190 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
These botanical labors, as already mentioned, were supple- 
mentary to his regular duties as a teacher of chemistry and other 
branches of science, which he performed for more than thirty 
years. In 1857 Torrey entered upon the office of United States 
Assayer, and while thus engaged carried out many commissions 
of a confidential or especially difficult nature. 
In his last years, as professor emeritus in Columbia College, 
he continued to lecture at intervals. He also served as a trustee 
of the College and bequeathed to it his very valuable herbarium 
and his botanical library. 
Torrey was twice President of the New York Lyceum of 
Natural History and also presided over the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of the 
Order of the Cincinnati. 
(From Asa Gray, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of 
Sciences, vol. 1, 1877, pp. 265-276.) 
JOSEPH GILBERT TOTTEN 
Born, August 23, 1788; died, April 22, 1864 
The lifetime of General Totten extended nearly from the close 
of the Revolution to the close of the Civil War, and his period 
of public service covered more than fifty years. He was born in 
New Haven, Connecticut, August 23, 1788. His father, Peter 
G. Totten, was the son of Joseph Totten who came to America 
from England before the Revolution. ‘Totten’s mother died 
when he was three years old and his father having been 
appointed consul of the United States at Santa Cruz, in the West 
Indies, he was placed in charge of his uncle Jared Mansfield, 
‘““a graduate of Yale College, 1777, and a learned mathe- 
matician.” 
Upon the organization of the Military Academy at West 
Point in 1802, Mansfield was appointed a teacher in that institu- 
tion. Young Totten accompanied his uncle to West Point and 
afterwards was appointed a cadet. He remained in the 
Academy during the term of 1803, but in November of that year 
his uncle Captain Mansfield became Surveyor-General of Ohio 
