MR. DRUMMOND’S COLLECTIONS. 55 
to Wheeling, walking across the Alleghanies, where I expect 
the forest-trees will be in a good state for preserving. I have 
now divested myself of all my luggage, except what is 
absolutely necessary, and still it amounts to a considerable 
weight; and I am provided with various letters from scientific 
men, and with maps of all the country I am likely to visit, as 
far as Santa Fé; but I find the purchase of them very expen- 
sive.” 
Thus far all was well; but the next communication was from 
St. Louis, dated July 19, 1831, written under considerable 
depression of spirits, in consequence of severe indisposition. 
Fearing lest that letter might not reach me, Mr. Drummond 
recapitulated nearly the whole * of the information in his 
next letter, dated New Orleans, December 6, 1831, to extracts 
from which I shall now confine myself. ‘I wrote to you,” 
he says, “immediately after reaching St. Louis, and sent the 
letter by a private hand to Europe; but as I am uncertain 
whether you have received it, I shall briefly notice the parti- 
culars of my journey. I commenced walking, to cross the 
Alleghanies, at Frederickstown, accompanying a waggon 
which carried my luggage: and although it did not exceed 25 
miles per day, I found very little spare time to make excur- 
sions from the road, constantly sleeping, as I was obliged to 
do, where the waggon put up, in order to have the opportu- 
nity of shifting the specimens I had collected during the day. 
These were, indeed, very few in number, and I was grievously 
disappointed with these mountains, which ought rather to be 
considered as mere ridges. It is true that they would afford 
* The St. Louis letter indeed mentions, that at Washington the British 
Chargé d' Affaires furnished him with a letter from the American Govern- 
ment, that was of the highest importance, as it contained an order to all 
the officers of the military posts on the Missouri to render him every as- 
sistance in their power: and that he had the good fortune to meet at 
Frederickstown with B. D. Greene, Esq. of Boston, one of the ablest botanists 
_ of the United States, and who was then on an exeursion in pursuit of his 
| favourite plants to Harper's Ferry. 
