815 



roam thousands of miles all over North America, in times 

 when it was really dangerous to do so, should now attach im- 

 portance to and speak emphatically of having derived great 

 satisfaction of a single visit to Ireland, and further, should 

 have never visited the continent of Europe, close at hand. 



Mr. Nuttall spent the last seventeen years of his life on his 

 estate of Nutgrove, employing his time in the culture of rare 

 plants, and especially Rhododendrons, which his nephew, Mr. 

 Thomas J. Booth, had brought with him from the mountainous 

 districts of Assam and Bootan, in Eastern Asia, and the 

 new species of which he has published, at different times, in 

 British scientific periodicals. At last, after a long and la- 

 borious life, entirely devoted to science, the great explorer of 

 American botany met with an accident which ultimately 

 resulted in his death. In his eagerness to open a case of 

 plants which he had just received from Mr. Booth, he unfor- 

 tunately overstrained himself, and from the time of his injury 

 he gradually sunk and died, on the 10th of September last 

 (1859), at the age of seventy-three, leaving, I am told, his 

 estate and collections to his nephew and pupil, Thomas J. 

 Booth, like himself an ardent naturalist and daring explorer. 



Through his love of study, firmness of mind and devotion 

 to the natural sciences, Mr. Nuttall raised himself, from the 

 condition of a mere artisan, to the exalted position of a highly 

 scientific man. No other explorer of the botany of North 

 America has, personally, made more discoveries ; no writer 

 on American plants, except perhaps Professor Asa Gray, has 

 described more new genera and species. His name will live 

 as long as our Flora remains an object of study, and will be 

 perpetuated, among the cherished objects of his particular 

 attention, in a beautiful genus of the order Rosacese, Nuttallia 

 cerasiformisj which his friends and colleagues. Professors Tor- 

 rey and Gray, have dedicated to him. Let this great naturalist 

 be set up as an example to young men similarly disposed, and 

 an evidence that steadiness in the pursuit of knowledge will 

 have its reward, and may lead to eminence. Honor to the 

 memory of him to whom science is so much indebted, who so 

 long lived in our midst, respected and loved for his usefulness, 

 his unaffected manners, and amiability in the social circle ! 



