The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters of Asa Gray; Vol. 1, by Asa Gray This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Letters of Asa Gray; Vol. 1 Author: Asa Gray Editor: Jane Loring Gray Release Date: November 17, 2017 [EBook #55986] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF ASA GRAY; VOL. 1 *** Produced by Chuck Greif, Jana Srna, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by Biodiversity Heritage Library.) Photo of Asa Gray (signed) LETTERS OF ASA GRAY EDITED BY JANE LORING GRAY IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1894 Copyright, 1893, By JANE LORING GRAY. All rights reserved. NOTE. It has been my aim, in collecting and arranging the “Letters” from Dr. Gray’s large correspondence, to show, as far as possible in his own words, his life and his occupation. The greater part of the immense mass of letters he wrote was necessarily purely scientific, uninteresting except to the person addressed; so that many of those published are merely fragments, and very few are given completely. I have made no attempt to estimate his scientific or critical labors, for they are sufficiently before the world in various printed works; but something of the personality of the man and his many interests may be learned from these familiar letters and from even the slight notes. Dr. Gray began an Autobiography, but went no further than to give a brief sketch of his early life. This fragment is placed, with some notes illustrative of the early conditions in which his youth was passed, at the beginning of the work. It is owing to the kind assistance of many friends that the Autobiography and Letters are thus presented; among whom should be especially mentioned Professors C. S. Sargent and Charles L. Jackson, Dr. W. G. Farlow, Mr. J. H. Redfield, and Mr. Horace E. Scudder. J. L. GRAY. Botanic Garden, Cambridge, July 1, 1893. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Autobiography. 1810-1843 1 II. Early Undertakings. 1831-1838 29 III. First Journey in Europe. 1838-1839 85 IV. A Decade of Work at Home. 1840-1850 272 Index [The index appears in volume II. It is included at the end of volume I for the reader's convenience. (etext transcriber's note)] Note on the Illustrations. The frontispiece portrait of Dr. Gray is a photogravure from a photograph taken in 1867. The portrait facing page 286 is from a daguerreotype taken about 1841. The view of the Botanic Garden House, facing page 358, is from a drawing by Isaac Sprague. LETTERS OF ASA GRAY. CHAPTER I. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 1810-1843. My great-great-grandfather, John Gray, with his family, among which was Robert Gray, supposed to be one of his sons, emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland, to Worcester, Mass., being part of a Scotch-Irish colony.[1] The farm they took up was on the north side of what is now Lincoln Street. Robert Gray, my great-grandfather, died in Worcester, January 16, 1766. He married Sarah Wiley[2] about the year 1729. They had ten children; the eighth was Moses Wiley Gray, my grandfather, born in Worcester, December 31, 1745. About the year 1769, he married Sally Miller, daughter of Samuel and Elisabeth (Hammond) Miller, of Worcester, and removed to Templeton, Mass. About 1787 he removed to Grafton, Vermont, where his wife died in 1793. In 1794 he removed to Oneida County, N. Y., and settled in the Sauquoit Valley,[3] where he died from injuries received from the fall of a tree, May 8, 1803. My father, Moses Gray, was the youngest of the (eight?) children of his mother. There were three half-brothers and a half-sister by a second wife, born in Oneida County, none of whom survived my father. He was born in Templeton, Mass., February 26, 1786.[4] He was therefore in his eighteenth year when his father died. He used to say that he had only six weeks of schooling; whether before or after his father’s death I am ignorant. But soon after that event he was apprenticed to a tanner and currier (Mr. Gier) at Sauquoit, in whose employment he must have been for a part of the time after he came of age, for I was born in a little house which had been a shoe-shop on the premises of the tan-yard. The fact of being born supposes a maternal ancestry. July 30, 1809, my father married Roxana Howard. She was born in Longmeadow, Mass., March 15, 1789; was a daughter of Joseph Howard, who was born in Pomfret, Conn., March 8, 1766, and of Submit (Luce) Howard, born at Somers, Conn., April 3, 1767;[5] and he was the grandson of John Howard of Ipswich,[6] Mass., and of Elisabeth Smith, of the same town. He was the descendant of Thomas Howard, who, with his wife and children, came from Aylesford (or Maidstone), Kent, in the year 1634. My mother came with her parents to Oneida County and the Sauquoit Valley when only a few years old.[7] Her father there joined a company which set up an iron-forge. One of the early pieces of work of its trip-hammer was to forge off three of my maternal grandfather’s fingers. This appears to have qualified him to be the cleric in charge, or manager, of the office and store of the Paris Furnace Company, which established a small iron-smelting furnace on the Sauquoit, two and a half miles above the village of Sauquoit, in a deep and narrow valley which had the name of Paris Furnace Hollow, now called Clayville, the furnace long since having disappeared, a natural consequence of the exhaustion of the charcoal furnished by the woods of the surrounding hills. My earliest recollections are of Paris Furnace Hollow, for not long after I was born, as aforesaid, in Sauquoit, on the eastern or Methodist side of the creek, on the 18th of November, 1810, my father and mother removed to Paris Furnace with me, their first-born, and set up a small tannery there. Of this I retain some vivid recollections, especially those connected with the first use to which I was put, the driving round the ring of the old horse which turned the bark-mill, and the supplying the said mill with its grist of bark,—a lonely and monotonous occupation.