148 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
was then about to set off on his fourth expedition. Never | 
could I have met with an abler guide, a more desirable tra- — - | 
velling companion in every possible point of view. Together, : 
we visited that portion of Asia Minor, which comprizes 
Smyrna and Ephesus, the valley of the Meander, Geyra 
and Mount Cadmus in ancient Caria, Phrygia, the chain of 
Olympus in Bithynia, Nicea, Broussa, Nicomedia and Con- 
stantinople. 
The state of? my health, which suffered from the effects —— 
of the climate, forbade my pursuing these investigations any T 
farther; but though I have thus only partially performed my - 
self-imposed task, still, devoting my time exclusively to — — 
botany, and provided with ample means for gathering an 2 
abundant harvest of specimens, I have brought home an ier 
mense number of interesting plants, and, among them, & 
good many new ones. To the publication of the latter Iwas -. 
about to proceed, when I was unexpectedly summoned to — : 
the Office of Public Works, a deviation from my favourite — 
pursuits which proved of brief duration, and from which 1 was - * 
no sooner released, than my earliest thought was to resume - > 
my projected publication. ae 
_ It was needful, in the first place, in order to promote the 
interest of science, to glean out of the rich herbaria of the : Dc 
museum of my honoured colleague, M. Benjamin Delesserb — 2 
those particular collections which previous travellers had — 
brought from the districts near what I myself had visit- : " 
ed. But as my work proceeded, so did the wide horizon — 
expand before and around me, and equally my desire m 
creased to investigate that Mediterranean Flora which first 
led me to Asia Minor, and which is so intimately connected | 
with the productions of Western Asia, as to throw much | 
light on the general features of the botany of that vast region. 
. Here was indeed an enormous mass of materials, either im- 
perfectly known, or wholly inedited. Collections, which 
appeared as if exhausted, were perpetually presenting me 
with subjects alike requiring and meriting elucidation. Who, 
for instance, could have ‘supposed that the laborious and 
