BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 183 



and so on about Lake Champlain, reaching Montreal June 30, 1792. 

 From Montreal he proceeded to Quebec, and thence by the Sague- 

 nay to Hudson's Bay, where, he says, u naught but a dreary vege- 

 tation was found, consisting of black and stunted pines, which 

 bore their cones at four feet only from the ground." Returning to 

 Philadelphia he proposed to Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State, 

 to explore the country west of the Mississippi to the sources of the 

 Missouri, and even to the Pacific waters, for the sum of £3,600. 

 This was a bold proposition and one that was a?ted upon a few 

 years later in the expedition of Lewis and Clark, but Michaux was 

 never permitted to make the journey. In July, 1793, he started 

 for Kentucky, descnding the Ohio to Louisville and then back 

 across Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, to Philadelphia. 

 Early in 1794 another extensive tour was made in the Southern 

 States and the North Carolina mountains, and in 1795 the same 

 trips were continued to Knoxville, Tenn. Thence he crossed the 

 Cumberland Mountains and came to Nashville, and so on to Louis- 

 ville, ascended the Wabash River to Vincennes and thence west- 

 ward to the Illinois River and down it to the Mississippi and lower 

 part of the Ohio. Ascending the Ohio and Cumberland, after 

 many hardships,for it was midwinter, he finally reached Nashville 

 and started for the Carolinas in February, 1796, stopping for a 

 while again in his favorite North Carolina mountains with his fa- 

 vorite guide, Davenport, reaching Charleston in April. It was in 

 August of this year that he embarked for Amsterdam and was ship- 

 wrecked. 



Very many of our species of plants bear the familiar abbrevi- 

 ation "Mx." or "Michx." and not a few genera own him as their 

 author, such as Micranthemtim, Elodea, Dichromena, Oryzopsis, 

 Erianthus, etc., etc. Unfortunately, the genus which commemo- 

 rates him is one he discovered in Persia, and so his name cannot in 

 this way be associated with North American botany, for which he 

 did so much. His flora of North America contains, exclusive of non- 

 vascular Cryptogams, but 1530 species, under 528 genera, just about 

 the numbers which appear now in our numerous state catalogues, 

 but of this number a very large proportion were new. Although 

 but eleven years in this country he has left a deeper impression up- 

 on North American Botany than many a distinguished botanist has 

 in a life time, and most surely gained the distinction of heing facile 

 princeps among our botanical explorers. 



For further and more particular information concerning Mich- 

 aux the reader is referred to the Am. Jour. Sci. 1.9.266 (Dr. W. J. 

 Hooker u On the Botany of America"); 1.42.2 (Prof. Asa Gray on 

 "Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina"); 2. 

 24.161 (Elias Durand, "Biographical Memoir of the late F. A. 

 Michaux"); Michaux's unpublished itinerary is preserved by the 

 Am. Phil. Soc, at Philadelphia. 



