THOMAS NUTTALL. 2O? 



not at first admit him, believing that he had the smallpox, 

 and it was with great difficulty that he convinced them of the 

 contrary. 



Returning from this trip, he made the acquaintance of Mr. 

 John Bradbury, a Scotch naturalist, who had come to America 

 to collect objects of natural history in the interior. Nuttall 

 eagerly offered to accompany Bradbury, and his proposition 

 was accepted. Proceeding to St. Louis, they set out from that 

 city on the last day of December, 1809, crossed the Kansas and 

 Platte Rivers, passed through the Mandan villages, where 

 Lewis and Clarke had spent the winter of i8o4-'o5, and as- 

 cended the Missouri River still higher, returning after an ex- 

 perience full of the greatest fatigues and dangers. They were 

 pursued and robbed by the Indians, and Bradbury, who was 

 captured by them, only saved himself from being killed by 

 taking his watch to pieces and distributing the works among 

 them. Nuttall, overcome by fatigue and hunger in the wilder- 

 ness, laid himself down to die, but was found by a friendly In- 

 dian, who took him in his canoe down the Missouri to the first 

 settlement of white men. In spite of these misadventures, he 

 was able to bring with him on his return, in the beginning 

 of 1811, ample treasures of seeds, plants, minerals, and other 

 natural objects. 



For the next eight years he remained in Philadelphia, dur- 

 ing the winter months studying the collections made by him in 

 summer excursions to various parts of the country east of the 

 Mississippi, from the Great Lakes to Florida. Being absorbed 

 in his studies and naturally reserved, Nuttall's social inter- 

 course was limited. The families of the botanists and horti- 

 culturists of the time in Philadelphia Prof. Barton, Zaccheus 

 Collins, Reuben Haines, McMahon, from whom he named his 

 genus Mahonia^ William Bartram, and Colonel Carr were 

 almost his only acquaintances. To these he made visits, often 

 of several days, from time to time. In Colonel Carr's house a 

 room was expressly reserved for him. During this period he 

 prepared also the descriptions for his Genera of the North 

 American Plants. Upon this work, which appeared in 1818, 

 the reputation of Mr. Nuttall as a botanist principally rests. 

 Prof. Torrey, in the preface to his Flora, declared that it had 

 "contributed more than any other work to the advance of the 

 accurate knowledge of the plants of this country." Nuttall 



