Botanical Excursion to the Mountains of North Carolina. 3 
made such important discoveries. For this purpose, I am for- 
tunately supplied with sufficient materials, having had the op- 
portunity of consulting the original journals of Michaux, pre- 
sented by his son to the American Philosophical Society. I am 
indebted for this privilege, to the kindness of John Vaughan, 
Eisq., the Secretary of the society, who directed my attention to 
these manuscripts, and permitted me to extract freely whatever 
I.deemed useful or interesting. The first fasciculus of the diary 
is wanting ; but we learn from a chance record, as well as from 
published sources,* that he embarked at L’Orient on the 29th of 
September, 1785, and arrived at New York on the 13th of No- 
vember. The private journal from which the following infor- 
mation is derived, commences in April, 1787; prior to which 
date he had established two gardens, or nurseries, to receive his 
collections of living plants, until they could be conveniently 
transported to France—one in New Jersey, near the city of New 
York; the other about ten miles from Charleston, South Caro- 
lina. Into the latter, it appears, he introduced some exotic trees, 
which he thought suitable to the climate; and the younger Mi- 
chaux, who visited this garden several years afterwards, men- 
tions two Ginkgos (Salisburia adiantifolia), which in seven 
years had attained an elevation of thirty feet ; also some fine spe- 
cimens of Sterculia platanifolia, and a large number of young 
plants of Mimosa Julibrissin, propagated from a tree which his 
father had broyght from Europe. “From this 3 stock, aoa ai 
latter has been disseminated throug 
is beginning to be naturalized in many places. ~ 
» Lhave no means of ascertaining what portions of the country 
Michaux had visited previously to April, 1787, when he set out 
from Charleston on his first journey to the Alleghany Mountains, 
by way of Savannah, ascending the river of that name to its 
sources in the Cherokee country, and following very nearly the 
route > taken by Bartram eleven years before.t He reached the 
x4 * Vide Michaux, Flora Boreali- Americana ; Introd. See also # Sketch of the 
oS Botany in Western Ansrice, by Dr. gh the Transylvania 
ant informed: that an interesting notice of Michanx j is contained in the Sth volume 
9 9f the Dictionnaire ede Botanique, (under the head of Penge) 
a work which enfilaanatoly I am not able at this moment to consult, 
nara oe accompanied by his son, wbo shorty 2 
