So I gave up all hopes of seeing him, and we
fell to seeing the sights by ourselves, when, a few hours before we had
arranged to go to Heidelberg, the true Dr. Fresenius came in. We may see
him again on our way back. We went to Heidelberg, for an hour or two
only....
It is now the 20th,--time passed fast. I work to-day in herbariums De
Candolle and Boissier, and to-morrow morning we go to Freiburg and Berne
and the Bernese Oberland. We cannot be back now in England so early as
we expected; but still hope to be there by the 20th September....
Thursday morning, after an early breakfast, went on by railroad to Kehl;
left our luggage and took a carriage over the bridge of boats, across
the lines of the French republic (?) into Strasburg. Saw Schimper;[6]
then we went to the cathedral, viewed the grand front of this imposing
structure, and the wonderful spire, the tallest in the world; were much
struck with the grandeur of the interior, wholly lighted by stained
glass, the greater part of it 400 or 500 years old. After visiting the
Museum of Natural History, and arranging with Schimper to meet him in
Switzerland, where he is to pass with his wife (a Swiss lady) a long
vacation, we took our carriage and returned to the Baden side of the
river, and came on to Freiburg (in the Breisgau) that evening, reaching
it in the rain....
Professor Braun,[7] the brother of the first Mrs. Agassiz, was very kind
to us. He is a very interesting man, of charming manners; his wife very
sweet and charming, his children most engaging. Saturday afternoon we
took a carriage, and with Professor Braun rode up a beautiful valley to
the Höllenthal (French, Vallée d’Enfer), a rocky and wooded gorge of
very striking scenery; wild and majestic, rather than terrible, as its
name imports....
In the afternoon visited the cathedral, one of the finest and oldest in
Europe, that is well preserved. Here nearly every part, and all the
stained glass, of a most curious kind, is perfectly preserved; and the
spire, though not so high as that of Strasburg, is as elaborate and
light,--as it were of woven stone thread,--and even more beautiful....
Tuesday we rode from Bâle to Bienne (fifty-six miles) in a diligence,
from eight A.M. to five P.M., through the Münster Thal, the grandest and
most picturesque scenery of the Jura.
Wednesday, a ride of three hours along lakes of Bienne and Neuchâtel
brought us to Neuchâtel at eleven o’clock A.M. ... Professor Godet,[8]
who received me most cordially, took me (with Mr. Coulon) up the
Chaumont, 2,500 feet; but the Alps were obscured by clouds, at least the
higher Alps, and we had no fine view of them; otherwise the view was
very fine. We returned by the great boulder Pierre à Bot. All asked
after Agassiz with much interest. Excursions are planned for us when we
return....
* * * * *
Dr. Gray enjoyed the visit to Geneva, where he renewed his friendship
with MM. Alphonse De Candolle and Boissier, accomplishing some useful
work, and having pleasant social meetings and excursions. He went to
Chamouni and the Bernese Oberland; then to Munich, especially to meet
again Martius, with whom he had been in constant correspondence, and who
made the journey from Tyrol to greet his old friend. Their few days
together were greatly enjoyed.
He returned to England, going down the Neckar by steamboat to
Heidelberg, then down the Rhine, and through Holland, where he saw
Miquel[9] in Amsterdam, rambling with him on a fête-day through the
streets at evening, enjoying the queer sights; went to Leyden, meeting
De Vriese,[10] with whom was R. Brown (then staying in Leyden for a few
days), and seeing the Botanic Garden, one of the oldest in Europe, and
well known to Linnæus. Blume[11] he missed, but he saw Siebold’s[12]
collection of Japanese curios, then most rare. He took steamer from
Rotterdam to London, and after a few days went down to Mr. Bentham’s, in
Herefordshire.
Here were spent two months of very hard work with Mr. Bentham, who most
kindly went over with him the plants of the United States Exploring
Expedition, which had been brought over the Atlantic for the purpose.
Pontrilas is in a pretty, hilly country on the border of Wales, with
many old churches, almost of Saxon time, in the neighborhood, to give
interest to walks, and very interesting, agreeable neighbors for a day
or two’s visiting, among them the authoress, Mrs. Archer Clive, who was
very kind.
He left Pontrilas early in December to make a visit, at Dublin, to his
friend Professor Harvey, to stay in the family of Mr. and Mrs.
Todhunter, Dr. Harvey’s sister. Going on board the steamer at ten in the
evening, he met with the severe accident of which he gives an account in
his letters. Dr. Harvey came from Dublin to help in nursing him. His
vigor and elasticity helped him to a speedy recovery, but it increased a
general tendency to stoop, and he was never so erect afterwards.
He was able to get to Kew the last of December, and spent the winter in
hard work in Sir William Hooker’s herbarium, which was then in his house
at West Park.
TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
CUMBERLAND PLACE, KEW, December 28, 1850.
Your kind favor of December 6th, forwarded to me by Bentham, to Dublin,
would have been sooner acknowledged, but that it found me an invalid. On
our way from Hereford to Dublin I had just gone on board a steamer at
Holyhead, early in the evening; had left Mrs. Gray in the ladies’ cabin,
when, coming on deck again, I stepped over an open hatchway which had
been left for the moment very carelessly unguarded and unlighted. I fell
full eighteen feet, they say, to the bottom of the hold, striking partly
on my right hand and the side of my right leg, bruising and straining
both, but principally on my right side against a timber projecting from
the floor, fracturing two of my ribs. It is truly wonderful that I was
not more seriously and permanently injured. I was taken on shore at once
and had good medical attendance. I recovered so rapidly that in a week I
was comfortably taken across to Dublin, where I was kindly cared for by
good friends; in two weeks more I left for London, able to walk without
difficulty; and to-day, just four weeks after the accident, I have begun
to work at plants again, in Sir William Hooker’s herbarium. But my side
is still tender, and my strength is not great.
Having said thus much of my bodily condition, let me no longer delay to
thank you heartily for the very unexpected compliment that you have
caused to be paid me, and to ask you to convey, in fitting terms, my
grateful acknowledgments to the Société de Physique et d’Histoire
Naturelle, for the honor they have conferred upon me in choosing me as
one of their corresponding members. I was not aware that I had rendered
any particular services to your society, but I shall be very glad to do
so if any opportunity offers. Although, generally, I am far from
coveting compliments of this kind, I assure you I am much pleased to be
thus associated with several valued personal friends, my contemporaries,
and with such highly honored names of the past generation....
