WILLIAM HENRY HARVEY. 133 



guide to the American student of AlgfV, and one of the most popular as well as 

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

 bequest of Smithson has given to the world. 



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

 Harvey had sought a wider field of scientific labor and observation. OV)taining 

 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, stop[)ing 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 whicli 

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

 islands, touching also at New Zealand. Returning to Sj'dney 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 

 AustraJica^ the serial publication of which liegan 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 natural history in the University of Edinburg, and he was at 

 once preferred to the position which he had sought when younger and freer, and 

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

 of that which he still held in the Royal Dublin Society, undiminished by the 

 transference to the Government Museiun 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 Avas 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 

 I860, including the Compositfe. Along with this Dr. Harvey — learning for the 

 purjiose another foiin of lithographic drawing — brought out, between the years 

 1859 and 1864, two volumes of his Thesaurus Capensis, or III nstrttf ions of the 

 South African Flora, comprising 200 plates of interesting phanogamous 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 haemorrhage from the lungs 

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

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

 186.3, and also in the spring of the following 3'ear, l)ut with some difiiculty. 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 hei-barium he worked on still at 

 the Cape Flora, with cheerful spirit and feeble haiids, until 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." 



