106 OBITUARY. 



xylol, in which they are examined. I think this method, perhaps, 

 the most superior of all for studying distribution of nerve-fibres. 

 Unfortunately, they are not quite permanent, though, if mounted 

 in Canada balsam, they last for some length of time. They may, 

 however, when they become so transparent as to be of no further 

 use, be re-prepaied by putting back into alcohol and thence in the 

 xylol. 



OBITUARY. 



^be late 2)i\ Bsa (5ra^. 



DR. Asa Gray died at Boston, in Massachusetts, on the 31st 

 January last. By his death the world has been deprived 

 of one of its most able botanists. He was born in the 

 year 1810, and shortly alter taking his doctor's degree in Fairfield 

 College, he began those studies to which he has devoted the 

 remainder of his life. Dr. Asa Gray became known to European 

 botanists soon after the publication of his admirable " Text-Book 

 on the Structural and Morphological Botany of Ph?enogamous 

 Plants," in the year 1842. The fifth edition of this much- 

 esteemed work appeared in 1857, since which date the name of 

 Asa Gray has been on the lips of botanical students in almost 

 every country where the English language is spoken and the 

 science of botany taught. He was an occasional visitor at Kew, 

 where he is said to have profited by the study of the magnificent 

 Herbarium, which Sir Joseph Hooker has done so much to 

 enrich. 



On one occasion he accompanied Sir Joseph Hooker on a 

 botanical trip across the American Continent. Dr. Asa Gray has 

 done excellent service to the botanical world in the preparation of 

 that great flora of the United States, which, we believe, is still 

 incomplete. In 1861 Dr. Asa Gray gave to the scientific world 

 another admirable work, in which he dealt fearlessly with the late 

 Charles Darwin's treatise on " The Origin of Species." He may 

 fairly be classed with Hooker, Lyell, and Huxley as one of the 

 chief English-speaking commentators on our great naturalist's 



