694 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Icones Muscorum, however, is Mr. Sullivant's crowning 

 work. It was issued in 1864, and consists of " Figures and De- 

 scriptions of most of those Mosses peculiar to Eastern North 

 America which have not been heretofore figured," forming an 

 imperial octavo volume with one hundred and twenty-nine cop- 

 perplates. "The letterpress and the plates," says Prof. Gray, 

 " (upon which last alone several thousand dollars and immense 

 pains were expended) are simply exquisite and wholly unrivaled ; 

 and the scientific character is acknowledged to be worthy of the 

 setting." Most of the time which Mr. Sullivant could devote to 

 science in the last few years of his life was given to the prepara- 

 tion of a second or supplementary volume of the Icones. The 

 plates were finished, the descriptions partly written out, and it 

 was to have been printed in the spring in which he died. 



Mr, Sullivant was attacked with pneumonia in January, 1873, 

 about the time of his seventieth birthday, and, although making 

 a partial recovery, died from the effects of the disease on April 

 30th. He had married Caroline E. Sutton, who survived him. 

 Four sons and two daughters were born to them. 



He bequeathed all his bryological books and his exceedingly 

 rich and important collections and preparations of mosses to the 

 Gray Herbarium at Harvard University. The rest of his botan- 

 ical library, his choice microscopes, and other collections, were 

 left to the State Scientific and Agricultural College, then re- 

 cently established at Columbus, and to the Starling Medical 

 College, founded by his uncle, of which he was himself the senior 

 trustee. 



The American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected Mr. Sul- 

 livant to membership in 1845 ; he was also an associate of the 

 other chief scientific societies of this country and of several in 

 Europe. The honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred 

 upon him by Gambier College, while Torrey and Gray honored 

 him early by bestowing the name Sullivantia OMonis upon a 

 rare and modest plant discovered by him in his native State, and 

 belonging to the same order (saxifrages) with the currant, syringa, 

 and hydrangea. 



For nearly forty years Sullivant corresponded with Asa Gray, 

 also collecting with him and co-operating in research whenever 

 practicable. He is often mentioned in Gray's Letters. When 

 Lesquereux, who had been Gray's curator at Cambridge, left him 

 to go and assist the Western bryologist. Gray wrote in a letter to 

 Torrey : " They will do up bryology at a great rate. Lesquereux 

 says that the collection and library of Sullivant in muscology are 

 * magnifique, superhe, the best he ever saw.' " Under date of De- 

 cember 6, 1857, Gray writes to W. J. Hooker : " Your first letter 

 is now gone to Sullivant, because you speak of him so hand- 