We had eight weeks of most pleasant and profitable labor at Pontrilas,
and Mr. Bentham has rendered me invaluable assistance.
Mrs. Gray joins me in the expression of kind remembrances and regard to
Madame De Candolle and yourself.
Believe me to remain, ever most sincerely yours,
ASA GRAY.
* * * * *
Since Dr. Gray was so near Sir William, and working in the herbarium
almost every day, there was much meeting of old friends, and of many of
the men distinguished in botany. Robert Brown, with his keen observation
and dry wit, he saw constantly at the British Museum, Dr. Wallich,[13]
Mr. Miers and many others. There was some social visiting in London and
the neighborhood. Mr. Abbott Lawrence was then American minister in
London, and he and Mrs. Lawrence were very kind and attentive, giving
him a chance to see at an evening reception some of the great men of the
London world: the Duke of Wellington, Lady Morgan, Whewell the Master of
Trinity, Lord Boughton, Lord Gough, and many others.
It was the year of the first great World’s Exhibition, and the building
was then considered very wonderful. Through the kindness of Professor
Lindley he was enabled to see it before it was completed.
There was a very charming visit to Oxford in March, where Dr. Gray made
most delightful acquaintances. He there first met Dean Church, then a
fellow of Oriel, who had him to dine. He also dined with Mr.
Congreve[14] at Wadham; met Maskeleyne, who showed him “some fine
talbotypes, which are a sort of daguerreotype on paper, and have a
beautiful effect for landscapes and buildings.” Breakfasted with Mr.
Burgon and Mr. Church, at Oriel, in Dr. Pusey’s old rooms, and met Mr.
Burgon again at dinner, when dining in the “Common Room,” at a dinner
given him by Mr. Church, and also Buckle and Sclater. Dr. Jacobson, then
Regius professor of divinity, afterwards Bishop of Chester, and Mrs.
Jacobson, were very kind. Dr. Daubeny was then professor of botany at
Oxford, and there were some plants to look at in the small herbarium
kept in the little Botanic Garden in an old greenhouse. The days were
crowded with interesting sight-seeing and in meeting agreeable people.
From Oxford, Dr. Gray went to Cambridge, where he met again a traveling
acquaintance made on the passage from Rotterdam, Dr. Thompson, then
Greek tutor, later Master of Trinity, who was very kind in doing the
honors of Trinity, King’s Chapel, etc. At his rooms, Dr. Gray met
Professor Challis and other Cambridge men. The grounds about the
colleges were then at their greatest beauty, the banks of the Cam yellow
with primroses, the whole setting off the beautiful bridges and stately
buildings. Another traveling acquaintance met in the street, recalling
an experience on the Furca, asked Dr. Gray to dine with him at Caius
College, saying his name was Mackenzie. He was Bishop Mackenzie, who
died in south Africa.
On returning to Kew, Dr. Gray found Dr. Joseph Hooker, just back from
his journey to the Himalayas and Thibet. Dr. Thompson[15] was also
there, just home from India, where he had been imprisoned with Lady Sale
and others, twenty of them in one small room, during the trouble in
Afghanistan. And one day came an invitation to lunch from the Hookers’,
“to meet Mr. Darwin, who is coming to meet Dr. Hooker; is distinguished
as a naturalist.” “Mr. Darwin was a lively, agreeable person” [Mrs.
Gray’s journal].
TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
5 CUMBERLAND PLACE, KEW, April 14, 1851.
For myself I am glad that I am perfectly recovered from the effects of
my accident, and am as active as ever. I have passed a very pleasant
winter, and have prosecuted my studies to great advantage, though there
still remains, alas! more for me to do than I can hope to accomplish in
the time that is still left for me. Your letter was just in time to
reach me here; for we had just decided to go to Paris early next week;
to remain there until the 1st of June, at least. The only drawback is
that we thereby lose the society of Mr. and Mrs. Bentham, who mean to
come to London early next month....
Sir William Hooker is not yet well, though better than he was last
winter. I have presented your kind messages, for which he sends best
thanks, and is rejoiced to hear of your recovery. Sir William is truly a
noble man; the more intimately you know him the more strongly attached
to him you become....
I had thought it quite likely that we might pass through Geneva again
this summer; but that is not now possible. The sea, however, is not so
broad as formerly. Believe me to remain,
Very faithfully and affectionately yours,
ASA GRAY.
* * * * *
In April Dr. and Mrs. Gray went to Paris, where he worked busily through
the mornings at the Jardin des Plantes, taking the afternoon for his
sight-seeing. He met again his old friends, Jussieu, Decaisne, Gay,
etc., and made the acquaintance of M. and Mme. Vilmorin, both most
charming and interesting people; the former distinguished as a
horticulturist, and both making investigations for many years on the
varieties of strawberries, for which Mme. V. made all the drawings. Two
separate days were passed at Verrières, their country home, an old villa
belonging formerly to the Duchesse de la Vallière. And here to meet him
came old Michaux[16] the younger, then eighty-one, who had walked from
his home (fifteen leagues), for the pleasure of seeing Dr. Gray. And it
was at Dr. Gray’s request that both Michaux and Jussieu sat for their
daguerreotypes for him, the only satisfactory likenesses of either. Mr.
François Delessert[17] extended pleasant hospitalities, and Mr. Webb was
very kind and cordial.
It was during the time of the Republic, Louis Napoleon, president, and
there were some grand fêtes in May, in honor of the Republic, at which
the officers of the government were conspicuously absent.
Dr. Gray returned to Kew in June to continue his work, broken only by
some days in London.
TO GEORGE BENTHAM.
PARIS, April 30, 1851.
DEAR BENTHAM,--I cannot give your message to Weddell, for he is on his
way to the Peruvian cinchona forests, to remain a year,--I suppose on a
commission from the manufacturers of quinine. Jussieu still suffers with
some affection of the stomach, but is much better than last winter.
Decaisne is quite well, but is occupied with the _Culture_, and is
little in the herbarium, where Spach, Tulasne,[18] Naudin,[19] and
Trécul[20] are in charge, under Brongniart and Jussieu. Webb is well,
and so is Gay, who is quite happy, living on his half pay, which the
Republic has secured to him, with his rooms free of rent, and some
savings from his former income. I have not seen Gaudichaud yet; but he
has offered to come and show me his Sandwich Island collections, etc.,
of which he has issued some plates, in “La Voyage de la Bonite,” but no
text has appeared, and none seems likely to appear.
