ASA GRAY. 775 



From his training; and early siirrouii(liu<ifs we might have expected 

 bira to be energetic and original, but we should not have expected to 

 find him highly polished and cultured. His associates at Fairfield and 

 Clinton were persons of scientitic tastes, and, even if their attainments 

 were not of the highest quality, they encouraged his fondness for nat- 

 ural history. But it is not easy to see how he obtained the literary 

 training which enabled him to write with the ease and elegance found 

 even in his earlier works, for although a man may by nature be a good ob- 

 server of natural objects, a finished style comes only with training and 

 experience. From his teacher, Avery, he could not have received much 

 in the way of training; for Dr. Gray himself says that he did not give 

 him the sharp drilling and testing which was needed. His residence 

 with the Torrey family in New York tirst placed him in a society where 

 literary excellence as well as scientific knowledge was prized ; and while 

 he profited by the accuracy and strict scientific methods of Dr. Torrey, 

 then the foremost American botanist, the frequent conversations and 

 kindly criticism of Mrs. Torrey made good many of the literary defi- 

 ciencies of his early training. He was also aided while in New York by 

 the criticisms and suggestions made on some of his earlier manuscripts 

 by the cultured botanist, Mr. John Carey. But he must have been an 

 apt pupil, for, while still with Dr. Torrey, he showed that in point of 

 clearness and accuracy he was not much inferior to his highly respected 

 teacher, and in the second volume of the "Flora" he proved himself to 

 be quite his equal. 



The plan of the "Flora ofNorth America" originated with Dr. Torrey; 

 but when his pupil went to (Cambridge to assume the duties of his new 

 I)Osition, neither of them suspected the magnitude of the task which 

 they had undertaken, nor the modifications which the plan must ulti- 

 mately undergo. The pupil was now in a more fortunate position than 

 his teacher, for Gray was henceforth able to devote himself to his fa- 

 vorite science, while Dr. Torrey could only employ his leisure hours in 

 botany. The two volumes of the original Torrey and Gray "Flora" 

 will always remain a memorial of the unbroken friendship of America's 

 two greatest botanists, alike in the spirit which animated their work 

 and in the reverent simplicity of their characters. 



The greater part of Gray's scientific work during the thirty-five years 

 following the completion of the second volume of Torrey and Gray's 

 " Flora," in 1843, had a more or less direct bearing on the contemplated 

 revision and enlargement of that work. Besides the papers printed in 

 the Academy's publications, he wrote a very large number of nu)no- 

 graphs and notes on points connecte<l with the determination and de- 

 scription of new and doubtful species. They are scattered through the 

 proceedings of different learned societies, and the columnsof the Amer- 

 ican Journal of Science, the Torrey Bulletin, Botanical Gazette, the 

 Naturalist, ami other American as well as European journals. One 

 of his most im])ortant works was "(ienera Fh)r;e America* Boreali- 



