ASA GRAY. 747 



Jersey and western and northern New York. His first published paper 

 is uiineralogical, — an account of his discoveries (along with Dr. J. B. 

 Crawe) of new mineral localities in northern New York. It is con- 

 tained in the twenty-fifth volume of the American Journal of Science,* 

 and the title gives Utica as his place of residence. He had previously 

 made excursions after i)lants, fossils and minerals in New Jersey, and 

 in 1834 joined Dr. Torre}^ in botanizing, besides collecting for him in 

 the " pine barrens" of New Jersey and other places. 



In the autumn of 1834 Gray accepted the position of assistant to Dr. 

 Torrey in the chemical laboratory of the Medical School of New York. 

 Botany was at first his study tinder Dr. Torrey, but soon his work ivith 

 Dr. Torrey; and here commenced their long-united labors and publi- 

 cations. From the first he showed himself an adept in his methods of 

 investigation and in his terse and mature style of scientific description. 

 During the year 1834, while Torrey was preparing his monograph on 

 the North American sedges, the CyperaceiB, Gray had in hand an illus- 

 trated memoir on the genus Rhynchospora, in which he doubled the 

 number of known North American species; and another also on "New, 

 rare, and otherwise interesting plants of northern and western New 

 York." Both papers were read before the Lyceum of Natural History 

 of New York in December of that year (1834), and are published in 

 volume III of the Annals of the Lyceum. Dr.Torrey's monograph was 

 read on the 8th of August, 1836 ; and in it he says that the part on 

 the genera Rhynchospora and Ceratoschcenus was prepared by Dr. 

 Gray, and that his descriptions are so full, that he gives only his list of 

 the species, with such alterations as he has thought it advisable to 

 make, and some additional matter received since the publication of his 

 paper. During 1834, 1835, two volumes of a work on North American 

 Gramineje and Cyperacete were issued by him, (each containing a hun- 

 dred species, and illustrated by dried specimens,) — now rare volumes, 

 as only a small edition was published through private subscription. 

 The first of these volumes, issued in February, 1834, only three years 

 after his graduation at the Fairfield Medical School, is dedicated to 

 his instructor and friend Dr. James Hadley. The preface acknowl- 

 edges his indebtedness to Dr. Torrey and to Dr. Henry P. Sartwell, of 

 Penn Yan. Of the species described as new in the work, the first one. 

 No. 20, from specimens collected by Dr. Sartwell, turned out to be 

 Nuttal's Calamagrostis confinis. But the next one. No. 28, Panicum 

 xanthophymm^ from the vicinity of Oneida Lake, stands and is the 

 first of the thousands of good Asa-Gray species. Thus Gray's botani- 

 cal investigations were well begun before his twenty-fifth year had 

 passed. 



*Page 346. The article is in the second number of the volume, which was issued 

 Jaunary 1, and is without date ; the one following it is dated September G, 1833. 

 The paper therefore was probably written in the autumn of 1833, after a summer's 

 excursion. 



