298 



calls forth the natural inquiry, " How did that young man 

 find time to study?" The inference may justly be this: his 

 hours of rest from labor, his hours of recreation and sleep 

 were diligently employed in the pursuit of knowledge. Nay, 

 at the very printing-case do we fancy to see him carrying 

 books and stealthily devouring their pages. 



These studious habits, which elevated him finally to the 

 high rank he attained in sciences, followed him throughout 

 his long career. When, in 1824, Prof. Torrey was preparing 

 for publication his Flora of the Northern and Middle States, 

 which he dedicated to his friend Thomas Nuttall, with high 

 compliments, the printer who was engaged upon it asked the 

 Professor who was that Nuttall so frequently referred to in 

 his work, adding that he had once worked with a printer of 

 that name, who spent the greatest part of his time in reading 

 books, and he would not be surprised if he w^ere the same 

 man. Prof. Torrey rejoined, " that his surmise was correct ; 

 the printer of former times had proved a most arduous laborer 

 in the field of science, and was now a distinguished botanist, 

 and an officer of one of the first scientific institutions of the 

 country." 



Nuttall landed at Philadelphia in the spring of 1808. "In 

 the ship Halcyon," does he say, emphatically, in the beautiful 

 preface to his Sylva, '^' I arrived at the shores of the New 

 World ; and after a boisterous and dangerous passage, our 

 dismasted vessel entered the Capes of the Delaware, in the 

 month of April. The beautiful robing of forest scenery, now 

 bursting into vernal life, was exchanged for the monotony of 

 the dreary ocean and the sad sickness of the sea. As we 

 sailed up the Delaware my eyes were riveted on the land- 

 scape with intense admiration. All was new ; and life, like 

 that season, was then full of hope and enthusiasm ; the fo- 

 rests, apparently unbroken in their primeval solitude and re- 

 pose, spread themselves on either hand as we passed placidly 

 along. The extending vista of dark pines gave an air of 

 deep sadness to the wilderness. The deer, brought to bay 

 and plunging into the flood from the pursuit of the Indian, 



