OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 265 



field, containing brief characters of the species which were to have 

 been described in the second vokxme, along with an abridgment of the 

 contents of the first, was issued in 1826. Moreover, long before Dr. 

 Torrey could find time to go on with the work, he foresaw that the 

 natural system was not much longer to remain, here and in England, 

 an esoteric doctrine, confined to profound botanists, but was destined to 

 come into general use and to change the character of botanical in- 

 struction. He was himself the first to apply it in this country in any 

 considerable publication. 



The opportunity for this, and for extending his investigations to the 

 great plains and the Rocky IMountains on their western boundary, was 

 furnished by the collections placed in Dr. Torrey's hands by Dr. Edwin 

 James, the botanist of Major Long's expedition in 1820. This expedi- 

 tion skirted the Rocky Mountains belonging to what is now called 

 Colorado Territory, where Dr. James, first and alone, reached the 

 charming alpine vegetation, scaling one of the very highest summits, 

 which from that time and for many years afterward was appropri- 

 ately named James's Peak ; although it is now called Pike's Peak, in 

 honor of General Pike, who long before may have seen, but did not 

 reach it. 



As early as the year 1823 Dr. Torrey communicated to the Lyceum 

 of Natural History descriptions of some new species of James's collec- 

 tion, and in 1826 an extended account of all the plants collected, 

 arrano-ed under their natural orders. This is the earliest treatise of 

 the sort in this country, arranged upon the natural system ; and with it 

 beo-ins the history of the botany of the Rocky Mountains, if we ex- 

 cept a few plants collected early in the century by Lewis and Clark, 

 where they crossed them many degrees farther north, and which are 

 recorded in Pursh's Flora. The next step in the direction he was 

 aimino- was made in the year 1831, when he superintended an Ameri- 

 can reprint of the first edition of Lindley's " Litroduction to the Natural 

 System of Botany," and appended a catalogue of the North American 

 genera arranged according to it. 



Dr. Torrey took an early and prominent part in the investigation of 

 the United States species of the vast genus Garex, which has ever 

 since been a favorite study in this country. His friend, Von Schweinitz, 

 of Bethlehem, Penn., placed in his hands and desired him to edit, 

 during the author's absence in Europe, his Monograph of North 

 American Carices. It was published in the Annals of the New York 

 Lyceum in 1825, much extended, indeed almost wholly rewritten, and 

 so much to Schweinitz's satisfaction that he insisted that this classical 

 VOL. 1. 34 



