210 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



uted papers to the various scientific periodicals of the time, and 

 issued a little book entitled An Introduction to Systematic and 

 Physiological Botany. 



About the beginning of 1833 Mr. Nuttall went to Philadel- 

 phia with a collection of plants gathered by Captain Wyeth 

 during a journey overland to the Pacific Ocean. Captain 

 Wyeth was soon to start on a second expedition, to establish 

 posts for the Columbia Fishing and Trading Company, and 

 Nuttall wished to accompany him. Not being able to obtain 

 a sufficiently long leave of absence from Cambridge, he re- 

 signed his position at the college and spent the interval be- 

 fore the departure of the expedition in Philadelphia studying 

 the collection already referred to and his own Arkansas plants. 



Mr. Nuttall and Mr. John K. Townsend, a young natural- 

 ist sent out jointly by the American Philosophical Society and 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences, joined Captain Wyeth's party 

 at Independence, Mo., from which place the start was made 

 April 28, 1834. The details of the journey are given in Town- 

 send's Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains 

 to the Columbia River, etc. On September 3d they came to 

 the Columbia, and, descending it, reached Fort Vancouver. 

 Here the two naturalists remained for the rest of the autumn 

 to explore the surrounding region. Then desiring to pass the 

 winter months where inclemency of the season would not in- 

 terfere with their pursuits, they took passage on a Boston brig 

 for the Sandwich Islands, where they arrived January 5, 



1835- 



Here for the first time Mr. Nuttall enjoyed the beauties of 



a tropical vegetation. He remained two months collecting 

 plants and seashells on the several islands, and then, separat- 

 ing from his companion, sailed for California. He spent a 

 great part of the spring and summer on the Pacific coast, then 

 returned to the Sandwich Islands, where he embarked on a 

 Boston vessel to come home by way of Cape Horn. It hap- 

 pened to be the ship on which Mr. Dana was serving his " two 

 years before the mast," and the latter relates in his book that 

 when rounding Cape Horn Nuttall's passion for flowers was 

 aroused by the near view of land. He entreated the captain to 

 put him ashore, if only for a few hours, that he might become 

 acquainted with the vegetation of this dreary spot, although 

 the wind was blowing furiously and the ship was surrounded 



