342 Asa Gray: His Life and Work. 



liis illustrious father as Director of the Royal Gardens at 

 Kew, which position he still holds. 



In this brief sketch it will be impossible to follow Dr. 

 Gray closely in his travels, or to enumerate the great men 

 he met during the year he remained abroad. But he 

 returned home full of inspiration, with enlarged views, and 

 well equipped for the work he had in hand. In the 

 yi m erica 71 Jommul of Science (April, 1841) he jmblished a 

 very interesting article, giving an account of tlie herbaria 

 he examined during this visit, commencing with that of 

 Linnaeus, which is told in such a happy manner that it 

 cannot fail to interest all lovers of good reading. In 1842, 

 the' Fellows of Harvard College offered him the Fisher 

 Professorship of Natural History, which had just then 

 been founded under the will of Dr. Fisher. At the time 

 of Dr. Gray's appointment there was no botanical library 

 and no herbarium in the College, and the botanical garden 

 was hardly more than a name. What are they to-day 

 the magnificent library, the great herbarium, and the 

 garden ! Had Dr. Gray done nothing more for the 

 advancement of science tlian the building up of these, this 

 alone would have made him immortal. 



The same year that he was made Professor in the 

 College he published his botanical text-book, "Structural 

 and Systematic Botany," which was by far the most 

 comprehensive and valuable work on botany that had 

 appeared in our country. It has passed through six 

 editions, each improved and almost wholly re-written. The 

 last edition, published in 1879, was entirely re-written. In 

 1848 his "^Manual of tlie Botany of the Northern United 

 States" was printed. For more than thirty years this book 

 has been without a rival. It has been the text-book for all 

 botanists in the Eastern, Middle, and Northern States east 

 of the ]\Iississii)pi. It is so plain and simple in its 

 language that anyone with a natural love of jdants needs 

 no other instructor to enable him to become well-versed in 

 the flora of these regions. The influence that this book 

 has wrought in schools and among the people, in arousing 

 an interest in botany, is beyond calculation. It has passed 

 through five editions and sevei'al issues. In the fli'st 

 edition he expresses his gratitude to Dr. Torrey in the 

 following inscription : 



