THOMAS NUTTALL. 



and 1822, returning to reside permanently in the land of his 

 birth seemed to him like going into exile. He therefore hesi- 

 tated for some time to accept the inheritance, but considera- 

 tion for his sisters and their families finally induced him to 

 take it. Becoming a British landed proprietor did not make 

 Mr. Nuttall wealthy. The Nutgrove estate was encumbered 

 with annuities, besides which there was a heavy income tax to 

 pay. Dr. Pickering and other American friends who visited 

 him found him living in the fashion of a plain farmer, working 

 and eating with his men like one of them. But his interest in 

 botany was not allowed to die out. He made use of the 

 opportunity which the possession of ample grounds afforded 

 for the cultivation of rare plants, especially rhododen- 

 drons, which his nephew, Mr. Thomas J. Booth, brought 

 him from the mountains of Assam and Butan. Various 

 new species of these were described by him in British scien- 

 tific journals. 



Shortly before leaving the United States Nuttall was in- 

 duced to write a supplement to Michaux's Sylva in three vol- 

 umes. In the beautifully written preface to the work his own 

 wanderings are vividly sketched. Owing to various delays the 

 edition was not issued till 1846. 



Nuttall returned only once to America. As he could not 

 be absent more than three months in any one year, he took the 

 last three months of 1847 and the first three of 1848 not a 

 very desirable season for a botanist's outing. Nevertheless, he 

 managed to do some congenial work. He studied at the Phila- 

 delphia Academy the plants brought by Dr. William Gamble 

 from the Rocky Mountains and Upper California, and prepared 

 a paper on them which was published in the journal of the 

 academy. 



His death occurred on September 10, 1859. In his eager- 

 ness to open a case of plants received shortly before from Mr. 

 Booth he overstrained himself, and from that time steadily de- 

 clined until he died. Through his love of Nature, joined with 

 untiring industry and great firmness of purpose, he had raised 

 himself from the condition of an unknown artisan to the fore- 

 most rank of American men of science. No student begins 

 upon the study of systematic botany without being struck by 

 the frequency with which his name is met. His friends and 

 colleagues, Profs. Torrey and Gray, have testified to their ap- 