I gave to Dr. Alexander the list and notes on Fendler’s Chagres plants.
He will hand it to you when he sees you in London.
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
PARIS, May 6, 1851.
Robert Brown told me that Link would be succeeded in his excellent and
lucrative professorship either by Grisebach[21] or by our excellent
friend Braun. Since I have been here, a young man from Berlin says that
the choice has fallen on Braun,--to my great joy, for I love Braun very
much. I have given Lowell, who leaves Paris to-day, and will be in
Germany in June and July, a letter to Braun, addressed to Giessen or
Berlin.
Prince Paul’s sensitive branches of Mimosa catching unwary travelers is
rich!
TO ----.
Wednesday morning, June 11.
Settled down to usual Kew routine; glad enough to get back to quiet and
superlative neatness; to less elegance than our Parisian quarters, but
decidedly more comfort. The only thing that distresses us is, that we
cannot translate dear Mrs. Crook bodily to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sure we would if she were younger; but the dear old creature will now
erelong be translated to a far better land.... Unpacked (which in
interminableness is only second to packing up) and went down to the
Hookers’....
Friday, after writing and dispatching letters home, we went up to
London, shopped, etc., in the City; streets nasty (the English word is
very appropriate; no wonder they always use it), and such a contrast to
beautiful and gay Paris, which is vastly more convenient and agreeable
for shopping....
Saturday, ... a little stroll in the Gardens, which are looking
beautifully, the trees loaded with rich foliage, and the great masses of
Rhododendrons in blossom.
In the evening went with Dr. Hooker up to the last soirée of Lord Rosse,
the president of the Royal Society; too late to see Prince Albert, who
came and went early; saw the usual dons. Sir Charles Lyell asked if I
had stayed abroad all the time since last year, or had just come over
afresh!...
Wednesday, we were off early in the morning, to make our first visit to
the Great Exhibition. We went up to town by railroad as usual; walked
over Waterloo bridge, and having reached the Strand, had the
satisfaction of seeing nine omnibuses pass westward, all full.
Despairing of all hope of getting into an omnibus, we were just turning
to look for a cab, when a well-dressed and respectable woman, who had
been making similar unsuccessful attempts, rushed up to us, exclaiming,
“Oh! are you going to the Exhibition? Will you not take a cab with me?
I have been trying for an omnibus in vain this half hour, and I have
made an appointment with some friends there at half past ten.” We agreed
at once to this reasonable and very convenient proposition, and we
shared the expense accordingly, with many expressions of thanks on the
lady’s part. Before we had reached within half a mile of the Crystal
Palace we were obliged to fall into dense line, with a close double file
of cabs, carriages, dog-carts, and other “vehicular conveyances,” all
wending their way thither, a similar file of empty carriages returning
on the other side of the street; the sidewalks as well as the roads
inside the park all crowded with pedestrians. Early as we were, a vast
number of people were already there, but scattered through the vast
interior, they scarcely made a crowd, until midday, when the more
attractive parts of the structure, the principal streets and squares, so
to say, were thronged.
As to what we saw, is it not written at length in the great Official
Catalogue (as far as that ponderous document is yet published), besides
the Abridged Catalogue, in itself quite a sizable book, which we mean to
bring home, with the Synopsis, and other things, quite a library, and I
dare say you have heard and read quite enough about it. I doubt whether
you have seen the excellent and spirited articles in the “Times,”
beginning long before the building was finished, which give a most
admirable and lively account of everything.
The general impression of the interior was not quite so imposing, did
not give such an idea of the vastness, as when we saw it in April, less
full, and the long spaces unbroken.
On our way down the nave, we stopped for a moment to see the Koh-i-noor,
but the Mountain of Light looked to us little brighter than a piece of
cut-glass. It does not come up to the general expectation. Manage it as
they will, it does not shine at all wonderfully, and the people got it
into their heads that the authorities were shamming them with a glass
imitation instead of the veritable Koh-i-noor; an idea well expressed in
“Punch,” who called it “the knave of diamonds.” We determined to show
our patriotism by going first of all carefully through the American
department, and quite a trial to one’s patriotism it is, a great space,
very scantily filled with an ill-assorted, incongruous collection
(although they have given up to Russia and France about one quarter of
the space that Mr. Lawrence asked for and insisted upon having): one
long shelf displayed only half a dozen wooden pails; another side was
decorated with a miserable collection of cast-off specimens of
autumn-leaves, and below with a case containing five or six dozen
bottles of prepared magnesia, all just alike, flanked at the sides with
a similar collection of Old Jacob Townsend’s Sarsaparilla, surmounted by
a portrait of the illustrious inventor. The strength of the nation has
gone to daguerreotypes, of which there are about two thousand very good
specimens of the art, it must be said, far better than they can produce
in England. The same may be said of many things, creditable in
themselves, but of which they have filled up their space, or attempted
to fill it, with an enormous number of specimens, where one or two would
suffice. But wherever anything is quite poor and commonplace, the
exhibitor is sure to make it up in brag, in which it must be confessed
we do “beat all creation.”
Monday we went to the Zoölogical Gardens, very extensive, in fine
keeping, the richest collection of living animals of all sorts in the
world. Were very much amused with monkeys of all sorts and sizes, from
those little larger than a rat to the great and sedate orang-outang,[22]
just arrived, who is quite a human and a very respectable grave old
fellow. We saw the hippopotamus, too, but he lay sleeping in the sun,
and would give no sign of life except occasionally opening his eye and
giving a wink. But one of the most amusing sights was the little
suckling elephant, with its mother, and it was curious to see the little
thing use its trunk as perfectly and knowingly as its mother.... We
stayed to see the ferocious animals fed, at half past four, no great
sight, as they behaved extremely proper, and then we hurried back to the
station and came home to Kew.
A short visit to the British Museum, which is an immense collection of
objects of natural history, sculpture, books, antiquities, etc., etc.
Had some botanical work in the herbarium there (the British Museum), but
did not do anything that day, for we spent the time talking to Mr.
Brown, who was in quite a chatty mood. He is a singular-looking man,
with a very heavy lower lip and jaw, and generally carries his head
down; but it is curious to watch him, and see how he kindles up, and
what a satirical twinkle comes in the corner of his eyes when he tells
some story, for he has a good deal of satire.
