328 A DECADE OF WORK A T HOME. [1845, 



not interfere with Fremont's botanical plans, while the 

 results would redound to Fremont's advantage. He is 

 a most amiable, quiet, and truly gentlemanly fellow, 

 retiring to a fault, but full of nerve, and surely is to 

 be the great man of this country in the highest 

 branches of zoology and comparative anatomy. I 

 therefore very strenuously solicit your influence at 

 court in his behalf. 



I am glad that Fremont takes so much personal in- 

 terest in his botanical collections. He will do all the 

 more. I should like to see his plants, especially the 

 Compositse and Rosacea3. As to Conifers he should 

 have the Taxodium sempervirens, so imperfectly 

 known, and probably a new genus. Look quick at it, 

 for it is probably in Coulter's collection which Harvey 

 is working at. ... Cordially yours, 



A. GRAY. 



February 12, 1845. 



My first lecture is to-day finished, and has this 

 evening been read to Mr. Albro. 1 Half of it is de- 

 voted to a serving up of "Vestiges of Creation " (which 

 Boott says is written by Sir Richard Vivian), show- 

 ing that the objectionable conclusions rest upon 

 gratuitous and unwarranted inferences from estab- 

 lished or probable facts. Peirce is examining Mul- 

 der, 2 that we may fairly get at his point of view. His 

 conclusions as to equivocal generation are non-constat 

 from his own premises. On the whole series of sub- 

 jects Peirce who is much pleased with the way I 



1 This was Dr. Gray's second course of Lowell lectures. Dr. John 

 A. Albro, the Congregationalist minister of Cambridge, was his pas- 

 tor. 



2 G. J. Mulder, 1802-1880; professor of chemistry in the University 

 of Utrecht. Wrote on Animal and Vegetable Physiology. 



