JOHN TOR KEY. 861 



he reported to the Lyceum of Natural History — of which 

 he was one of the founders — his "Catalogue of the Plants 

 growing spontaneously within Thirty Miles of the City of 

 New York," which was published two years later ; and he was 

 already, or very soon after, in correspondence with Kurt 

 Sprengel and Sir James Edward Smith abroad, as well as 

 with Elliott, Nuttall, Schweinitz, and other American bota- 

 nists. Two mineralogical articles were contributed by him to 

 the very first volume of the " American Journal of Science 

 and Arts " (1818-1819), and several others appeared a few 

 years later, in this and in other journals. 



Elliott's " Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Geor- 

 gia " was at this time in course of publication, and Dr. Torrey 

 planned a counterpart systematic work upon the botany of 

 the northern States. The result of this was his " Flora of 

 the Northern and Middle Sections of the United States," i. e., 

 north of Virginia, — which was issued in parts, and the first 

 volume concluded in the summer of 1824. In this work Dr. 

 Torrey first developed his remarkable aptitude for descriptive 

 botany, and for the kind of investigation and discrimination, 

 the tact and acumen, which it calls for. Only those few — 

 now, alas, very few — surviving botanists who used this book 

 through the following years can at all appreciate its value and 

 influence. It was the fruit of those few but precious years 

 which, seasoned with pecuniary privation, are in this country 

 not rarely vouchsafed to an investigator, in which to prove 

 his quality before he is haply overwhelmed with professional 

 or professorial labors and duties. 



In 1824, the year in which the first volume (or nearly half) 

 of his Flora was published, he married Miss Eliza Robin- 

 son Shaw, of New York, and was established at West Point, 

 having been chosen professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and 

 geology in the United States Military Academy. Three years 

 later he exchanged this chair for that of chemistry and bot- 

 any (practically that of chemistry only, for botany had al- 

 ready been allowed to fall out of the medical curriculum in 

 this country) in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New 

 York, then in Barclay Street. The Flora of the Northern 