[8] I was sent to the district school near by when three years old; and I either remember some of my {1} {2} {3} {4} {5} {6} performances of that or the next year, or have been told them in such way as to leave the matter doubtful.[9] My earliest distinct recollections of school are of spelling-matches, in which at six or seven years I was a champion.[10] There was a year or two of early boyhood in which I was sent to a small “select” or private school, taught at Sauquoit, by the son of the pastor of the parish; a year or two following, in which I was in my maternal grandfather’s family, near by, as a sort of office-boy; and at the age of twelve, or near it, I was sent off to the Clinton Grammar School, nine miles away, where I was drilled after a fashion in the rudiments of Latin and Greek for two years, excepting the three summer months, when I was taken home to assist in the corn and hayfield. For my father, buying up, little by little, lands which had been cleared for charcoal, had become a farmer in a small way, an occupation to which he was most inclined. So about these times he sold out the tannery and bought a small farm nearer to Sauquoit, mainly of the land which my maternal grandfather had settled on, including the house in which he had married my mother. To it he removed, and there resided until he bought out an adjacent small farm in addition, with an old house very pleasantly situated, which he rebuilt and lived in until after I had attained my majority. But soon after that he bought a small farm close to the Sauquoit village on the western or Presbyterian side, hard by the meeting-house the family had always attended. There my father indulged his special fancy by rebuilding another old house, and the place, after his death, and, much later, after that of my mother, fell to my eldest brother, who still possesses it.[11] I am not sure, but I think it was after two years of the Clinton Grammar School that I was transferred to Fairfield Academy.[12] Fairfield, Herkimer County, lies high on the hills, between the West and East Canada creeks, seven miles north of Little Falls. I went there first in October, 1825, the date I fix by that of the completion of the Erie Canal. For that autumn, I think in November, I walked one afternoon, along with some other students, down to Little Falls to see there the arrival of the canal-boat which bore the canal- commissioners, with the governor, De Witt Clinton at their head, on their ceremonious voyage from Buffalo to New York city. It reached Little Falls near sunset, and we walked to Fairfield that evening. The reason for my being sent to Fairfield Academy was that the principal of the academy was Charles Avery, uncle of my companion from infancy, Eli Avery, of our town, who died two years ago, who had been educated by the help of Eli’s father, Colonel Avery, one of the owners of Paris furnace. Charles Avery several years later took the professorship of chemistry, etc., at Hamilton College, lived to over ninety, I think, and through all his later years seemed to be very proud of having been my teacher. I cannot say that I owe much to him, even for teaching me mathematics, which was his forte. My capital memory allowed me to “get my lessons” easily, and that sufficed; and I had none of the sharp drilling and testing which I needed. He lingers in my memory in another way. He was sharp at turning a penny in various ways; among them, he for the first year and more jobbed the board of his nephew Eli and myself, who were chums, paying for it in cooking-stoves and the like from Paris furnace, in which through his brother he had an interest, and boarding us round, from one house to another (we had our room in the academy buildings) until the stove which cooked our dinner was paid for. Sometimes our fare was good enough; but one poor widow, who took us in her turn, fed us so much upon boiled salt cod, not always of the sweetest, that the sight of that dish still calls up ancient memories not altogether agreeable. I think it was not at that time, but at a somewhat later date, and with less excuse, that we mended our diet upon one occasion, one winter’s night, by carrying off the principal’s best fowls from the roost, skinning them, as the most expeditious and neatest way, and broiling them in our room as the pièce de résistance, for they were tough, in a little supper we got up. I here recall a favor which Mr. Avery did me. A year or two after I had taken my M. D., my dear old friend Professor Hadley, of Fairfield Medical College, who had been filling the place at Hamilton College pro tem., made me a candidate for the professorship there of chemistry, with geology and natural science. But my old teacher, Mr. Avery, an alumnus of the college, entered the lists and carried the day. I wonder if I should have rusted out there if I had got the place. I must go back to say something of my omnivorous reading, which was, after all, the larger part of my education. I was a reader almost from my cradle, and I read everything I could lay hands on. There was no great choice in my early boyhood. But there was a little subscription library at Sauquoit, the stockholders of which met four times a year, distributed the books by auction to the highest bidder (maximum, perhaps, ten or twelve cents) to have and to hold for three months; or if there was no competition each took what he chose. Rather slow circulation this; but in the three months the books were thoroughly read. History I rather took to, but especially voyages and travels were my delight. There were no plays, not even Shakespeare in the library, but a sprinkling of novels. My novel- reading, up to the time when I was sent to school at Clinton, was confined, I think, to Miss Porter’s “Children of the Abbey” and “Thaddeus of Warsaw”—the latter a soul-stirring production, of which I can recall a good deal; of the former nothing distinctly. One Sunday afternoon, of the first winter I was at Clinton, I went into the public room of one of the two village inns, where half a dozen of the villagers were assembled; and one was reading aloud “Quentin Durward,” which had just appeared in an American (Philadelphia) reprint. This was my introduction to the Waverley novels. The next summer, when at home for farm work, I found “Rob Roy” in the little library I have mentioned, took it out and read it with interest. In the autumn, when I went back to school, some college (Hamilton College) students were boarding at the house where I boarded and lodged. One of them, seeing my avidity for books, introduced me to the librarian of the Phœnix Society of the college, which had a library strong in novels, which I was allowed, one by one, to take home for reading. I suppose that I read them every one.