248 ESSAYS. 
been rapid. The despatch is wonderful. One can hardly 
understand the ground of the statement made by Lambert to 
my former colleague, Dr. Torrey, that he was obliged to shut 
Pursh up in his house in order to keep him at his work. 
I know not how Pursh was occupied for the next four years, 
nor when he came to Canada. But he died here at Montreal, 
in 1820, at the early age of forty-six. More is probably 
known of him here. If I rightly remember, his grave has 
been identified, and a stone placed upon it inscribed to his 
memory.! A tradition has come down to us— and it is partly 
confirmed by a statement which Lambert used to make, in 
reference to the vast quantity of beer he had to furnish during 
the preparation of the Flora—that, in his latter days, our 
predecessor was given to drink, and that his days were thereby 
shortened. 
In Pursh’s Flora we begin to have plants from the Great 
Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific coast, although 
the collections were very scanty. The most important one 
which fell into Pursh’s hands was that of about 150 specimens, 
gathered by Lewis and Clark on their homeward journey from 
the mouth of the Columbia River. A larger collection, more 
leisurely made on the outward journey, was lost. Menzies in 
Vancouver’s voyage had botanized on the Pacific coast, both 
in California and much farther north. Some of his plants 
were seen by Pursh in the Banksian herbarium, and taken 
up. I may here say that in the winter of 1838-39 I had the 
pleasure of making the acquaintance of the venerable Menzies, 
then about ninety-five years old. 
In the Supplement, Pursh was able to include a considerable 
1 In the Canadian Naturalist, Principal Dawson gives a brief account 
of the transference of the remains of Pursh from’a grave-yard below 
Montreal, in which they were interred, to the beautiful Mount Royal 
Cemetery, where they rest in a lot purchased for the purpose and under 
aneat and durable granite monument, provided by the naturalists of 
Montreal and their friends. A small company of botanists, led by Dr. 
Dawson, visited the spot shortly after the reading of this paper. We 
learned that Pursh had botanized largely in Canada, in view of a Canadian 
Flora, and that his collections were consumed by a fire at Quebec shortly 
before his death, to his extreme discouragement. 
