542 Britton : • Dr. Torrey as a Botanist 



Cestrica," 1826, remarks, " After this catalogue went to press I 

 had the good fortune to commence an occasional correspondence 

 with that distinguished naturalist, Professor Torrey, of West Point, 

 which correspondence has, to me, been a source of instruction and 

 pleasure — alloyed only by a regret that I had not earlier enjoyed 

 that advantage. For the information, and specimens, received 

 from him, I beg leave here to offer my sincere and grateful ac- 



knowledgements/' 



Interest centered about this time among botanists on the avail- 

 ability for practical purposes of teaching and the arrangement of 

 floras, of the "Natural System' ' of Jussieu, as elaborated and 

 modified by Lamarck, DeCandolle, Lindley, and other Euro- 

 pean authors. Eaton, had, already in the earlier editions of his 

 Manual, referred to this topic, but did not adopt the innovation. 

 The first American edition of Lindley's " Introduction to the Nat- 

 ural System of Botany," was edited by Torrey and published in 

 New York in 183 1, and to it he appended a " Catalogue of North 

 American Genera of Plants arranged according to the Orders of 

 Lindley's Introduction to the Natural System of Botany, with the 

 number of species belonging to each genus so far as they are at 

 present determined." Torrey thus gave to American students the 

 first comprehensive view of the system as applied to their own 

 plants, and, like most other suggestions for a radical change of 

 method, it was received with some consternation. Eaton says of 

 this book, in the sixth edition of his Manual, 1833, "Since Dr. 

 Faustus first exhibited his printed bibles in the year 1463, no book 

 has, probably, excited such consternation and dismay as Dr. Torrey s 

 edition of Lindley's Introduction to the Natural System of Botany. 

 And to make the horrors of students, as well as of ordinary 

 teachers, still more appalling, Dr. Torrey's Catalogue of Ameri- 

 can Plants at the end of his Lindley, was so singularly pre- 

 sented that it would seem to indicate an awful catastrophe 

 to all previous learning." And Eaton never did accept it in his 

 books, though he discussed it at great length at this point and 

 subsequently ; neither did Bigelow. It was accepted, however, 

 with minor modifications by Dr. Lewis C. Beck in his " Botany of 

 the Northern Middle States," published at Albany in 1833, and 

 later by Darlington. Torrey and Beck were, therefore, the Amen- 