* * * * *
Dr. Gray went to the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich,
where Prince Albert came for a few days. Dr. Hooker and Dr. Harvey (who
had been making a visit at Kew), and other scientific friends, were
there. Among other discussions in one of the sections was one on the
possibility of a railroad to the Pacific, a paper by Asa Whitney, “which
had been brought before the Geographical Society in London, and reported
on favorably.”
From Ipswich he made a most interesting visit to Lady Hooker’s father,
Dawson Turner, seeing his very valuable collections, autographs,
pictures, etc., and returning to Kew to work until breaking up to go
back to America. A short trip was made in Ireland, and Dr. Gray went to
Pontrilas to say goodby to Mr. and Mrs. Bentham, immediately before the
voyage. Dr. and Mrs. Gray were again at home, September 4.
After Dr. Gray’s return from Europe, his busy life went on, filled with
college work and the care of the Garden as accompaniments to a study of
the new collections constantly coming in, the work on the Exploring
Expedition, the keeping his various botanical text-books in their new
editions up with the advancing science, and his always large
correspondence. His letters were chiefly on the questions upon which he
was working, but with many touches on events of interest of the day, and
little playful turns. He says in a letter to Dr. Engelmann, “I well know
I have too many irons in the fire.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Darwin destroyed all the letters he received before
1862, except the one published in his “Life and Letters,” which is
inserted later, as well as one to Sir Joseph Hooker taken from the same
volume. The rest of those to Sir Joseph are mostly bound up in the
botanical correspondence at Kew.
Dr. Gray was an immense worker. After his morning mail was received and
looked over, that he might answer any imperative questions, he took
daylight for his scientific work, and, with pauses for meals, and the
necessary interruptions that came at times, he kept steadily on all the
day. He wrote his letters and his elementary botanical works mostly in
the evening. But in his younger days his eyes were unusually strong, and
he would work with the microscope by lamp-light as readily as by
daylight.
Though a steady and unwearying worker he was not rapid. He would throw
aside sheet after sheet to be rewritten, especially if there was
anything he wished to make particularly clear and strong, or any
reasoning to be worked out from the soundest point of view. It was
always a wonder to those about him that he could stand as he did the
unceasing labor, but he was a sound sleeper even if the hours might be
short, and of a vigorous, wiry, active temperament, and when he did take
a holiday, he took it heartily. His rest and recreation were in
journeys, longer or shorter, and every two or three years some long
outing would be taken, to give him the needed refreshment. But he must
always be busy even then, somewhere to go, something to see; rest in
quiet seemed impossible to him for more than a day at a time.
TO CHARLES WRIGHT.
CAMBRIDGE, January 23, 1852.
I am printing on “Plantæ Wrightianæ,” the first part of which (as I work
in so much general matter, especially Tex-Mexican), to the end of
Compositæ, will take 225 pages or more, with ten plates,--the most
important memoir I ever wrote, and will indelibly fix our name on the
Texan-New-Mexican Flora....
I have just found a letter of Sullivant’s, dated May 27, 1850, in which
he says, “Send me by all means Wright’s Texan Mosses and Hepaticæ....”
Poor fellow! as I wrote you before, he lost his wife while I was away,
and was overwhelmed, as she was everything to him, and as good a
muscologist almost as he....
You are in a fine field. Hold on and keep a good heart. I long to see
what Colonel Graham is now bringing on to me....
June 5.
There, my dear Wright, I consider myself very much of a gentleman! For
your favor of the 12th April reached me only this afternoon, and now
before the sun has gone down I am answering it! Your letter came very
opportunely too. For, though Colonel Graham has been back so long, it
was only yesterday that I got the collection he brought home with him to
Indianola (and the seeds); and to-day I opened it and had looked over
only two bundles. And I was saying to myself, Now if I only had Mr.
Wright’s list with localities, I should do very well. And when my
letters came from the office, yours, with said list inclosed, was among
them. The plants look well, but I have only peeped into them yet. I am
glad if you have found Amoreuxia malvafolia, but I have not yet hit upon
it....
I am still very busy with college work, for a month longer, and with the
Garden; and the Exploring Expedition work has been pressing me, and
still will. But I shall somehow distribute your 1851 collection very
soon, name them up to the end of Compositæ, and in the course of the
summer determine many of the monopetalous families. I have already named
and described a few of these and some Apetalæ to please Colonel Graham,
and named a new Pentstemon after him (which I have growing, too), which
compliment seems to gratify him.
By this time you will have received the index and plates of “Plantæ
Wrightianæ.” Copies are already in England, and I am about to dispatch
many to France, Germany, etc.
You are indeed an invaluable collector, though you do like to grumble
now and then, and I hope the Indians won’t catch you. If they must take
a scalp or a head, there are others I could better spare. So take care
of yourself....
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
February 23, 1852.
I carefully keep your flowering bit of Fendlera, ready to return it if
Lindheimer does not get more, as I trust he will. It is the most
interesting of North American genera, between Deutzia and Philadelphus,
and shows plainly that both are saxifragaceous....
July 28.
I am worked almost to distraction. But college work is now over and I
can get on with fewer irons in the fire.
I fear you are driven up hard also, by the sickly season and cholera. I
hope you may be able to give up practice by and by....
I have had for a good while a misunderstanding with Captain Wilkes
about my work for the Exploring Expedition botany. It is now made up, I
think, or nearly, but I have had no pay from them for a long time, and
they are a year behind in paying. I have got manuscript of several
families all ready for the press, and some fine drawings. I am just now
working up “Plantæ Wrightianæ,” 1851 collection, up to end of Compositæ,
old stopping-place, but must dash beyond that soon....
TO W. J. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, December 4, 1852.
Here is a discovery! I have to-day received by post from Dr. J. F.
Beaumont, of Mountain Home, in the upper part of Alabama, specimens of a
Trichomanes, which he finds growing there under shelving rocks. I send
you herewith the half of what is sent me, knowing you will be much
interested in the discovery, for the first time, of a Trichomanes in the
United States; and thinking that you will probably pronounce it to be a
form of the T. radicans, though so much smaller than my Irish and West
Indian specimens.... I have not specimens enough of T. radicans to
satisfy myself entirely, and refer the question to your experienced
judgment. Pray give me your opinion, for the addition of a single
species to our few ferns, and especially one of this group, is a matter
of moment to us, and worthy of a published notice.
