JOHN TORREY. 363 
Dr. Torrey took an early and prominent part in the inves- 
tigation of the United States species of the vast genus Carex, 
which has ever since been a favorite study in this country. 
His friend, Von Schweinitz, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 
placed in his hands and desired him to edit, during the au- 
thor’s absence in Europe, his “ Monograph of North Amer- 
ican Carices.” It was published in the “ Annals of the New 
York Lyceum,” in 1825, much extended, indeed almost wholly 
rewritten, and so much to Schweinitz’s satisfaction that he 
insisted that this classical monograph “ should be considered 
and quoted in all respects as the joint production of Dr. Tor- 
rey and himself.” Ten or eleven years later, in the succeed- 
ing volume of the “ Annals of the New York Lyceum,” 
appeared Dr. Torrey’s elaborate Monograph of the other 
North American Cyperacee, with an appended revision of 
the Carices, which meanwhile had been immensely increased 
by the collections of Richardson, Drummond, etc., in British 
and arctic America. A full set of these was consigned to his 
hands for study (along with other important collections), by 
his friend Sir William Hooker, upon the occasion of a visit 
which he made to Europe in 1833. But Dr. Torrey gener- 
ously turned over the Carices to the late Professor Dewey, 
whose rival Caricography is scattered through forty or fifty 
volumes of the “ American Journal of Science and Arts”; 
and so had only to sum up the results in this regard, and add 
a few southern species at the close of his own monograph of 
the order. 
About this time, namely, in the year 1836, upon the organi- 
zation of a geological survey of the State of New York upon 
an extensive plan, Dr. Torrey was appointed botanist, and 
was required to prepare a Flora of the State. A laborious 
undertaking it proved to be, involving a heavy sacrifice of 
time, and postponing the realization of long-cherished plans. 
But in 1848, after much discouragement, the “ Flora of the 
State of New York,” the largest if by no means the most im- 
portant of Dr. Torrey’s works, was completed and published, 
in two large quarto volumes, with one hundred and sixty-one 
plates. No other State of the Union has produced a Flora to 
