24 ESS A YS. 



to extract freely whatever I deemed useful and interesting. 

 The first fasciculus of the diary is wanting; but we learn 

 from a chance record, as well as from published sources, 1 

 that he embarked at L'Orient on the 29th of September, 

 1785, and arrived in New York on the 13th of November. 

 The private journal from which the following information is 

 derived commences in April, 1787 ; prior to which date he 

 had established two gardens, or nurseries, to receive his col- 

 lections of living plants until they could be conveniently 

 transported to France : one in New Jersey, near the city of 

 New York ; the other about ten miles from Charleston, 

 South Carolina. Into the latter it appears he introduced 

 some exotic trees, which he thought suitable to the climate ; 

 and the younger Michaux, who visited this garden several 

 years afterwards, mentions two Ginkgos QSalisburia adianti- 

 folia), which in seven years had attained an elevation of 

 thirty feet ; also some fine specimens of Sterculia platani- 

 folia, and a large number of young plants of Mimosa Juli- 

 brissin, propagated from a tree which his father had brought 

 from Europe. From this stock, probably, the latter has been 

 disseminated throughout the southern States, and is begin- 

 ning to be naturalized in many places. 



1 have no means of ascertaining what portions of the coun- 

 try Michaux had visited previously to April, 1787, when he 

 set out from Charleston on his first journey to the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains, by way of Savannah, ascending the river of 

 that name to its sources in the Cherokee country, and follow- 

 ing very nearly the route taken by Bartram eleven years be- 

 fore. 2 He reached the sources of the Keowee River on the 



i See Michaux, " Flora Boreali- Americana " ; Introduction. See also 

 "A Sketch of the Progress of Botany in Western America," by Dr. 

 Short, in the " Transylvania Journal of Medicine," No. 35 ; and in 

 Hooker's " Journal of Botany " for November, 1840. I am informed that 

 an interesting notice of Michaux is contained in the 8th volume of the 

 " Dictionnaire Encvelopedique de Botanique " (under the head of Voya- 

 geurs) ; a work which unfortunately I am not able at this moment to 

 consult. 



2 In this journey he was accompanied by his son, who shortly after- 

 wards returned to Europe. Before they reached Augusta, their horses 



