WILLIAM HENRY HARVEY. 133 



guide to the American student of Mgce^ and one of the most popular ass well as 

 useful of the very various contributions to knowledge which the well-managed 

 bequest of Smithson has given to the world. 



Before the last part of the Nereis Boreali- Americana was published, Professor 

 Harvey had sought a wider field of scientific labor and observation. Obtaining 

 a long leave of absence, and some assistance from the university in addition to 

 the continuance of his salary, he left England in August, 1853, by the overland 

 route for Australia, stopping at Aden and Ceylon to collect ; he visited the east, 

 south, and west coasts of Australia, as well as Tasmania. Taking advantage of 

 a missionary ship which was to cruise among the South Sea islands, and which 

 offered him unexpected facilities, he visited the Fiji, Navigators', and Friendly 

 islands, touching also at New Zealand. Returning to Sydney he sailed to Val- 

 paraiso, which he reached much prostrated through over-exertion in a warm cli- 

 mate ; and when recuperated he returned home by way of the Isthmus, arriving 

 in October, 1856. The algological collections of these three laborious years, or 

 the Australian portion of them, formed the subject of Professor Harvey's third 

 great illustrated work, and one of the most exquisite of the kind, the Phycologia 

 Australica, the serial publication of which began in 1858, and was concluded 

 in 1863, in five imperial octavo volumes, each of 60 colored plates. All but the 

 last century of plates were put upon stone by the author. 



Upon Dr. Harvey's return, in 1856, from his long expedition, he found the 

 chair of botany in the University of Dublin vacated by the appointment of Dr. 

 Allman to that of natm'al history in the University of Edinburg, and he was at 

 once prefeiTcd to the position which he had sotight when 3"ounger and freer, and 

 which he now occupied till his death. The exhausting duties of tliis chair, and 

 of that which he still held in the Royal Dublin Society, undiminished \)j the 

 transference to the Government Museum of Irish Industry, did not prevent Pro- 

 fessor Harvey from entering with unabated ardor upon an undertaking of greater 

 magnitude than any preceding one. This was the Flora Capcnsis, a full sys- 

 tematic account of all the plants of the Cape Colony and the adjacent provinces 

 of Caffraria and Natal, in which he was associated with Dr. Sonder, of Ham- 

 burg. Three thick octavo volumes of this work have appeared, the last in 

 1865, including the CompositcE. Along with this Dr. Harvey — learning for the 

 purpose another form of lithographic drawing — brought out, between the years 

 1859 and 1864, two volumes of his Thesaurus Capensis, or Illusf rat ions of the 

 South African Flora, comprising 200 plates of interesting phsenogamous plants. 

 A complete list of his publications would include several contributions to scientific 

 periodicals, mainly to Hooker's Journal of Botany, and a few miscellaneous 

 writings. 



In April, 1861, Dr. Harvey married Miss Phelps of Limerick. If not robust, 

 he was apparently in good health, in the full maturity of his powers, and, it was 

 hoped, only at the noonday of his allotted course of usefulness. But ere the lec- 

 ture season of that summer was over, an attack of hsemon-hage from the lungs 

 gave notice of a serious pulmouar}^ disease. Yet he seemed to recover from this 

 almost completely ; he resumed his stated work and gave his lectures as usual in 

 1863, and also in the spring of the following jeax, but with some difficulty. The 

 winter and spring of 1864-5 were spent in the south of France, with only tran- 

 sient benefit. Returning to his home and his herbarium he worked on still at 

 the Cape Flora, with cheerful spirit and feeble hands, tmtil he could work no 

 longer. Last spring he sought in Devonshire a milder air, and found a peaceful 

 rest. "On Tuesday, the 15th of May, 1866, at the age of 55 years, he quietly 

 breathed his last at the residence of Lady Hooker, the widow of his long attached 

 friend Sir William J. Hooker, surrounded by kind and anxious relatives and 

 friends, and was buried in the cemetery at Torquay, on Saturday the 19th of 

 May." 



