299 



alone seemed wanting, to realize the savage landscape as it 

 appeared to the first settlers of this country." 



That Nuttall had already devoted himself to the study of 

 some branches of natural history, cannot be doubted. Minera- 

 logy seems to have been his earliest and favorite study; but as 

 to Botany, in which he has acquired his great reputation, it is 

 evident, from the following anecdote, related by himself, that 

 he was totally ignorant of its first principles. The morning 

 after his arrival in Philadelphia, anxious to see the surround- 

 ing country, he crossed the High Street Bridge, and walked 

 along the Lancaster Turnpike. In a marshy ground by the 

 road his attention was attracted to a spot where a common 

 Greenbrier [Smilax Rotundifolia) was creeping up a tree. 

 Egad ! said he to himself, there is a Passion-Flower ; and 

 he plucked some branches of it, which he brought home for 

 inquiry. Ilis fellow-boarders could not satisfy him, but re- 

 ferred him to a certain Professor Barton, a great botanist, 

 whose residence was near at hand. Nuttall, without loss of 

 time, and with the branch of the presumed Passion-Flower in 

 his hand, called on Prof. Benjamin Smith Barton, and this 

 first visit decided his vocation to the worship of Flora, to 

 whose shrine he remained devoted to the last day of his life. 



Prof. Barton received Nuttall with his usual politeness ; and 

 struck with the intellectual countenance of the young man, 

 he invited him to a scat, and entered into conversation with 

 him, pointing out the difference between the two genera, 

 Smilax and Passiflora ; and beginning a dissertation upon 

 the principles of Botany, and the infinite pleasure which this 

 beautiful science aff'orded to its votaries. Nuttall, on taking 

 leave of the Professor, felt deeply impressed Avith the words 

 that had fallen from his lips, and from that moment he de- 

 termined to apply himself to the study of plants. 



An intimacy between those two remarkable men was thus 

 the consequence of a great botanical mistake in the future 

 eminent botanist and great explorer of the North American 

 Flora. It was then early in the spring of the year, and 

 during the whole season of flowers, our enthusiastic young 

 naturalist rambled over the neighboring fields, bringing his 