I should not be so greatly surprised now if Hymenophyllum ciliatum,
credited by Willdenow to Virginia, should turn up, but I still think
there was some mistake about that; and I could find no specimen in
Willdenow’s herbarium when I sought for it, in 1839....
Next Wednesday’s steamer, which takes this letter, will also take, for a
short European tour, my good father-in-law, Mr. Loring, with Mrs.
Loring, and Mrs. Gray’s brother Charles. A rather sudden determination,
but we have strongly urged the journey ever since the death of their
dear little boy, the little Benjamin, who seemed given to be the comfort
and stay of their declining years, who was born just before our return
home, a year ago last summer. The rest and change are needful to Mr.
Loring, also, from being worn down by his long-continued labors at the
bar, of which he is perhaps the leader in Boston; I am confident it will
be of great benefit to him; and the Old World has much to interest a man
of his refined taste.... And then Kew Garden is to them one of the
wonders of the world, as well as a place with which they have, through
us, so many pleasant associations. Should you wish them to enjoy the
privilege of seeing the Gardens under your own kind auspices, would you
notify Mr. Loring through Boott (for I do not now know what will be
their London address), of a day that would be agreeable and convenient
to yourself....
January 4, 1853.
Wright will now soon be off in Ringgold’s North Pacific Surveying
Expedition, to explore Behring Straits, Kurile Islands, the coast of
Japan, if possible, and to winter at the Sandwich Islands.
So we shall have no more New Mexican plants from him.
My new memoir, “Plantæ Wrightianæ,” is now almost all printed, and
contains many novelties. I never had a collection so rich in entirely
new things.
I long to hear what you will say of the Trichomanes from Alabama which I
sent you.
With best wishes for the new year to you and all yours, I remain,
Yours affectionately,
ASA GRAY.
January 28, 1853.
“It never rains but it pours” is an old adage suitable to this meridian
and illustrated by what I now send you, namely, a second Trichomanes
from Alabama! discovered by the indefatigable Thomas M. Peters, Esq., of
Moulton, who (and not Mr. Beaumont, it appears) was the first finder of
Trichomanes radicans in Alabama.
This one seems to me clearly a new one....
I think it particularly appropriate in this case that it should bear the
name of its discoverer, so I have called it Trichomanes Petersii, and
have sent a little article on it and Trichomanes radicans to “Silliman’s
Journal.” ...
* * * * *
In 1853 began Dr. Gray’s long correspondence with the Dean of St.
Paul’s--a friendship whose intimacy was ever increasing and which lasted
through his life.
TO R. W. CHURCH.
February 7, 1853.
MY DEAR MR. CHURCH,--Since I heard, which I did first from Mr.
Clough,[23] that you were about to marry and take charge of a parish, I
have been longing every time I wrote to England to add a line expressing
my most sincere congratulations. I hope you will not think me too
presuming if I make bold to do so, and if I ask you where your parish
is, for I would gladly form some idea of where your home is to be.
Pleasant and desirable on many accounts as an Oxford life must be, yet I
cannot but think you more appropriately placed in the pleasant parsonage
I can fancy, the centre of a little world of your own, and the spiritual
guide of an attached body of parishioners, where you will be very happy
and very useful.
Still let us hope that the visit to Cambridge, New England, is only
deferred, to afford us a double gratification. I think you can sometimes
leave your parish for three months, or even more with special leave, and
the voyage is becoming shorter and cheaper every year.
I have looked through the “Times,” which I see regularly through the
kindness of a friend, thinking that I might perchance see your
appointment, presentation, or whatever it may be, mentioned; but in
vain.
By the way, I am glad to see that you have elected Mr. Gladstone. Your
name on the Oxford Committee makes me suppose you have not yet left
Oxford.
Dr. Albro has returned in restored health, and speaks with much
gratification of his visit to Oxford, only regretting that your absence
prevented his making your acquaintance until the last moment of his
short stay.
Mr. Clough brought me a letter from Maskelyne of Wadham College.
Circumstances, I am sorry to say, have yet prevented me from seeing him
here as much as I could wish. I hope soon to know him better. He has
excellent and influential acquaintances; but one hardly sees what he is
to do.
If he holds Unitarian views, as I have been told, he will perhaps be
more favorably situated, just in Boston or Cambridge, than in England,
and probably meet more cultivated and more religious people of that
persuasion than at home. But if he sympathizes rather with Francis
Newman and that school, as some one tells me, I should think he would
not find that class of people here very attractive to him. But I hope
that is not his bent. I have no partiality for Unitarianism, though it
is the faith of near and valued friends. I am an orthodox Presbyterian,
as my fathers were. But in England I should be a Churchman, although a
pretty low one, at least in some respects; and I am a most hearty
well-wisher to the Church of England. So pray, when settled in your
parish, just drop me a line to say where you are, and how old your
parish church is; for hankering after antiquities is, as an Oxford man
told me, a great failing of Americans.
TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
CAMBRIDGE, March 28, 1853.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am all the more glad that I can direct your attention
to the fourth volume (new series) of the “Memoirs of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences,” p. 382, where you will find your name
enrolled as the sole Honorary Member for Switzerland.
Ordinarily neither you nor I would be at all solicitous for such
recognition. I care not to have them except where (as in the Linnæan
Society of London, the French Academy, and your own society of Geneva) I
well know the nominations are strictly and conscientiously weighed, and
where the list to be filled is a limited one. But we here prize the
name of De Candolle so highly that we count it a privilege to have it on
our foreign list....
I should state that this academy, the oldest but one in America, was in
a state of inactivity and hebetude since the death of its former
president, Bowditch, till 1843, the year after I came to Cambridge, when
it was determined, chiefly by some of my colleagues in Cambridge, to
restore it to life and vigor. It is now full of life. The number of its
foreign members is now limited to seventy-five, and they are chosen by a
very formal process and a very rigid scrutiny, so as to have only the
very best names in the several departments of knowledge. Formerly they
were chosen without such care; so that there are names on the list that
could not be placed there now. Hereafter the list will be a most select
one....
