65 



of the Mississippi River and north of North Carolina and Ten- 



nessee, 



Tn 1857 ^^^ published his Fh^st Lessons in Botany and Vege- 

 table Physiology, with a glossary of botanical terms, largely used 

 as a text-book for educational purposes. This book Dr. Gray 

 entirely revised and published in 1887, under the title Elements 

 of Botany, and it is a very interesting fact that he should have 



r 



given to this, his last text-book as well as his last pubhshed 

 workj the same name that he had previously given to the first 

 one, published over fifty years before. The two books are a 

 most fitting Alpha and Omega to his industrious life. He always 

 spoke with much enthusiasm in regard to this revised work and 

 seemed much pleased with the result. It is interesting to compare 

 the two editions and to see how many of the definitions Dr. Gray 

 found it impossible to improve upon, though thirty years had 

 elapsed since the publication of the first edition. The greater 

 part of the work, however, is much changed to keep pace with 

 the advance of the science. 



For thirty years following Dr. Gray's assuming the professor- 

 ship at Cambridge, he was constantly engaged in his professional 

 duties, beside building up the library and herbarium and takin 

 charge of the garden. His former pupils are now scattered far 

 and wide, many of them among our leading botanists, who cher- 



4d 



ish the warmest remembrances of a man who so patiently and 

 skillfully guided them in their early studies. During all this 

 period our country was being explored farther and farther to the 

 west, and fresh material, collected by botanists on government 

 expeditions and surveys, was pouring in to the Botanic Garden. 

 The careful elaboration and publishing of these collections was 

 done with a masterly hand, and appear, with the many contribu- 

 tions to botanical science which Dr. Gray was constantly making 

 till his death, in the Proceedingrs and Memoirs of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences; American Journal of Science, 

 of which he was associate editor in 1871; Annals of the New 

 York Lyceum of Natural History; Smithsonian Contributions to 

 Knowledge ; North American Review ; Journal of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History ; Proceedings of the Philadelphia and 

 California Academies of Natural Science; The American Natur- 



