489 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
already mentioned, must render our knowledge of the vege- 
tation of these extensive wilds very considerable. 
Mr. Geyer has now divided his ample collections into 20 
sets; the fullest of which amounts to 600 species ; the lowest 
to 2 or 300; but the species wanting in these lower sets are 
not generally the scarcest kinds, for of such Mr. Geyer was 
careful to collect abundantly: and the sets are now offered 
to Botanists at the rate of £2 the 100 species, all expenses 
included. Orders may be sent to Mr. C. A. Geyer, at the 
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, or to R. Heward, Esq. 
Young Street, Kensington. 
It will be our agreeable task to publish a Catalogue of this 
collection, with remarks and descriptions of the new species ; 
this Catalogue to be prefaced by some account of the 
journey detailed by Mr. Geyer himself.) —Ep. 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
In the spring of 1843, I set out from St. Louis, Missouri, 
and joined the party of Sir W. D. Stewart, of Murthly 
Castle, Scotland. I not only received every possible assist- 
ance from that gentleman, as far up as the Wind River 
Mountains; but he also kindly provided me with a letter of 
recommendation to the venerable Governor McLoughlin, of — 
the Hon. Hudson Bay Company, Columbia Department, at .- 
Fort Vancouver, which enabled me to sojourn in Upper Ore- 
gon, and finally to embark, with my botanical collection for 
London, in one of the vessels of the Hon. H. B. Company. - 
The liberality of that body of gentlemen is too well known, 
especially in the scientific world, to require any encomium 
from me, yet I may be allowed to make special mention of 
the kindness and assistance I received from the Chief Factors, —— 
Macdonald, at Fort Colville, Mc Kinlay, at Fort Walla-Walla, — 
and especially from Chief Factor Douglass, and Governor ua 
Mc Loughlin, at Fort Vancouver. Not less indebted am Í, 
as well as, I believe, previous botanists, to the assistance of — 
the different missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic. By 