Hereafter we will send our parcels through the Smithsonian Institution
and through its agent, Mr. Hector Bossange, Paris. You justly praise the
publications of this institution. It is on the point of issuing another
splendid volume; and at least one a year will continue to be issued.[24]
Liberal in its distribution, the Smithsonian Institution looks to its
exchanges as a means of building up a library valuable for scientific
researches in this country. You may remember that, when at Geneva, I
ventured to ask you to recommend to the Société de Physique et
d’Histoire Naturelle de Genève, to vote its series of memoirs to the
Smithsonian Institution. But you thought it would not then be quite
proper to request it. Now that the institution has given such evidences
of its vigor and productiveness, and that I can assure you it is only
beginning to do its work, and that in number of volumes it will soon
overtake you, I venture to renew the request which I was then requested
to make; and I think that your society, with these assurances, and in
view of the good offices of the Smithsonian in promoting interchanges
(at no small expense), would freely accord the earlier volumes of its
memoirs, on your proposition....
Dr. Harris[25] has made interesting researches on the plants cultivated
by our aborigines, which I urge him to publish; but he is one of those
persons who are never quite ready to print as long as they live.
I have long suspected that Helianthus tuberosus came from North America.
I should like to study from what indigenous species it comes....
As to the “Botany of the South Sea Exploring Expedition,” the manuscript
and the drawings are ready up nearly to the Leguminosæ; and the
printing, which is not under my control, is about to commence. The work
will probably make three quarto volumes and 300 folio plates. I shall be
sure to have a copy to send you. As to the specimens, there are few
duplicates; and of these I am not myself allowed to retain any.
Possibly, hereafter, some may be awarded to me. That expedition did not
land on the high Antarctic coasts it saw, and therefore made no
collections there. Its Antarctic collection is all from Orange Harbor,
Tierra del Fuego, and has little that is new.
The most interesting part of the collection was made at the Sandwich and
Feejee islands.
My wife and I well remember what a charming place Vallon is, and retain
pleasant memories of our trip to the Salève under the charge of Madame
De Candolle, despite the bad weather which spoiled the view. We should
delight to revisit Switzerland. Having no children, it is not impossible
that we may do so; but the time, I fear, is far in the future....
I have written a much longer letter than I had intended when I began.
Believe me to remain, yours very faithfully,
ASA GRAY.
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
CAMBRIDGE, July 14, 1853.
MY DEAR ENGELMANN,--This cover has been addressed to you for a long
while, but I have delayed to fill and close it, not so much because you
had not written, for I knew you must be very busy now, but because the
convenient time has not exactly come. For I have been very busy. College
work done up only last week; printing of “Exploring Expedition Botany,”
in which I have read proofs up to 220 pages, and gave to-night finished
manuscript (except a few crooked points to settle in a family or two) up
to the end of Rosaceæ (which will make about 450 pages. It fills up fast
with the open pages adopted in these reports). I shall carry on the
volume to 550 or 650 pages, and the plates folio, already 56, shall
carry up to 100, if I can. There is next some tough work in Myrtaceæ and
Melastomaceæ; but as to the latter Naudin has much cleared the way.
Those done, and I think I may venture to work part of the time on the
Lindheimer, Fendler, and Wright Monopetalæ.
Agassiz returned most delighted with his visit to you, and we talked
much of you....
I am afraid to touch Gregg’s Mexican plants, for fear of the time they
would consume. In “Exploring Expedition,” I branch out little or none,
except a few notes in Malvaceæ, and probably more in Compositæ.
If I could do the work abroad, I could work up collateral things most
advantageously; but the means here at disposal are too poor.
Still, you will be pleased with my volume i. when I finish and send it
to you (the letterpress this fall!).
No specimens scarcely of Cactaceæ in collection Exploring Expedition,--a
drawing or two. I shall send them on to you presently....
I grieve to tell you that Adrien de Jussieu is dead. Cancer in the
stomach, his tedious malady proves to have been. It makes a deep
impression on the scientific men, and the public, too, in Paris. He was
much my most intimate correspondent in France, a true friend, and a
charming man.
You know, perhaps, that Moquin-Tandon has succeeded the late Achille
Richard at L’Ecole de Médecine. Tulasne, I suppose, will be the new
professor at the Jardin des Plantes; at least he ought to be, as he is
the most able man.
No farther news since my last.
Agassiz looks poorly and says he is not well....
I never could get Fouquiera up. To-day I have sown some seeds, and put
on my own table, by the window, to watch....
18th August.
Agassiz handed me your note about the Compass plant. I took him at once
into the Garden, to see Silphium laciniatum, terebinthinaceum, and
pinnatifidum.
He agreed there was no direction to be made out, one way more than
another. The cauline leaves all tend to become vertical (as in several
other Compositæ), but present neither face nor edge north.
But three years ago Lapham of Wisconsin wrote me that, though the plant
near Milwaukee showed no “polarity” (and so he never believed in it),
yet on going farther west, on the prairies, he found it did generally
turn all to the north there.
If I remember aright, though, he said the surfaces of the leaf look
north and south. You say the edges? How is this? Compare notes with
Lapham....
What do you think I am about now? Revising genera of Myrtaceæ for
Exploring Expedition collection.
In these exotic orders I frequently find the genera so at loose ends
that I cannot make the plants of our collection lie comfortably till I
have given the genera a good shaking up. I should be tempted to do much
more of this if I could work at Hooker’s, or in Paris. It is quite as
well not, as it would cost no end of time....
I have found some Fouquiera seedlings up in the Garden. I am right about
it; not Torrey. The leaf is not axillary and its petiole inclosed in the
spine; but the spine is a hardened inferior portion of the petiole that
persists, and from which the rest falls away clean....
TO W. J. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, August 3, 1853.
MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,--I will endeavor to get some account of Shakerdom
for you. They are a queer people indeed.
Manilla paper[26] is made of old manilla rope, which is largely used by
our shipping. But what plant yields the manilla hemp for this cordage I
have not the means of knowing, that is, whether the Musa textilis or no.
I have been promised specimens of the stem of the plant, etc. But the
climate makes our countrymen indolent there, and forgetful. I will ask
for statistics as to the paper manufacture....
I shall be pleased to have you figure as many of our ferns as you can;
and pray give names to all new species without hesitation. They will be
more fitly named by the describer than by any one else.
I note with satisfaction what you write about genera of ferns. This
pushing a single character (as venation) without regard to consequences,
and giving it the same importance when it does not accord with habit as
when it does, is the fault of most botanologists who restrict their view
to one subject or one idea only. I am glad that you will carefully
revise the genera on your own judgment.
By the way, the fern I sent you last spring, and which you called
Asplenium montanum, Willd. (a species I used to know well), struck the
collector (Beaumont), as it did me, to be different. Pray collate, and
perhaps figure it, as well as the ordinary A. montanum.
