DEVELOPMENT OF BOTANY IN NEW YORK CITY. I57 



enlist state interest, and the legislature was induced to purchase 

 it in 1810, and to provide the necessary funds by means of a 

 lottery. Hosack subsequently enjoyed the classical distinction 

 of all successful promoters of great enterprises, in being assailed 

 by the high-class scum of citizenship. By subsecjuent legislative 

 action the property was turned over to Columbia College, and its 

 use diverted from that of a botanical garden to that of highly 

 profitable rentals. 



JOHN TORREY AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 



We cannot understand the botany of Hosack's time without a 

 brief glance at some of his contemporaries and immediate suc- 

 cessors, especially those who exerted local influence. The list 

 includes the names of some of the most honored of American 

 botanists. Foremost of them all was John Torrey. Following 

 Dr. Hosack. he was the third of the five men who, up to the 

 present, have occupied the chair of botany in Columbia College. 

 His characteristics may be expressed in the terms strong personal 

 character, broad scholarship and great intellectual abilit}'. Al- 

 though best known to us as a botanist, vet thirtv vears of his 

 life were those of a great teacher and worker in chemistry at the 

 U. S. Alilitary Academy at West Point, in the College of Physi- 

 sians and Surgeons of this city, in Princeton College, and as U. 

 S. Assayer in the Xew York Office. Had the necessary facilities 

 then existed in this country, it seems likely that this man, com- 

 bining such a great knowledge of botany and chemistry, might 

 here have developed important researches in the chemistrv of 

 plants. As a matter of fact, his knowledge of botany was acc[uired 

 chiefly as a recreation in the hours of leisure afforded by his 

 other professional work. Yet Cnderwood truly writes, " When 

 the annals of American botany are finally written, no name will 

 have a more conspicuous position than that of John Torrey." 



Almost before reaching manhood Torrey was one of the found- 

 ers of the Xew York Lyceum of X^atural History, and was the 

 leader in publishing, through it, a catalogue of plants growing 

 within thirty miles of the city. Five years later he published the 

 first part of his Flora of the Xorthcni and Middle Sections of the 



