Gross.] 184 [November. 



study of natural history," says he, " has been for many years the 

 occupation of my leisure moments ; it is a merited tribute to say that 

 it has lightened for me many a heavy and smoothed many a rugged 

 hour; that, beguiled by its charms, 1 have found no road solitary, 

 rough or difficult, no journey tedious, no country desolate or barren. 

 In solitude never solitary, in a desert never without employment, I 

 have found it a relief from the languor of idleness, the pressure of 

 business, and the unavoidable calamities of life." 



In 1836 he cootributed an article on Botanical Bibliography, com- 

 prising a notice of some of the more recent treatises on American 

 botany. When this paper was published upwards of twenty years 

 had elapsed since he had entered upon his favorite study with hardly 

 any works to guide him. Now he was able to refer the young votary 

 to the admirable productions of Torrey, Drummond, Hooker, Beck, 

 Gray, and others; men who, like himself, have accomplished so much 

 in diffusing a taste for the cultivation of this " amiable science," and 

 whose names will be forever honorably associated with the progress 

 of natural history in the United States. 



The Bibliographia Botanica was speedily followed by " A Second 

 Supplementary Catalogue of the Plants of Kentucky," a paper based 

 upon his botanical explorations of that State in 1835, and embracing 

 an account of nearly two hundred species added to the number pre- 

 viously described by him. A considerable number of these plants 

 had either been unknown or had never been introduced into any of 

 the systematic treatises on American botany. 



Then followed a " Sketch of the Progress of Botany in Western 

 America," a short but most instructive article, affording a full ac- 

 count of the improvements in our botanical knowledge since the com- 

 mencement of the present century. The interest of the article is 

 greatly enhanced by the fact that it is interspersed with brief sketches 

 of the lives and services of our most distinguished botanists. Soon 

 after this appeared his '' Third Supplementary Catalogue of the 

 Plants of Kentucky," comprising a brief description of the plants 

 observed by him since the publication of his former contributions to 

 the subject. 



In 1845 he wrote a paper, entitled "Observations on the Botany 

 of Illinois." It was addressed, in the form of a letter, to one of his 

 colleagues, Dr. Drake, and was published in the " Western Journal 

 of Medicine and Surgery," edited by that distinguished teacher and 

 philosopher. It was, if I do not err, his last contribution to a medi- 

 cal periodical, — probably the last he ever composed. It was written 

 with special reference to the autumnal flora of the prairies. In the 



