208 WILLIAM HENRY HARVEY 



predicting for him a rapid advance to " the top of algologists." 

 Another life-long friendship made about this time was with 

 Mrs Griffiths of Torquay ; and he numbered Greville and 

 Agardh among his earliest correspondents. Already he was 

 deep in his life-task of comparing and describing plants, 

 working with the restless energy which characterised him. 

 " I rise at five every morning," he writes, " and work till break- 

 fast, examining or describing the Algae for the * British Flora 1 / 

 If I do five species a day I think it good work. This may 

 seem slow, but there is much to be compared and corrected '! for 

 I differ from Dr Hooker on many species. Oh, impudence 1 

 oh, presumption!" In 1832 he undertook to do the Algae for 

 J. T. Mackay's Flora Hibernica, which was published three years 

 later ; this was his most important contribution to the botany of 

 his native land. 



The death of his father in 1834 broke up Harvey's home life, 

 and his strong desire to study the vegetation of distant countries 

 led to enquiries as to the obtaining of an appointment in the 

 Colonies. New South Wales was first thought of, but it was for 

 the Cape that he started in the following year. 



Asa Gray, a friend of many years' standing, tells, in a notice 

 of Harvey in the American Journal of Science and Arts*, a curious 

 story as to the circumstances attending this momentous change 

 in Harvey's life. The story is repeated in the notice of Harvey 

 in Seemann's Journal of Botany*, though not mentioned in the 

 Memoir edited by his cousin. It seems that, as the result of 

 Harvey's representations, he obtained through Mr Spring Rice, 

 afterwards Lord Monteagle, the post of Treasurer at the Cape ; 

 but, by an accident, the appointment was made out in the name 

 of an elder brother (Joseph Harvey); and an inopportune change 

 of ministry occurring just at the time, frustrated all attempts at 

 rectification. Be that as it may, Joseph Harvey sailed for South 

 Africa in July 1835, taking his younger brother with him as 

 assistant. 



It was with high hopes that the naturalist started for the 

 Southern Hemisphere. At that time the flora of South Africa 



1 Published as Vol. v., Part i, of Smith's English Flora. 



z Vol. XLII. p. 274, 1866. 3 Vol. iv. p. -236, 1866. 