[13] It was intended that I should go to college, and my father could have put me through without serious inconvenience; but he was buying land about this time, and he persuaded me to give up that idea and to go at once at the study of medicine, which I did, in the autumn of 1826, beginning with the session of 1826-27 in the medical college (of the western district), then a flourishing country medical school at Fairfield. I had already attended its courses in chemistry, given by Professor James Hadley (father of Professor James Hadley of Yale College, then a lad), my earliest scientific adviser and most excellent friend. I had a passion for mineralogy in those days, as well as for chemistry. The spring and summer of 1827 I passed in the office of one of the village doctors of Sauquoit, Dr. Priest, and on the opening of the autumn session returned to the medical school at Fairfield.[14] That year, in the course of the winter, I picked up and read the article “Botany” in Brewster’s “Edinburgh Encyclopædia,” a poor thing, no doubt, but it interested me much. I bought Eaton’s “Manual of Botany,”[15] pored over its pages, and waited for spring. Before the spring opened, the short college session being over, I became a medical student, after the country fashion, in the office of Dr. John F. Trowbridge of Bridgewater, Oneida County, nine miles south of my paternal home; continued there for three years, except during the college sessions, where I attended four annual courses before taking my degree of M. D. at the close of the session of 1829-30.[16] The fact will {6} {7} {8} {9} {10} {11} {12} {13} {14} appear, which I did not reveal at the time, that I took this degree six or seven months (I passed my examination, indeed, eight or nine months) before I had attained the legal age of twenty-one. But I looked older, and was in fact such an old stager in the school that no one thought of asking if I was of age. That degree gives me my place high enough on the Harvard University list to entitle me to a free dinner at Commencement. I have mentioned my interest in botany as beginning in the winter and out of all reach either of a greenhouse or of a potted plant. But in the spring, I think that of 1828, I sallied forth one April day into the bare woods, found an early specimen of a plant in flower, peeping through dead leaves, brought it home, and with Eaton’s “Manual” without much difficulty I ran it down to its name, Claytonia Virginica. (It was really C. Caroliniana, but the two were not distinguished in that book.) I was well pleased, and went on, collecting and examining all the flowers I could lay hands on; and the rides over the country to visit patients along with my preceptor, Dr. Trowbridge, gave good opportunities. I began an herbarium of shockingly bad specimens. In autumn, going back to Fairfield for the annual course of medical lectures, I took specimens of those plants that puzzled me to Professor Hadley, who had learned some botany of Dr. Ives of New Haven, and had made a neat herbarium of the common New England and New York plants, which I studied carefully that winter. At Professor Hadley’s suggestion I opened a correspondence with Dr. Lewis C. Beck of Albany,[17] who was the botanist of the region. The next summer I collected more easily and critically. The summer after, I think, or probably the summer of 1830, I had an opportunity to make a little run to New York, being sent by Dr. Trowbridge to buy some medical books, driving in a one-horse wagon, with my own horse, ninety miles to Albany, thence by steamer to New York over night; one night there, and back next day by boat to Albany, and so driving back to Bridgewater in company with a man of business who joined me in this little expedition. I stopped to see Lewis C. Beck at Albany Academy; there I first saw a grave-looking man who I was told was Professor Henry, who had just been making a wonderful electro-magnet. I had procured from Professor Hadley a letter of introduction to Dr. Torrey, whose “Flora of the Northern United States,” vol. i., was our greatest help so far as it went, and which on that journey I bought a copy of. I took also a parcel of plants to be named. Finding my way to Dr. Torrey’s house in Charlton Street with my parcel and letter, I had the disappointment of finding that he was away at Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the summer. It was not until the next winter that at Fairfield I received a letter from Dr. Torrey, naming my plants, and inviting the correspondence which continued thence to the end of his life. In addition to Dr. Hadley’s summer course of lectures on chemistry, Dr. Lewis C. Beck used to come and deliver a short course of lectures on botany. He gave this up the year in which I received my M. D., so Professor Hadley invited me to come and give the course instead. The course was given in five or six weeks, beginning in the latter part of May. I prepared myself during the winter, gave this my first course of lectures, cleared forty dollars by the operation, and devoted it to the making of a tour to the western part of the State of New York, as far as Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and Aurora,—a dozen or more miles off,—where I visited an uncle, my mother’s brother, a well-to-do country merchant, also a chum, Dr. Folwell, in Seneca County, high up between the two lakes, where I passed a week or two; thence to Ithaca, and across the country by a stage-coach back to Bridgewater. I hardly know what I did the next autumn and winter, but in early spring a Mr. Edgerton, a pupil of Amos Eaton, at Troy, the professor of natural sciences at the flourishing school of Mr. Bartlett at Utica, died. I applied for the vacancy, received the