I was grieved to hear of the death of Adr. de Jussieu, with whom I have
had a very pleasant correspondence for the last three years, and to whom
I was attached as to no other Frenchman. His late letters were so
cheerful and lively, and even hopeful, that the news of his death took
me by surprise, notwithstanding the steady failure of his health for a
long while....
We remember with interest that dear Harvey sets out to-morrow on his
long voyage.
TO R. W. CHURCH.
Christmas Eve, 1853.
MY DEAR MR. CHURCH,--It is a good time to remember old friends and to
bring up, as well as one may, arrears of neglected duty. I have long
unaccountably neglected to acknowledge your letter of the 24th August,
and to thank you most heartily for the interesting volume of your
collected reviews, which reached me a little earlier (I know not how it
was so long delayed between New York and Cambridge), and which I have
received and read with much pleasure, that is, all I have yet read. For
I am saving the article on Dante for my first leisure hour. The first I
read was the article on Pascal and Ultramontanism, of which I greatly
admire the delicate and thorough handling.
I wish I could send you something of any interest. But I am not well
enough satisfied with the elementary work which I use as a text-book for
my lower classes to offer it; and besides that I have published, since
last in England, only memoirs of the botany of our new western regions,
one volume of the botany of a Government South Sea Expedition, etc., all
dreadfully dry and technical.
I have been unusually busy this year, and am just now especially so,
having to complete the preparation of nine lectures on Vegetation, which
I am to give before the Smithsonian Institution at Washington next
month.
I do not much fancy popular lecturing, and do this only to please a very
valued friend, Professor Henry, the secretary of this institution. This
over, I shall return to my regular plodding work at home, with great
satisfaction.
I do not wonder that you feel a little nervous about the result of the
experiment at Oxford. I can well understand it, and if I were an Oxford
man, which I should count it a high honor to have been, I should share
the feeling. I count it an excellent thing that the new enactments were
framed by friendly hands, and are not very sweeping. As far as I can
judge from the election of the present council, those of the Movement
party by no means have it all their own way.
It seems to me that the admission of Dissenters to the A. B. degree is a
wise measure, and one that will do no harm to the university nor the
church. But I see not how they can go further. It would not be right
that they should pass to the A. M. and share in the government of the
university.
Any position at Oxford or Cambridge which allows of matrimony must be a
desirable one for a person of scholarly pursuits. I can hardly think you
will pass your life at Whatley, but trust you will have some better
preferment and a wider field of duty before long, before Mrs. Gray and
myself will be likely to pay you the visit you kindly solicit, for I see
no near prospect of our revisiting England, though nothing would please
us more....
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
7th December, 1853.
I got dreadfully behindhand with everything. “Exploring Expedition
Botany” stopped printing for a long time, but is now renewed; three
hundred or more pages are printed, and copy sent to printer up to
Leguminosæ (excl.). Meanwhile, to look over Brackenridge’s manuscript of
the Filices, to turn a loose ungrammatical lingo into English, and his
English characters into Latin, is a tedious job; then to read his proofs
is another. But if I did not do all this, very bad work indeed would be
made of it. Late in October Mrs. Gray and I went to New York for a week,
to visit Torrey and to see the New York Exhibition. Returning, I had to
bear my part in a course of lectures, which the American Academy gave to
the public (to replenish our publication funds); and to prepare and
deliver my two lectures, on the relations of plants to the sun, cost me
almost the whole of November.
Sprague is too slow, and too feeble in health, to do half what I want
done, let alone others. I must import an additional draughtsman. If you
know any in Germany good enough, who would come out, let me know at
once. If not, I must try at Paris....
TO CHARLES WRIGHT.
May 21, 1853.
The Kurile Islands will be a fine field; and I hope you can do much
among them. Collect some specimens of everything you see there....
CAMBRIDGE, February 19, 1854.
Sinner that I am, I have four letters of yours unanswered; the last from
Simon’s Bay, November 4th. The fact is I do not find time to write half
the letters I ought, and those, like yours, which are not to be
dispatched on some particular day, I am sure to postpone and neglect
interminably. It seems so vague, too, to be writing to a man, you know
not where, somewhere on the other side of the world, and you know not
when the epistle may reach him, say six months hence.
Nor is it easy to reflect and remember what I have been doing, so as to
tell you....
I forgot to tell you, too, that Thurber[27] called on me and offered his
plants collected under Bartlett. I have written out the greater part up
to the end of Compositæ, my old sticking-place, a number of new things,
mostly from deeper down in Sonora than you went, and in southwest
California. Beyond doubt Torrey will work up a part. I shall merely
furnish characters and botanical remarks to Thurber, and let him do all
the rest of the talk. Bartlett is still in hopes that the Senate will
print a great report for him. I greatly doubt if they do. If so,
Thurber’s botany will go as an appendix. If not, he will make a memoir
of the things up to Compositæ, and the striking things beyond, and
afterwards I may lick up the rest in the general continuation of “Plantæ
Wrightianæ,” etc.
Meanwhile the United States minister at Mexico has been making a treaty,
now before our Senate, for buying a further slice of Chihuahua and
Sonora, to take in Lake Guzman and the Sonora country some way south of
where you went, that is, below San Pedro. So there will have to be a new
survey if this treaty is ratified, and a chance of more botany. I wish
you were to be here to attend to it; only you have already taken off the
cream of that country, and can now do more, and find more novelty, in
some of the countries you are going to.
From Governor Stevens’s party, from Minnesota to Washington Territory,
north of Oregon, bundles of plants are sent home to Baird and by him
forwarded to me. Wretched specimens, and nothing new among them!...
Captains at sea are very apt to get a little crusty, which should be
minded just as little as possible. I expect to hear that, after getting
well settled and at home in the Vincennes, you find yourself comfortable
and all pleasant. Gentlemanly conduct and devotion to one’s pursuits
will at length make one respected, anywhere.
When you return, I trust you will yourself prepare the botanical report
of your cruise. I hope so, for your own sake, both scientifically and
because your doing so will keep you on pay some years longer on shore. I
will aid you, if I live, most willingly over knotty points, etc.;
perhaps would like to do certain families further than that; not, if you
will take hold of it yourself, as you ought to do.
I suppose you will have found nothing new at the Cape, though the
vegetation there must have been novel to you. It will be pleasant, in
the long cruises, to study yourself the plants collected at the last
port. Did you get any nice Algæ? Look out for them hereafter.
