Gross.] 182 [November. 



and fame after his death. Such acts are a beautiful reflection of the 

 purity and unselfishness of the soul of science. 



His love for his favorite science was so great, his desire for a diifu- 

 sion of its knowledge so ardent, that he gave away not only all that 

 he could spare from his own magnificent herbarium, but was a con- 

 stant subscriber to all the North American collections within his 

 reach. He planned and effectually aided several distant and diffi- 

 cult botanical explorations; and he purchased, at a liberal price, the 

 rich herbarium of Berlandier, the fruit of extensive researches in 

 Texas and Mexico. 



He had a large and select library, containing about 3000 volumes, 

 one-fourth of which were rare and costly botanical works, of which 

 he was very fond. He possessed a fine literary taste, and always 

 perused the choicest books. He had, however, a higher opinion of 

 the authors of the past than those of the present generation, esteem- 

 ing Fielding and Sir Walter Scott as far superior to the moderns. 

 The latter was his great favorite ; he had the best editions of his 

 works, and a volume of them was always to be found upon his table. 

 Several magnificent engravings of Sir Walter hung about the house, 

 and he was very familiar with his life and character as drawn by 

 Lockhart. Notwithstanding his love of classical and scientific knowl- 

 edge, he was very fond of mechanical pursuits, and often amused 

 himself in binding his loose papers into volumes, constructing the 

 wooden cases for his plants, and making various little alterations and 

 repairs about the place. 



The writings of Dr. Short are extremely limited. If collected in 

 book-form they would hardly fill a duodecimo volume of three hun- 

 dred pages. They relate, for the most part, to botanical topics, and 

 consist principally of articles contributed to the " Transylvania Jour- 

 nal of Medicine," of which, as already stated, he was for some time 

 an editor. They all evince the accuracy and good taste which he 

 carried into everything he attempted. In 1826, soon after his ap- 

 pointment to the chair of Materia Medica in Transylvania University, 

 he commenced, in that journal, the publication of a series of papers 

 designed to illustrate the nature of the vegetable productions of the 

 neighborhood of Lexington and the circumjacent parts of Kentucky. 

 He became particularly impressed with the want of such a guide 

 while engaged, during the previous summer, in delivering, to a small 

 class of students, a course of lectures on botany. His object was to 

 furnish a complete local flora, similar in principle to that of Dr. Dar- 

 lington, of the plants of West Chester, Pennsylvania. The only 

 two systematic treatises on American botany then extant were those 