appointment, and for two or part of three years, minus a long summer vacation, I taught chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and botany, to boys, making with the boys very pleasant botanical excursions through the country round. My first summer vacation, if I rightly remember, was in cholera year, the disease being very fatal in Utica. About the time it made its appearance in New York I started off from Bridgewater, taking a little country stage- coach down the Unadilla to Pennsylvania; visited Carbondale and made a collection of calamites and fossil ferns; thence by stage- coach through the Wind Gap to Easton; thence out to Bethlehem, where I passed a day with old Bishop Schweinitz,[18] gave him a Carex which he said was new, but I told him it was Carex livida, Wahl. (and I was right); back to Easton; thence up to Sussex County, N. J., collecting minerals (Franklinite, etc.); thence to adjacent Orange County, N. Y., collecting spinelles, etc., as well as botanizing; thence down to New York early in September; there I met Dr. Torrey for the first time, and we took a little expedition together down to Tom’s River in the pine barrens, and back to New York in a wood-sloop. The next year, in the spring, Dr. Torrey went to Europe, sent to purchase apparatus for the New York City University, then just established. He engaged me to go that summer to collect plants in the pine barrens of New Jersey, he to take the half of my collection, paying what would be required to defray my very moderate expenses in the field. I found afterwards that these plants went to B. D. Greene and his brother Copley, then abroad and full of botany; and I have encountered them, i. e., the specimens, in various places, especially in Herb. De Candolle, as “Coll. Greene.” I got down, I hardly now know how, to Tuckerton on the Jersey coast, botanized at Little Egg Harbor, Wading River, Quaker Bridge, and Atsion. While at Quaker Bridge my loneliness was cheered by the appearance of a fine-looking man, who came in a chaise, looking after some particular insect. It proved to be Major Le Conte.[19] The next winter at Bartlett’s school. In the spring went north to Watertown; visited Dr. Crawe, botanized on Black River, made mineralogical excursions, and back to Utica via Sackett’s Harbor (lake to Oswego, and canal to Utica). After the spring term of school there—I think it was that year, but am uncertain—I took through the summer Professor Hadley’s place at Hamilton College, Clinton; gave for him a course of instruction in botany and mineralogy. This, I have reason to think, was a ruse of my good friend, who wished me to succeed to that professorship, which he was on the point of resigning. Fortunately, Charles Avery, my old academic preceptor, became a candidate and secured the election. These years are a good deal mixed up, and I cannot settle their dates nor the order of events. Only I know that the next autumn I got a furlough from the school until toward the end of winter, that I might accept Dr. Torrey’s invitation to be his assistant during his course of chemical lectures in the Medical School, and at his house in the herbarium, living with him, and receiving eighty dollars as pay. This I can fix as the winter of 1833-34 or 1834-35. The first century of my “North American Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ” was got out that winter, and it bears the date of 1834.[20] In February or March I went up by stagecoach from New York to Albany, thence to Bridgewater, and so to Utica, to do my work at Bartlett’s school. That finished, made a second trip to the northeast part of the State, collecting in botany and mineralogy with Dr. Crawe, extending the tour to St. Lawrence County, where we found fine fluor- spar and great but rough crystals of phosphate of lime, idiocrase, etc. I wrote some account of these for the “American Journal of Science,” the earliest of my many contributions to that journal. Returning toward autumn to Bridgewater, I there received a letter from {15} {16} {17} {18} {19} Dr. Torrey, informing me that the prospects of the Medical College were so poor that he could not longer afford to have my services as assistant. Bartlett’s school I had resigned from on account of my prospects in New York. And, in fact, the school was then going down, and he [Bartlett] was transferred soon after to Poughkeepsie, where he flourished anew for a time. I was in a rather bad way. But I determined to go to New York, assisted Dr. Torrey as I could, got out the second part of my “North American Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ.” I am not sure whether I was in Dr. Torrey’s family or not, or for only a part of the winter. But in the spring of 1835, I went up to my father’s house for the summer, with some books, among them a copy of De Candolle’s “Organographie” and “Théorie Elémentaire.” These or at least the former came from Professor Lehmann,[21] of Hamburg, with whom for a year or two I had corresponded and exchanged plants, or received books in exchange for plants. I had made a still earlier exchange with Soleirol, a French army surgeon, who had collected in Corsica. While at home I blocked out and partly wrote my “Elements of Botany.” Returned to New York in the autumn; went into cheap lodgings, arranged with Carvill & Company to take my book. I think they gave one hundred and fifty dollars, which was a great sum for me. We got it through the press that winter. John Carey had then come down to New York, and was a great help to me in proof-reading, and the little book was published in April or May, 1836. I think it was in the autumn of 1836 that the Lyceum of Natural History, New York, having with a great effort erected their hall, on Broadway just below Prince Street, I was appointed curator; had a room for my use, some light pay, proportioned to light duties, and this was my home for a year or two. There I wrote my papers, “Remarks on the Structure and Affinities of the Ceratophyllaceæ” (which dates February 20, 1837),—not a very wise production, and some of the observations are incorrect; also the better paper, really rather good, “Melanthacearum Americæ Septentrionalis Revisio,” published