When you are on surveying-ground, you may probably be transferred back
to the steamer again.
Presently your letters will be coming to me via California. I hope to
continue to hear such good accounts of your health and activity. Do not
measure my interest in your letters by the number I myself write, though
I mean to write oftener in future. No news here, scientific or other.
Mr. Carey, you know, has gone back to England to live, and has married a
young wife there, moreover.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, March 28, 1854.
I send a glass bottle filled with the pulp and seed of Cereus giganteus
as gathered by the natives, and used for food, the same as what I
formerly sent you a small quantity of in a letter, trusting the seeds
would grow, as they are not subjected to heat in making this jam.
I have some pieces of the wood of the great Wellingtonia tree, which I
estimate to be not older probably than the Christian era. Torrey has no
fruit, nor have I; but there are some cones in Philadelphia. The wood is
very like that of the red-wood, i. e., Taxodium sempervirens. I hope we
shall get the male flowers, but I have no correspondent in California,
and Torrey no very good or energetic ones.
How hard it is to believe that there is a European war! I trust it will
be short. Some of our own people are behaving very badly about Cuba, but
it is mostly talk for effect, and will lead to nothing, we hope.
TO GEORGE THURBER.
CAMBRIDGE, 20th April, 1854.
DEAR THURBER,--When yours of the 17th arrived, and till now, I have been
too much absorbed in college duties to consider it, as I now rapidly
will.
Ranunculus 441. I never liked naming a plant after a person who has had
nothing to do with it, as collector, describer, and nothing else;
therefore do not like R. Huntiana. We will wait for some other mode of
complimenting Mr. Hunt. Moreover, I have hit on a name which pleases me
tolerably, viz., R. hydrocharoides, which, by your leave, we will adopt.
Thurberia specific name? That is a question to consider, and no very
pat name at once applicable both to the species and the discoverer
occurs to me.
“Thurberia palmata” might pass, and would anglicize into “the handy
Thurber,” but then the hand has only three fingers.
“T. tridactyla” would meet this; but only birds are tridactylous;
besides, the uppermost leaves are entire.
Taking another tack, from its smoothness, we might say, T. glabra or T.
lævis; or, as I believe you have not a strong beard, T. imberbis. But,
on the whole, perhaps it would be as well to indicate merely the nearest
affinity of the genus, and call it “Thurberia thespesioides,” as it is
nearest Thespesia. Take your choice, though, of any of the above, to
which add “T. rosea,” if the color of the flower warrants that name.
TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
CAMBRIDGE, June 1, 1854.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--It was with great pleasure that I received from you,
two days ago, your letter of the 2d May. I counted myself your debtor,
although, indeed, my last letter of 18th October is of later date than
yours of the 1st October, which it crossed on the ocean, and I was only
waiting until I could announce a small envoi to you, namely, that of a
copy of the 1st volume of the “Botany of the United States Exploring
Expedition in the South Seas,” which has been more than a year in
printing. This 4th volume (777 pages) is at length happily printed off,
and just in time, too, for sending you a copy (unbound, direct from the
printing-office at Philadelphia) in the annual envoi of the Smithsonian
Institution.
The atlas, of 100 plates in folio, which should accompany this volume,
is by no means ready, owing to the slowness as well as the feeble
health of the artist, Mr. Sprague; perhaps, even, it may not reach you
before next year, by the same mode of conveyance.
I have now, indeed, some hopes that the “Flora of North America” may
soon be carried through the Gamopetalæ, I elaborating at the same time,
in a general memoir, the Gamopetalæ of Wright’s, Fendler’s, and
Lindheimer’s collections in continuation; a pretty formidable matter!
In a separate small parcel you will find (in the Smithsonian envoi) some
brochures for you.... Among them is a short article in “Silliman’s
Journal,” accompanying a reprint of a great part of Dr. Hooker’s
Introductory Essay to the “Flora of New Zealand.” Agassiz here is
committed to the view opposite to Hooker’s, in an equally extreme form.
I wished to interpose some criticisms to both views, but had only time
to touch briefly on one or two points. I wait with impatience for your
work on “Géographie Botanique,” expecting very much from it, from your
great ability, long study of the subject, and fairness of mind. Indeed,
I was daily expecting to learn that it was published; and now you tell
me that the printing is barely begun; the “Prodromus,” volume 14, not
yet begun! But I am one of the last persons who ought to complain of
delay in execution....
From the family of the late M. de Jussieu, you should receive a copy of
the “Epistolæ Linnæano-Jussieuanæ,” with our late friend’s notes, etc.,
the last scientific work of his too short life.[28] I intended to send
you a copy myself, but at the request of M. Ramond I surrendered the
small extra edition to his charge for distribution. In due time you will
have a copy in the volume of the “Memoirs of the American Academy” also.
My daguerreotype of M. Jussieu was most opportunely taken. His family,
having no recent portrait, have solicited the loan of it, to aid in the
preparation of an engraved likeness; and I have placed it in their
hands.
I delayed the last sheet of the “Correspondence” long, awaiting an
answer to my request for some materials (notices, éloges, etc.), from
which I could prepare something of a biographical nature to append, but
I received nothing, at least until too late. In the May number of the
“Kew Journal of Botany,” Hooker has reprinted my brief note; but by some
accident, the marks of quotation are omitted from the two last
paragraphs, which appear as if written by the editor of the “Journal.”
...
Believe me to remain, my dear friend and honored colleague, as ever,
your sincerely attached,
ASA GRAY.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, February 5, 1855.
MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,--The inclosed, from our good friend Dr. Short,[29]
and the box it advises, came while I was at Washington, from which I
have just returned. Mrs. Gray and I have enjoyed our month’s holiday
very much; though I was kept busy enough, having to deliver nine
lectures in three weeks. We had arranged to have a few days at New York,
in which I could work with Dr. Torrey; but the good man was called off
to Washington on business just as I left that place, and we crossed en
route, and I came on home, in consequence....
I am very glad Mr. Smith was pleased with the live plants I sent. Please
remind him that I should like to share in the distribution of seeds this
spring. And if I find time to make out a short list, I may ask for some
live plants again....
I have a Cereus giganteus six inches high, and I saw several others.
They have no hair, and appear very unlike C. senilis....
There is an authentic account in some numbers of “Silliman’s
Journal” last year of the size of that prostrate trunk
(Wellingtonia-Washingtonia).