17° BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



The earlier volumes of Silliman's Journal contain important con- 

 tributions to mineralog}'- from his pen. Mineralogy is so intimate- 

 ly related to chemistry that he retained through life a lively inter- 

 est in this department of science. 



Those who have regarded Dr. Torrey as a botanist only, will 

 be surprised to know that the avocation of his life was that of a 

 chemist, and that the works that have made him an undying name 

 in science were done in what he regarded as his hours of recrea- 

 tion. 



During the last years of his life he held the position of As- 

 sayer in the U. S. Assay office in New York, and this connection 

 with the Treasury Department had one happy result. Although 

 he had done so much in describing and naming the plants of the 

 far west, he had traveled but little: he "had never seen a prairie," 

 -as he was once heard to say with a tone of sadness, and had never 

 ascended a mountain higher than Mt. Marcy. It was a graceful 

 act of the Secretary of the Treasur}' to send him in 1865 upon a 

 confidential mission to California. He went by the way of the 

 Isthmus and was able to see and enjoy the luxuriant vegetation of 

 the tropics, and, when he reached his destination, was met by an 

 order to make some extended explorations, for the accomplishment 

 of which a revenue cutter was placed at his command. While in 

 California he was able to see many of the plants he had described 

 growing in their native localities, and to make considerable collec- 

 tions for the herbarium. 



In 1872 he made another journey to California, this time by 

 railroad. Upon his return journey he tarried awhile among the 

 Rocky Mountains and ascended Torrey's Peak, which was several 

 years before thus named by his former pupil, Dr. Parry. It is pleas- 

 ant to think of him as passing the last days of his botanizing, in 

 the evening of his life, among the alpine plants which in his youth 

 he first made known to the botanical world. 



Neither this last journey to California nor one made the pre- 

 vious winter to Florida served to arrest the disease which those 

 who saw him only at intervals could perceive was gradually wast- 

 ing his body, though it did not dim his intellect or impair his cheer- 

 fulness. At sunset on the tenth of March, 1873, he peacefully 

 went to his rest. 



Some Notes from Freshmen. 



Professor W. J. Beal, of the Agricultural College, Lansing, 

 Michigan, has just sent to us a few notes taken from the theses of 

 his Freshmen. During a term of 12 weeks, when they begin daily 

 lessons, each one writes a thesis on topics like those given below. 

 A tew hints are given directing the student how to proceed. After 



