CONIFERiG. 



SUVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



73 



and in 1824, when he published the first and only part of his 

 Flora of the Northern and Middle Sections of the United States, Dr. 

 Torrey was chosen professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geol- 

 ogy in the United States Military Academy at West Point, exchang- 

 ing this position three years later for the chair of chemistry and 

 botany in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, 

 which he filled until 1857, when he resigned it to become United 

 States assayer at New York. As state botanist of New York, 

 Dr. Torrey made a botanical survey of the state, publishing the 

 results in two illustrated volumes in 1843 ; and beginning in 1823 

 with his account of the plants collected by Dr. James in the Rocky 

 Mountains, he was actively engaged until nearly the end of his life 

 in studying and making known the plants collected by the numer- 

 ous government expeditions sent to explore the then unknown 



wilds of western North America. His most important work, The 

 Flora of North America, undertaken in collaboration with Asa 

 Gray, was only half completed, the first volume appearing in two 

 parts in 1838-40, and the second in 1841-43. His herbarium, rich 

 in the type-specimens of all his species and in all the early collec- 

 tions made in the west, and his botanical library, were given by 

 him several years before his death to Columbia College, with which 

 his Medical School had been united and in which he became profes- 

 sor emeritus. 



John Torrey was one of the wisest, most clear-sighted, and indus- 

 trious systematic botanists America has produced, and his name 

 will never be forgotten by students of American plants, many of 

 which he first made known to science. 



