A CENTURY OF BOTANY IN INDIANA. 237 



because, as he said, horses were never made for botanists, and his impression 

 of his travel through the primeval Indiana forest is as follows: 



"Mosquitoes and fleas will often anoy you or suck your blood if you stop 

 or leave a hurried step. Gnats dance before your eyes, and often fall in unless 

 you shut them; insects creep on you and into your ears. Ants crawl on you 

 whenever you rest on the ground ; wasps will assail you like furies if you touch 

 their nests. But ticks, the worst of all, are unavoidable when you go among 

 bushes, and stick to you in crowds, filling your skin with pimples and sores. 

 Spiders, gallineps, horse-flies, and other obnoxious insects, will often beset 

 you or sorely hurt you." 



Rafinesque was not only a pioneer in the study of Indiana plants, but also 

 a pioneer in the use of the laboratory method in teaching science. He was 

 the first teacher of natural history west of the AUeghenies, his one academic 

 position being that of Professor of Natural History and the Modern Lan- 

 guages in Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky. He thought 

 that his students should be introduced to the actual things studied ; and so he 

 brought plants into the class-room. This was such an innovation in the method 

 of the time that the faculty could not stand for it. They voted that such 

 unseemly conduct must be discontinued, and the action as taken reads as 

 follows, according to the documents referred to. "This practice must be 

 discontinued, since it breaks up the discipline of the class-room, diverts the 

 attention of students from more serious things, and is more entertaining than 

 instructive." 



Other botanists touched Indiana casually during the general period of 

 Rafinesque, and for that reason may be associated with him as forming a 

 pioneer group. It seems that Michaux, a conspicuous name in the early 

 history of American botany, visited Indiana in 1795, spending a part of August 

 in journeying from Clark's Hill to Vincennes. He recorded about 20 plants 

 as having been discovered in Indiana. 



In the summer of 1816, contemporaneous with Rafinesque, David Thomas 

 made his way along the Ohio from the eastern part of Indiana, and finally 

 reached Vincennes, and records the names of 95 plants. 



In 1818, shortly after Rafinesque had entered Indiana, Nuttall, the pre- 

 decessor of Asa Gray at Harvard, journeyed down the Ohio, his recorded 

 stops being at Lawreneeburg, Rising Sun, Vevay, Troy and some place near 

 Newburg. 



Such was the beginning of botany in Indiana. It was the phase of botany 

 that naturally precedes every other phase in an unexplored country, and a 

 century ago all the world needed exploration so far as plants were concerned. 

 For the next 65 years, approximately, botany in Indiana developed as it 

 was developing everywhere in the United States. A botanist was necessarily a 

 taxonomist; not only that, but his taxonomy was restricted to vascular 

 plants, and chiefly to flowering plants. A few of the earlier publications 

 including Indiana plants will indicate the various methods of attack. 



8432 — 16 ' 



