32 ESSAYS. 
known especially to English gardens and collections, by Mr. 
John Lyon, whose indefatigable researches are highly spoken 
of by Pursh, Nuttall, and Elliott. It is very probable that he 
had visited the mountains previous to his assuming the charge 
of Mr. Hamilton’s collections near Philadelphia, which he 
resigned to Pursh in 1802. At a later period, however, he 
assiduously explored this region, from Georgia as far north at 
least as the Grandfather Mountain; and died at Asheville in 
Buncombe County, North Carolina, some time between 1814 
and 1818. Iam informed by my friend, the Rev. Mr. Curtis, 
that his journals and a portion of his herbarium were preserved 
at Asheville for many years, and that it is probable that they 
may yet be found. 
Michaux the younger, author of the “Sylva Americana,” 
who accompanied his father in some of his earlier journeys, 
returned to this country in 1801, and crossed the Alleghany 
Mountains twice; first in Pennsylvania on his way to the 
western States, and the next year in North Carolina on his 
return to the seaboard. In crossing from Jonesboro’, Tennes- 
see, to Morganton, by way of Toe River (not Doe River as is 
stated in his Travels), he accidentally stopped at the house of 
Davenport, his father’s guide in these mountains. The obser- 
vations of the younger Michaux on this part of the Alleghany 
Mountains, in a chapter of his Travels devoted to that subject, 
are mainly accurate. 
“In the beginning of 1805,” Pursh, as he states in the 
preface to his Flora, “ set out for the mountains and western 
territories of the southern States, beginning at Maryland and 
extending to the Carolinas (in which tract the interesting 
high mountains of Virginia and Carolina took my particular 
attention), and returning late in the autumn through the 
lower countries along the seacoast to Philadelphia.” This 
plan, however, was not fully carried out, since he does not 
appear to have crossed the Alleghanies into the great western 
valley, nor to have botanized along these mountains farther 
south than where the New River crosses the valley of Virginia. 
At any rate, it is certain that the original tickets of his speci- 
mens in the herbarium of the late Professor Barton, under 
