114 Dr. Hooker on American Botany. 



volumes octavo, with fifty-one neat plates in outlines. The 

 anonymous editor, and indeed he may justly be considered 

 the author, was the eminent Claude Louis Richard, late pro- 

 fessor of botany at the School of Medicine in Paris, and un T 

 questionably one of the most profound botanists that Europe 

 has ever known. The whole is in Latin, and, as may be sup- 

 posed, the proportional number of new species is extremely 

 large, and certainly considered as the first Flora of so exten- 

 sive a country as North America ; it confers the highest cre- 

 dit on the industry and acuteness of Michaux. 



Long before the publication of this work, another natu- 

 ralist, Frederick Pursh, a Pole, we believe, by birth, but 

 educated in Dresden, instigated by the richness of the vege- 

 tation, and the hope of making numerous discoveries, re- 

 solved to visit North America, and carried his plan into exe- 

 cution in 1799, when he embarked for Baltimore, in Mary- 

 land, with the resolution not to return to Europe till he had 

 examined the country, and collected materials to the utmost 

 extent of his means and abilities ; and it is certain that he 

 did this under many and great disadvantages. His travels 

 were extensive ; for he remained nearly twelve years in Ame- 

 rica, and in two summers only he went over an extent of 

 country equal to 6000 miles, principal!}' on foot, and with 

 no companion save a dog and his gun. From the first four 

 or five years of his residence in America, Pursh seems to have 

 been chiefly employed in collecting plants about Philadel- 

 phia, and in receiving them from his correspondents for culti- 

 vation in his gardens there. In 1805, he explored the west- 

 ern territories of the southern states, including the high 

 mountains of Virginia and Carolina ; and in 1806, he went 

 through many of the northern States, commencing with the 

 mountains of Pennsylvania, and extending his investigations 

 to those of New Hampshire, embracing the country of the 

 lesser and great lakes. 



But the most important of the advantages to which I al- 

 lude, were derived by Pursh's personal acquaintance with, 

 and communications from, various botanists, who about this 

 time were to be found in different parts of the United 

 States. 



