370 Britton : Thomas Conrad Porter 



The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by 

 Rutgers College in 1865, and that of Doctor of Letters by Frank- 

 lin and Marshall College in 1880. As early as 1840 he began 

 the collecting and critical study of the plants of his native State, 

 and this work was continued almost without interruption to the 

 end of his life. He has thus brought together one of the most 

 complete and representative State herbaria yet formed, which Lafa- 

 yette College will doubtless prize as one of its choicest scientific 

 assets. He was in correspondence with nearly everybody inter- 

 ested in native plants in Pennsylvania during his time, and in per- 

 sonal cooperation with most of his correspondents, stimulating in- 

 terest in natural objects and natural phenomena in a most valuable 

 way, as he was always willing to supply freely any information at 

 his command. He personally explored, at one time or another, 

 nearly all portions of the State; he was a profuse collector, and a 

 liberal distributer, hence nearly all the permanent herbaria of the 

 country have been enriched directly or indirectly by specimens 

 prepared and named by him, and many have found their way to 

 Europe. He has long had in preparation a volume recording the 

 local distribution of the flora of Pennsylvania. This has been posted 

 up with the numerous new discoveries made by himself and others, 

 and has for several years been essentially ready for publication, but 

 Dr. Porter's ambition was always to make it more and more com- 

 plete and consequently the more valuable ; so much interested was 

 he in this research that he has provided for its ultimate publication 

 in his will. 



In 1846 he explored northern Georgia in company with the 

 distinguished naturalist, Dr. Joseph LeConte, of Philadelphia, and 

 brought back a noteworthy collection of botanical specimens, a 

 number of which proved to represent species new to science ; this 

 became the nucleus of his general herbarium, which was continu- 

 ously increased by his personal collections in various parts of 

 the United States and numerous exchanges with American and 

 European botanists, until it became one of the important accumu- 

 lations of specimens in the country. It was, most unfortunately, 

 somewhat injured by the incendiary fire which seriously damaged 

 the Pardee Hall of Lafayette College in 1897, but it still remains 

 a notable collection ; this herbarium contains the records of his 