in 1837. Dr. Torrey had planned the “Flora of North America,” but had not made much solid progress in it. I, having time on my hands, took hold to work up in a preliminary way some of the earlier orders for his use. This was to pass the time for a while, for in the summer of 1836 I was appointed botanist to a great South Pacific exploring expedition, which met with all manner of delays in fitting out, changes in commanders, etc., until finally, in the spring of 1838, Lieutenant Wilkes was appointed to the command, the number and size of the vessels cut down, and the scientific corps more or less diminished. The assistant botanist, William Rich, an appointment of the Secretary of the Navy, was to be left out. I resigned in his favor, having been about that time appointed professor of natural history in the newly chartered University of Michigan. As I had thus far done fully half the work, Dr. Torrey invited me to be joint author in “Flora of North America.” The first part was printed and issued in July, the second in October, 1838, at our joint expense, my share being contributed from the pay I had been receiving while waiting orders as botanist of the exploring expedition. By this time we had come to see that we did not know enough of the original sources to work up the North American flora properly, and as Dr. Torrey could not get away from home, I was determined to get abroad and consult some of the principal herbaria. On being appointed professor in the University of Michigan, which had as yet no buildings, I made it understood that I must have a year abroad. The trustees of the university in this view gave me, in the autumn of 1838, a year’s leave of absence, a salary for that year of fifteen hundred dollars, and put into my hands five thousand dollars with which to lay a foundation for their general library. I sailed early in November, 1838, in the packet-ship Philadelphia, for Liverpool; went direct from Liverpool to Glasgow; was guest of Dr. William J. Hooker till Christmas—his son, Joseph D. Hooker, was then a medical student; went to Arlary, December 26-7, to visit Arnott; stayed till the day after New Year; thence to Edinburgh for two or three days. Greville was the best botanist, but Graham was the professor, Balfour then a young botanist there. Heard old Monro, Wilson (Christopher North), Chalmers, Traill, Charles Bell, etc., lecture. On way south stopped at Melrose and Abbotsford; coach to Newcastle, Durham (over Sunday), and through Manchester, where rail was taken, to Birmingham and London. Took lodgings till some time in March. Dr. Boott was of course my best friend there. But Hooker and Joseph came up to London for a week. Hooker insisted on taking me in hand as of his party, and so I was introduced to all his friends; took me to the Royal Society, etc.; dined one day with Bentham, to whose house I often went, and who gave me a full supply of letters to the botanists on the Continent. I worked a good deal at the British Museum; Robert Brown was very kind to me, and his assistant, J. J. Bennett, very useful, putting me up to all the old collections and how to consult them. At Linnæan Society, thanks to Boott, had every facility for the Linnæan herbarium. Old Lambert too; he had the Hookers and myself at dinner, and gave me as good opportunity as he could to consult the Pursh plants, etc., in his herbarium, which, not long after, was scattered, but it was in his dining-room, which was very much lumbered, and to be reached only at certain hours. Lindley had me down for a day to his house at Turnham Green, and a little dinner at the close. First visited Kew with the Hookers; called on Francis Bauer, who lived in a house near the river; found him at ninety making beautiful microscopic drawings to illustrate the genera of ferns; and Hooker then arranged for their publication in the well-known volume for which he furnished the text. Saw not rarely N. B. Ward, who lived at Wellclose Square in Wapping, and whose cultivation of plants in closed cases attracted much attention. Went with Ward one day to dine with Menzies, then over ninety; he lived, with a housekeeper, at Maida Vale, or somewhere beyond Kensington. George P. Putnam, of the firm of Wiley & Putnam, was then resident in London, and through him I managed the expenditure of the money placed in my hands for the purchase of books for the University of Michigan, in a manner that proved satisfactory. There is still in my possession, but not in reach for ready reference, a file of letters which I wrote home to the Torrey family while I was in Europe. If I were to find them and refresh my memory by them, I should make these notes quite too long. I will therefore trust to memory and touch lightly here and there on my Continental journey. I think it was early in March, 1839, that one morning I took passage on a small steamer from London, Bentham coming to see me off, to Calais; thence diligence for Paris. My lodgings, near the Luxembourg, were not far from the house of P. Barker Webb, to whom I had introductions, and who was very useful to me; he owned the herbarium of Desfontaines. At the Jardin des Plantes were old Mirbel, who occupied himself only with vegetable anatomy, Adrien Jussieu, with whom I corresponded as long as he lived, Brongniart, Decaisne, then aide-naturaliste, and Spach, curator of the herbarium. Jussieu had his father’s herbarium in his study. Besides Michaux’s herbarium at the Jardin des Plantes, I had also to consult, for a few things, the set taken by the actual writer of the “Flora,” L. C. Richard. This I found at the house of his son Achille Richard, botanical professor in the Medical School, living in the Medical Botanic Garden, then occupying a piece of the Luxembourg grounds. The other French botanists I recall were Dr. Montagne, the cryptogamist, a pleasant man, Gaudichaud, whom I saw little of, Auguste St. Hilaire, who I think spent only the winter in Paris. I had an introduction to Benjamin Delessert, who lived in fine style in a hotel in the Rue Montmartre. Lasègue, the librarian, acted as curator to the herbarium (Guillemin had died not long before), which I found {20} {21} {22} {23} {24} occasion to