2G4 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



began the study of mediciue in the office of the eminent Dr. Wright 

 Post, and in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in which the then 

 famous Dr. Mitchill and Dr. Hosack were professors of scientitic 

 repute; he took his medical degree in 1818; opened an office in his 

 native city, and engaged in the practice of medicine with moderate 

 success, turning the while his abundant leisure to scientific pursuits, 

 especially to botany. In 1817, whUe yet a medical student, he reported 

 to the Lyceum of Natural History — of which he was one of the 

 founders — his Catalogue of the Plants growing spontaneously within 

 thirty miles of the city of New York, which was published two years 

 later ; and he was already, or very soon after, in correspondence with 

 Kurt Sprengel and Sir James Edward Smith abroad, as well as with 

 Elliot, Nuttall, Schweinitz, and other American botanists. Two min- 

 eralogical articles were contributed by him to the very first volume of 

 the "American Journal of Science and Arts" (1818-19), and several 

 others appeared a few years later, in this and in other journals. 



Elliot's sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia was at 

 this time in course of publication, and Dr. Torrey planned a counterpart 

 systematic work upon the botany of the Northern States. The result 

 of this was his " Flora of the Northern and Middle Sections of the 

 United States, i.e., north of Virginia," — which was issued in parts, 

 and the first volume concluded in the summer of 1824. In this work 

 Dr. Torrey first developed his remarkable aptitude for descriptive 

 botany, and for the kind of investigation and discrimination, the tact 

 and acumen, which it calls for. Only those few — now, alas ! very 

 few — surviving botanists who used this book through the following 

 years can at all appreciate its value and influence. It was the fruit of 

 those few but precious years which, seasoned with pecuniary privation, 

 are in this country not rarely vouchsafed to an investigator, in which 

 to prove his quality before he is haply overwhelmed with professional 

 or professorial labors and duties. 



In 1824, the year in which the first volume (or nearly half) of his 

 Flora was published, he married Miss Eliza Robinson Shaw, of New 

 York, and was established at West Point, having been chosen Professor 

 of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology in the United States jNIilitary 

 Academy. Three years later he exchanged this chair for that of 

 Chemistry and Botany (practically that of Chemistiy only, for Botany 

 had already been allowed to fall out of the medical curriculum in this 

 country) in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, then 

 in Barclay Street. The Flora of the Northern States was never 

 carried further ; although a " Compendium," a pocket volume for the 



