LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ. 



173 



should be published as their joint production, saying that "the 

 judicious and elaborate amendments he has proposed, and the 

 mass of new and valuable matter he has added, entitle Dr. 

 Torrey to a participation in the authorship of the work." The 

 whole number of species described was one hundred and thir- 

 teen, of which six were new. This and the analytical table of 

 the Carices were both printed in the first volume of the Annals 

 of the Lyceum. In his absence a paper in which he described 

 fifteen new American species of Sphczriaz, one of the largest 

 genera of fungi, was communicated to the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, and appeared in vol. v of its Journal. 



Von Schweinitz was absent till near the end of 1825. After 

 his return he resumed his labours as general agent for the Breth- 

 ren ; the charge of the school, however, had been given up 

 some time before. The great work to which he now devoted 

 his attention was a Synopsis of North American Fungi. He 

 had intended this for publication in one of the European jour- 

 nals, but was induced to present it, in 1831, to the American 

 Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. In this work three 

 thousand and ninety-eight species, belonging to two hundred 

 and forty-six genera, were described, of which twelve hundred 

 and three species and seven genera had been discovered by 

 the author. If to these discoveries we add those made by von 

 Schweinitz in other orders of plants, we have a total of nearly 

 fourteen hundred new species added to botanic science by the 

 talents and industry of a single observer. The whole number 

 of species known at his death was estimated at sixty thousand. 



Until he was about fifty years of age his health had been 

 excellent. But the various and increasing cares of his official 

 position finally had their effect. The sedentary work involved 

 in writing a dissertation on the affairs of his community, which 

 prevented for a time his usual out-of-door exercise, was the im- 

 mediate cause of a severe cough and other alarming symptoms 

 of decline. His spirits, which had been uniformly cheerful, be- 

 came depressed. A journey to the West to establish a branch 

 community of the United Brethren in Indiana was temporarily 

 beneficial, but his system was undermined and the progress of 

 disease could not be stayed. On February 8, 1834, came the 

 end of what his memoirist calls " a life of various, constant, 

 and unobtrusive usefulness." 



A widow and four sons survived him. All the sons entered 