consult only once. I should not forget Jacques Gay, with his large herbarium very rich in European plants. I never dreamed then that so many of them would find their way into our own herbarium. He lived close to the Luxembourg Palace, then the palace of the House of Peers. Gay was the secretary of the Marquis de Semonville, who was a high official there, and so lived near by. He held a weekly reception for botanists, etc., and was a good soul. It was at the herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes that I first made the acquaintance of a botanist of about my own age, Edmond Boissier of Geneva, who was studying some of the plants of his collections in Granada and other parts of Spain, soon after brought out in his work on the “Flora of Granada,” etc. I left Paris in early spring, by malle-poste to Lyons; passed a day with Seringe; steamer to Avignon, diligence to Nîmes, and thence to Montpellier, where I passed two or three days. Delile and Dunal were the professors; saw Bentham’s mother and sister, then resident there. Diligence to Marseilles, steamer to Genoa, Leghorn, a day at each; to Civita Vecchia; a carriage to Rome, along with an English clergyman; thence back same way to Leghorn, Pisa, Florence. Vetturino to Bologna, Ferrara, Padua (Visiani at the garden), Venice; then steamer to Trieste; a day with Biasoletto, including a botanical excursion, and Tommasini. Fell in there with a young artist of New York, whose name I have forgotten. We took places in the malle-poste together to Vienna, but went on two days ahead to Adelsberg; visited the grotto on a fête day when it was all lighted, and all the country people there in gala trim; that night went on by malle-poste. At Vienna, Endlicher, and his assistant Fenzl, but the latter laid up with lame knee. Never saw him afterward, but we had a long correspondence. Steamer up the Danube to Linz, tramway, etc., to the Gmunden See, and so to Ischl; climbed the Zeimitz, all alone, picked my first Alpine flowers; traveled over night to Salzburg, then to Munich; fine times with Martius and Zuccarini, joined the celebration out in the country of Linnæus’ birthday,—but not the 24th May; I think two or three weeks later. From Munich to Lindau on Lake Constance; thence to Zurich; up the lake to Horgen; walked over to Art; walked up the Rigi; descended the Rigi to take the boat up the lake, missed it, got a man to put me across in Canton Unterwalden; walked to Stanz, slept, walked next morning to Engelberg, and then over the [Joch?] Pass, and down to Meyringen; next day to Interlaken and the Staubbach, next over the Wengern Alp to Grindelwald, next over the Grand Scheideck to valley of Hassli, up to the Grimsel, passed a Sunday in the snow; walked down to the Rhone glacier and down to Brieg; thence partly on foot, partly char-à-banc, to Martigny; made excursion to the Col de Balme to get a good view of Mont Blanc; back to Martigny, down to Villeneuve, and steamer to Geneva. I reached there, I think, July 4; worked there ten days or so, very sharp; De Candolle, father and son, and Reuter[22] the curator; saw again Boissier. Leaving boat at Lausanne, diligence to Freiburg, Berne, Bâle. Got across country, I hardly remember how, to Tübingen, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Frankfort; thence to Leipzig; made excursion to Dresden, then to Halle, where was Schlechtendal, and where I looked over old Schkuhr’s originals of his Carex plates; thence through Wittenberg to Potsdam and Berlin; worked diligently a week in herbarium. Willdenow, Klotzsch the curator; saw old Link, Kunth, and Ehrenberg. Diligence to Hamburg, where was Lehmann, one of my very earliest correspondents. Steamer from Hamburg to London, late in September. Toward the middle of October went to Portsmouth, and came back to New York in a London packet-ship. Steamers were then only just beginning to make regular trips. Returning, Michigan University was quite ready to give me a furlough of a year or two, without pay; took hold sharp of “Flora of North America,” and in beginning of next summer (June, 1840) we issued the parts 3 and 4 of vol. i. Then went at the “Compositæ;” was interrupted a while in summer of 1841, when I went with John Carey, and James Constable for a part of the time, on a botanical trip up the Valley of Virginia to the mountains of North Carolina, getting as far as to Grandfather and Roan. It was, I think, in the spring of 1841 that the first part of the “Compositæ” was published, i. e., vol. ii. pp. 1-184; the second part, to p. 400, was out the next spring. Sometime in January, 1842, I made a visit of two or three days to B. D. Greene in Boston; the first time I ever saw Boston. Came out one day to Cambridge, dined with his father-in-law, President Quincy; the company to meet us was Professor Channing[23] and Professor Treadwell.[24] Sometime in April, I received a letter from President Quincy, telling me that the Corporation of the university would elect me Fisher professor of natural history if I would beforehand signify my acceptance. The endowment then yielded fifteen hundred dollars a year. I was to have a thousand and allow the rest to accumulate for a while. Meanwhile I was to give only a course of botanical lectures, in the second spring term, and look after the Garden. But more work was soon added. I came in July, in the midst of vacation, before Commencement, which was then in September; got lodgings, with room for my then small herbarium, in the house of Deacon Munroe. Went late in September on an excursion to Mount Washington, by way of the Notch, along with Tuckerman, then living at his father’s in Boston. Worked away at “Compositæ,” and in the winter went to New York and carried the remainder through the press. it was issued in February, 1843. I must not forget that my little “Elements of Botany” had been sold out, and the publishers, Carvill, had gone out of business or died. I prepared in 1841-42 the first edition of my “Botanical Text-Book;” it was in the course of printing when I was appointed to the Fisher professorship, so that I could put that title on the title-page, and have a text-book for my class. My first session of college work was over about July 1, 1843. The treasurer, Mr. Samuel Eliot, had given me leave to spend a small sum in replenishing the Botanic Garden. I met my friend and correspondent, William S. Sullivant, who had taken strongly to mosses, early in August, on the Alleghanies beyond Frostburg, Maryland (the railroad went only to Cumberland), he coming from Columbus, Ohio, I from Cambridge. There we bought a span of horses and a strong country wagon, and set out on the mountain expedition, some sketch of which is given in the “American Journal of Science” for January, 1846. (The first journey is more particularly detailed in the “American Journal of Science,” xlii., no. 1; 1842?) When Sullivant left me, at Warm Springs on the French Broad, anxious to get home, I was left in a pretty lonely condition. CHAPTER II. EARLY UNDERTAKINGS. 