THE BOTANISTS OP PHILADELPHIA. 113 



" In temperament he was irritable and even choleric. 

 His spirits were irregular, his manners consequently 

 variable, impetuous, vehement. These repeated vacillations 

 between equanimity and depression were generally owing 

 to the sudden and repeated attacks of his continual earthly 

 companion irregular gout. 



" In familiar conversation he was often eloquent, 

 remarkably facetious, but never witty. 



" As a parent he was kind, tender and indulgent to a 

 fault." 



Dr. Barton corresponded with many prominent natural- 

 ists and physicians at home and abroad. He established 

 an enviable foreign reputation, and was elected a member 

 of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow, the Danish 

 Royal Society of Sciences, the Danish Medical Society, the 

 Linmean Society of London, and the Society of Antiquaries 

 of Scotland. 



FREDERICK PURSH. 



Frederick Pursh was born at Tobolsk, in Siberia, in 

 1774, of German parentage.* He was educated in Dresden, 

 and came to this country in 1799, establishing himself in 

 Philadelphia. He was able to make the acquaintance not 

 only of Muhlenberg, who survived until 1815, and of Win. 

 Bartram, who died in 1823, but also of the veteran 

 Humphry Marshall, who died in 1805. He says : 



" Not far from the latter place are also the extensive 

 gardens of William Hamilton, Esq., called the Woodlands, f 



* The main facts for this sketch are taken from an article in The Botanical 

 Gazette, VII, p. 141. 



t Now occupied as a cemetery, and adjoining the Botanic Garden of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania. Woodlands is still good botanizing ground. There grow 

 these several noteworthy plants : Zelkova crenata ; a noble staniinate tree of Ginkgd 

 biloba ; Magnolia grandiflora ; Zanthoxylum americanum, etc. An oil painting of 

 Woodlands is to be found at the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 



