JET. 25.] TO JOHN TORREY. 33 



of all within hearing. He admitted that it was one 

 of the best lessons in the art of writing he ever had. 



Dr. Gray, writing for the " New York World " an 

 obituary notice of John Carey, on his death in 1880, 

 says of him, after a short sketch of his life : 



" Mr. Carey was a man of marked gifts, accom- 

 plishments, and individuality. His name will long be 

 remembered in American botany. There are few of 

 his contemporaries in this country who have done 

 more for it than he, although he took little part in 

 independent publication. His critical knowledge and 

 taste and his keen insight were most useful to me in 

 my earlier days of botanical authorship. He wrote 

 several valuable articles for the journals, and when, in 

 1848, my 4 Manual of Botany ' was produced, he 

 contributed to it the two most difficult articles, that 

 on the willows and that on the sedges. . . . 



" Being fondly attached to his memory, and almost 

 the last survivor of the notable scientific circle which 

 Mr. Carey adorned, I wish to pay this feeble tribute 

 to the memory of a worthy botanist and a most genial, 

 true-hearted, and good man." 



It is to be regretted that Dr. Gray's letters to his 

 old friend are no longer in existence. 



His correspondence with Sir William Jackson 

 Hooker, then professor at Glasgow, Scotland, began 

 in 1835. 



TO JOHN TORREY. 

 BRIDGEWATEB, ONEIDA COUNTY, N. Y., January 1, 1831. 



DEAR SIK, I received your letter, through Pro- 

 fessor Hadley, a few weeks since, and I embrace the 

 earliest opportunity of transmitting a few specimens 

 of those plants of which you wished a further supply. 



