DEVELOPMENT OF BOTANY IN NEW YORK CITY. 159 



nection with manuals on local floras, became very popular, and 

 of incalculable value in interesting people in the study of plants. 



GROWTH OF THE BOTANICAL DEPARTMENT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 



We must now pass from this general consideration of local 

 botanical devetopment to the middle of the last century, and fol- 

 low some special influences proceeding from the growth of the 

 botanical department of Columbia College. During the period 

 when Dr. Torrey was at its head, that department was very ac- 

 tively engaged in educational work, though this was of a pecu- 

 liarly restricted sort, characteristic of the times. About the time 

 of his death in 1873. his herbarium and librarv, which he had 

 previously maintained in his home, came into the possession of 

 Columbia, together with the herbaria of Crooke, Chapman and 

 Aleissner. To these, collections from various parts of the world, 

 and especially from those parts of the United States then being 

 explored, were rapidly added, and a very large and important 

 herbarium soon grew up ; but no professor of botany was ap- 

 pointed to succeed Dr. Torrey, and the herbarium was neglected 

 by the curator in charge. A very large part of it was not clas- 

 sified, nor even named, and lay in the form of a small mountain 

 of dusty bundles which were not, and could not be consulted. 

 Botanical instruction was most meager, and was merely a part 

 of the general course in biology. There was not, in fact, a de- 

 partment of botany, the subject being treated as a subordinate of 

 geology, under Professor John S. Newberry. From 1875 to 

 1879, Dr. Britton was a student at the School of Mines, and was 

 strongly attracted, by natural taste and ability, toward the botan- 

 ical side of his work. When upon his graduation he was ap- 

 pointed assistant to Dr. Newberry, he appreciated clearly the 

 great value for a botanical department, of the materials in the 

 possession of the College, and he began a careful and systematic 

 examination of them. 



A special stimulas to Dr. Britton at this time was his inter- 

 est in his first great botanical undertaking, the preparation of 

 an elaborate catalogue of the plants of New Jersey, this also, 

 being performed subordinately to a department of geology. In 