1831-1838. Dr. Gray’s autobiographical fragment closes abruptly, and is valuable chiefly for the glimpse which it gives of his ancestry and his {25} {26} {27} {28} {29} boyhood. He kept no diary, but he carried on a voluminous correspondence, and his letters thus contain a record of his hard-working, eager life. The earliest tell of the struggle for position, his doubts if his loved science could furnish him a maintenance, and his resolution to make any sacrifice if he could devote himself to its study. His wants outside of appliances for scientific investigation were few, and he had a hopeful temper. He said in later life that when he was ready for anything it always came to him, and he never dwelt upon the hardships of his early years; indeed, he forgot them. After leaving Fairfield Medical College he divided his years between teaching in Bartlett’s school in Utica (some of his old pupils still recall his field excursions with his class, and his eager delight in the search after plants), in journeys botanical and mineralogical, and in some shorter and longer stays in New York, where for a good portion of the time he was a member of Dr. John Torrey’s family. Dr. Torrey was a keen observer, a lively suggester of new theories and explanations, most eminently truthful in all inquiries, and a devout Christian. Mrs. Torrey was a woman of rare character, refined, of intellectual tastes and cultivation, great independence, extremely benevolent, and with a capacity for government and control. She was devotedly religious, not only for herself and her own household, but for all who could possibly come within her influence. It was a new experience to the country-bred young man, and she saw in him many capabilities of which he was as yet himself unconscious. He always said that in his development he owed much to her in many ways. She criticised and improved his manners, his tastes, his habits, and especially, together with Dr. Torrey, exercised a strong influence on his religious life. His parents and family were conscientious, good and faithful church members. But they were not people who talked much, and indeed had little direct oversight of their son after he was fourteen years old, when he left home. He never returned to the family roof after that for more than a few months at a time, and his youthful surroundings away from home were of very varied influence; some of them, though never vicious, were of a decidedly irreligious character. When he entered the Torrey family, the difference in the life, the contrast in the way of meeting trials and sorrows struck him forcibly, and the religious side of his nature was roused, a serious interest awakened, which from that time on made always a strong and permanent part of his character. Dr. Torrey saw the ability of the young student, and writing to his friend, Professor Henry, in February, 1835, to see if a place could not be found for him at Princeton, says:— “I wish we could find a place for my friend Gray in the college.... He has no superior in botany, considering his age, and any subject that he takes up he handles in a masterly manner.... He is an uncommonly fine fellow, and will make a great noise in the scientific world one of these days. It is good policy for the college to secure the services and affections of young men of talent, and let them grow up with the institution.... He would do great credit to the college; and he will be continually publishing. He has just prepared for publication in the Annals of the Lyceum two capital botanical papers.... Gray has a capital herbarium and collection of minerals. He understands most of the branches of natural history well, and in botany he has few superiors.” His friend, Mr. John H. Redfield[25] recalling him in those early days, writes:— “He had worked with Dr. Torrey in his herbarium in 1834 and in 1835, and in 1834 read his first paper before the Lyceum, a monograph of the North American Rhynchosporæ, which is still the best help we have for the study of that genus. His bachelor quarters were in the upper story of the building, and there he diligently employed the hours not occupied with other duties in studies and dissections, the results of which appeared in several elaborate contributions to the Annals. Dr. Gray’s residence in the building and his position as librarian brought him into frequent and pleasant intercourse with the members of the Lyceum, and in this way began my own acquaintance with him. The interest which he always manifested in making easy the openings to the paths of knowledge for the younger men impressed me greatly. In describing his manner I should use neither the terms ‘imperious’ or ‘impetuous,’ but enthusiastic eagerness would better express its characteristic. He had even then something of that hesitancy of speech which he sometimes manifested in later years, a hesitancy which seemed to arise from thoughts which crowded faster than words could be found for them, and I associate his manner of speaking then with a slight swing of the head from side to side, which my recollections of his later manner do not recall. In person he was unusually attractive, his face, bright, animated and expressive, lit up by eyes beaming with intellect and kindness.” Dr. Gray began in 1834 his contributions to the “American Journal of Science.” His first paper, printed in May, was “A