460 Reviews and Notices of BooJcs, 



purpurea. To the above names may be added those of the Mar- 

 quis de la Gallissonniere ; Dr. Gaultier, after whom Kalm called 

 a small plant, very common in our woods, the Gaultheria procum- 

 hens, yielding an essential oil used in medicine ; P. Boucher, 

 Governor of Three Rivers, and several others. 



Michaux was very successful in his searches for the native pro- 

 ductions of the vegetable kingdom in Canada, but as the spots 

 where he made his numerous and important discoveries are not 

 always sufficiently described in his works, printed and manuscript, 

 many of the plants have not been met with since, and others are 

 exceedingly rare or still very little known. As most of his time 

 was spent in travelling and herborizing, he did not write much ; 

 thinking that the best way he could serve science was by intro- 

 ducing new plants into Europe. Still he has left a history of the 

 oaks of America, published in Paris in 1801, containing a des- 

 cription of twenty species of this tree; besides notes on his travels, 

 which are scattered through the work of his son, who had accom- 

 panied him in some of his voyages to America ; and a manuscript 

 diary, which the latter presented to the American Philosophical So- 

 ciety of Philadelphia. But his notes and herbaria have furnished 

 materials for a work still more interesting to Canada, — the flora of 

 North America published in Latin by the eminent botanist Claude 

 Louis Richard, in 1803, (the year in which Michaux died,) forming 

 two volumes 8vo, with 52 plates, and in which upwards of lYOO' 

 plants are described. 



Michaux had already visited England, the Pyrenees and Spain, 

 and had brought with him from Persia a splendid collection of 

 plants and seeds, when the French Government, desiring to in- 

 troduce into France some of the trees and shrubs growing in North 

 America, charged him with the mission of procuring them. 



Instructions had been given him to travel over the United 

 States and collect seeds and roots. He arrived in New- York in 

 November 1Y85, from whence during two years he made ex- 

 cursions to New-Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. During 

 the first year, he sent to France twelve boxes of seeds, several 

 thousand specimens of trees, and some Canadian partridges, that 

 multiplied at Versailles. He also laid out a garden near Charles- 

 ton, South Carolina, which was to serve as a starting point for 

 his southern exploration. 



In lYSV, he made a journey to the xilleghany Mountains. 

 Having ascended the Savannah to its source, and found many 

 beautiful plants and several kinds of oaks, he also proceeded to 



