ASA GRAY. 753 



him for description ; and in 1854 appeared his Report, in quarto, accom- 

 panied by a folio atlas, containing a liundred plates. 



Gray was three times over the Rocky Mountain region to the Pacific 

 coast. On the second trip he was accompanied by Sir Joseph Hooker ; 

 and an important paper on tlie "Vegetation of the Rocky Mountain 

 Region" by them is published in the Reports of the II ay den Geological 

 Survey for 1878. He was in Europe again in the years 1850-51. A note 

 from Mrs. Gray says, "He went abroad especially for the plants of tlie 

 Wilkes Expedition. After traveling in Switzerland (going up the 

 Rhine to Geneva, where he worked awhile in DeOandolle's herbarium), 

 we went to Munich and saw Martins, and then back to England by 

 Holland. On the first of October we went into Herefordshire to the 

 country place of George Bentham, and spent two months there, Mr. 

 Bentham going over with Dr. Gray the poUection which had been 

 sent out from America, a most generous piece of work." It was at this 

 time, while at the Kew Gardens, near London, that he had the passing 

 introduction to Darwin, alluded to in Darwin's first letter to liim.* 



In 1868 he crossed the ocean the fourth time, going in September and 

 returning in November of the following year. He was hard at work 

 over herbaria at Kew during both autumns, and worked also in Paris, 

 Munich, Geneva, and elsewhere, but with more holiday than in any 

 journey he took, except the last. In this visit he was twice with Dar- 

 win, first in the autumn of 1868, and then in October, 1869. 



After forty years of studying and discriminating among the older 

 species of the continent and their representatives abroad, and of de- 

 scribing species from late discoveries, and of work at classification, with 

 experimental work at Flora-making during the years 1838 to 1843, he 

 was finally ready, in 1878, with the first part of a new North American 

 " Flora," to which he gave the name of "Synoptical Flora of North 

 America." This first part contained the Gamopetalae after the Com- 

 positte. A second part was published in 1884, comprising the Capri- 

 foliacefe to the Oomposit;^ inclusive, or the ground of the second vol- 

 ume of Torrey and Gray's Flora; so that the middle half of the entire 

 Flora is now completed. The two parts cover 974 closely printed pages. 

 "They are masterpieces of clear and concise arrangement, and of com- 

 pactness and beauty' of method, and display great learning and ana- 

 lytical power." The jjrogress of the science since the time of Michaux 

 is well exhibited in the fact that while this author knew 193 species of 

 Compositie when he published his Flora, Gray, seventy-five years later, 

 describes no less than 1,636 species under 239 genera. 



During these years Dr. Gray added to the resources of the instructor 

 in Botany by the publication of his "Manual," a descriptive work 

 including all species growing east of the Mississippi and north of Ten- 

 nessee and North Carolina. It was first issued in 1848, and its fifth and 

 last edition in 1868. The " Elementary Lessons in Botany and Vege- 



*Darwiij'8 Life and Letters, p. 420. 

 H. Mis. 142 48 