Sketch of the Mineralogy of a Portion of Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties, N.Y., by J.B. Crawe of Watertown, and A. Gray of Utica, N.Y.,”[26] and from that time until his death he was a constant contributor of original articles, reviews, and notices of all botanists whose deaths occurred within his knowledge, leaving an unfinished necrology on his desk. In 1835 his first text-book was written, “Elements of Botany,” and he returned to the same title for his last text-book in 1887. He spent a summer at his Sauquoit home at work upon it; and he once gave a lively account of the warm and noisy discussions which he held with his friend John Carey over style and expressions when he was reading the proofs in his boarding-house in New York, to the great interest of all within hearing. He admitted that it was one of the best lessons in the art of writing he ever had. Dr. Gray, writing for the “New York World” an obituary notice of John Carey, on his death in 1880, says of him, after a short sketch of his life:— “Mr. Carey was a man of marked gifts, accomplishments, and individuality. His name will long be remembered in American botany. There are few of his contemporaries in this country who have done more for it than he, although he took little part in independent publication. His critical knowledge and taste and his keen insight were most useful to me in my earlier days of botanical authorship. He wrote several valuable articles for the journals, and when, in 1848, my ‘Manual of Botany’ was produced, he contributed to it the two most difficult articles, that on the willows and that on the sedges.... “Being fondly attached to his memory, and almost the last survivor of the notable scientific circle which Mr. Carey adorned, I wish to pay this feeble tribute to the memory of a worthy botanist and a most genial, true-hearted, and good man.” It is to be regretted that Dr. Gray’s letters to his old friend are no longer in existence. His correspondence with Sir William Jackson Hooker, then professor at Glasgow, Scotland, began in 1835. TO JOHN TORREY. {30} {31} {32} {33} Bridgewater, Oneida County, N.Y., January 1, 1831. Dear Sir,—I received your letter, through Professor Hadley, a few weeks since, and I embrace the earliest opportunity of transmitting a few specimens of those plants of which you wished a further supply. I regret that the state of my herbarium will not admit of my sending as many specimens of each as I could wish or as would be desirable to you. I shall be able to obtain an additional supply of most of them during the ensuing summer, when it will give me pleasure to supply you with those, or any other interesting plants which I may meet with. I send you a few grasses; numbered; also a few mosses, etc. When you have leisure, you will oblige me by sending the names of those numbered, and rectify any errors in those labeled. If you should be desirous of additional specimens, please let me know it, and I will supply you in the course of next summer. You ask me whether I am desirous of obtaining the plants peculiar to New York, New Jersey, etc., or of European plants. I should be highly gratified by receiving any plants you think proper to send me; and will repay you, so far as in my power, by transmitting specimens of all the interesting plants I discover. I know little of exotic botany, having no foreign specimens. I am particularly attached to the study of the grasses, ferns, etc. If you have any specimens to transmit to me, please leave them with Mr. Franklin Brown, Attorney at Law, Inns of Court, Beekman Street, who will forward them to me by the earliest opportunity. During the next summer, I intend to visit the western part of this State, also Ohio and Michigan. I shall devote a large portion of my time to the collection of the plants of the places I visit. If you know of any interesting localities, or where any interesting plants could be procured, please inform me, and I will endeavor to obtain them for you. Respectfully yours, Asa Gray. Bridgewater, April 6, 1832. Having a convenient opportunity of sending to you, I improve it to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of October 6, and of the very interesting and valuable package of plants which was duly received a few weeks afterwards. In the course of the ensuing summer, I shall be able to supply you with an additional supply of most of the plants mentioned in your list. Many of these were collected during an excursion to the western part of the State, and are not found in this section of the country. I have given a copy of this list to my friend Dr. N. W. Folwell of Seneca County, an industrious collector, who is situated in a section rich in plants, and requested him to transmit specimens of these and other interesting plants to you. I think he will be able to furnish you with many interesting plants from that section of country, and I shall be grateful for any favors you may have in your power to confer upon him. I shall be engaged the ensuing summer at Fairfield and at Salina, where I hope to make some interesting collections in natural history. If it is not too much trouble and the specimen is within your reach, may I ask further information with regard to No. 34, in my last package to you. It is a Carex, from the shore of Lake Erie,—growing with C. lupulina but flowering later. Is it not a var. of C. lupulina? from which it appears to differ principally in its pedunculate spikes? It flowers a month later than C. lupulina (August 6). Will you excuse me for troubling you on another subject? I shall not be able to remain much longer in this place, unless I engage in the practice of medicine under circumstances which will altogether preclude me from paying any further attention to natural history. My friends advise me to spend a few years in a milder climate, our family being predisposed to phthisis, although I am perfectly healthy and robust; and such a course would be very agreeable to me, as I could combine the study of natural history with the professional business which will be necessary for my support. I have thought of the Southern States, but I have for some time been inclined to prefer Mexico,...