494 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ciety. Comparatively little seems to be known about Bradbury. He 

 was a Scotchman who had lived for a long time in England, when he 

 received his commission from the Liverpool Botanical Society in 1809. 

 Upon arriving in this country, Bradbury spent -everal days at the house 

 of Thomas Jefferson, so that the latter became acquainted with him and 

 his abilities. Jefferson spoke highly of him as a naturalist, and Short, 

 a later writer, mentions him as " an English gentleman of very re- 

 spectable attainments as a naturalist." In the light of our present 

 knowledge he seems to have fully deserved such an estimation, as he 

 discovered a considerable number of new species as well as a new genus 

 of plants during his travels in the Missouri country. Indeed, several 

 of our more characteristic species bear his name, and in later years he 

 was honored by Torrey and Gray, who named a new genus Bradburia, 

 in commemoration of his services in exploring our western flora. 



Mr. Bradbury at first intended to make New Orleans his center of 

 operations, but following the advice of Jefferson he changed that in- 

 tention and came to St. Louis instead. He descended the Ohio Eiver 

 by boat, making such observations and collections as he could at the vari- 

 ous stopping places, arriving at St. Louis on the last day of the year 1809. 

 The entire season of 1810 was spent about St. Louis, making short ex- 

 cursions of not more than eighty or one hundred miles distance in 

 all directions, and he accumulated a considerable collection of plants 

 which were sent to Liverpool the succeeding autumn. No definite data 

 can now be obtained as to the number of species contained in these col- 

 lections, as Bradbury never published a complete list of them, although 

 he did give a list of the rare and more interesting plants in his journal, 

 which was published after his return to England. 



Early in the spring of 1811 Bradbury, accompanied by a young and 

 zealous botanist named Thomas Nuttall, joined a fur-trading expedi- 

 tion, and with them ascended the Missouri Eiver as far as the Mandan 

 villages, not far from the site of the present town of Bismarck, North 

 Dakota. Upon reaching this point the expedition divided and part of 

 it, including Bradbury, returned to St. Louis. The others went on still 

 farther, and Nuttall remained with them until their return to St. Louis 

 some months later. This voyage was made in a steamer, and progress 

 was necessarily slow while going up the river, so that our naturalists 

 had ample time and opportunity for collecting. A collection even 

 larger than that which had been made around St. Louis is said to have 

 been accumulated. 



Before Bradbury had finished his preparations for departure to 

 England, the war of 1812 broke out, and he remained for several years 

 in this country until the close of hostilities. He finally reached Liver- 

 pool in 1815, and found that during his long absence his plants had been 

 inspected by Pursh, who was at that time in England preparing the 



