1887-88.] Professor Asa Gray. 347 



College, Cambridge, in 1842, at the same time tenanting 

 the official residence attached to the curatorship of the 

 College Botanical Gardens, the only considerable addition to 

 the establishment since its foundation in 1805. But Gray 

 was to alter all this in the forty and more busy years spent 

 in the grounds, or in the study subsequently added to the 

 old house, the windows of which looked out on the beds 

 of his favourite order Composit^e, and through which you 

 were almost sure to see him working at botanical specimens 

 at the central table, or bending over a microscope at the 

 east window. A fire-proof building containing the library 

 of 8000 volumes and pamphlets, as well as an herbarium, 

 specially ranking beside the great European establishments 

 of like character, as unique in its illustrations of the flora of 

 America and Japan, were amongst the most prominent results 

 of this wiry single-handed worker with no idle moments. 

 Gray's investigations in systematic botany were chalked out for 

 him by Professor John Torrey. The Flora of North America, 

 vols, i., ii., published in 1838, was his first effort as an author. 

 His herbarium studies embraced this flora from the Arctic 

 islands to Mexico, as well as from ocean to ocean, with 

 descriptions of from 10,000 to 12,000 species. The new 

 Government surveys of the Far AVest, as well as other 

 exploring expeditions, constantly brought in new treasures 

 for description and comparison. Gray held the position of 

 Naturalist to the Wilkes' Exploring Expedition, but he threw 

 the post up when it started. Indeed, excepting journeys to 

 the Alleghanies, California, and New Mexico, his role was 

 that of the systematic botanist in the herbarium. His 

 repeated journeys to Europe were made in this capacity. 

 He married Jane L. Loring in 1848, a lady who materially 

 assisted him in these special labours. The Harvard Herba- 

 rium and Gardens are the best monument of his arduous 

 toils. He also issued in 1866 a single volume containing 

 two parts, with supplements, completing the description of 

 Gamopetalfe of North America, leaving the complete de- 

 scription of the flora of that continent, the ambition of his 

 early years, an unfinished task. A quarto volume, with a 

 superb atlas of plants, constitutes tlie fragmentary botany 

 of the AYilkes' South Pacific Expedition. Further progress 

 was stopped for lack of funds. The Memoir on the Flora 



