80 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



and one of the most interesting and picturesque figures 

 in the annals of botanical discovery in America, may be 

 said to have been the first scientist to visit the vicinity 

 of St. Louis. Before coming to America, Michaux had, 

 in the interests of science, traveled in France, England 

 and the Orient. He came to the United States in 1785 at 

 the request of the French government to study the forest 

 trees and experiment with regard to their transplanta- 

 tion to France. In the course of his travels in North 

 America Michaux explored the mountains of the Caro- 

 linas, journeyed through the hazardous swamps and 

 marshes of Florida, visited the Bahamas, crossed the 

 Alleghanies in his search for new plants, and in 1795-96 

 made a journey from Charleston, S. C, through Tennes- 

 see, Kentucky and Indiana, to Kaskaskia, Cahokia and 

 vicinity. Most probably he visited the western shore of 

 the Mississippi. In his " Flora Boreali Americana" 

 he records several species of plants as coming from the 

 Missouri river. This is no positive proof, however, of 

 his having collected west of the Mississippi, as the plants 

 might have been given to him while he was at Cahokia. 

 He mentions St. Louis as a prosperous settlement, but 

 tnakes no further allusion to it. 



Looking back through the vista of years, we find pic- 

 turesque and interesting incidents shaping the early his- 

 tory of St. Louis, when around it and far to the west 

 stretched an unbroken wilderness into which the white 

 man had scarcely penetrated. One of the central figures 

 in the little French village in the year 1800 was Dr. 

 Antoine Frangois Saugrain — scientist, physician and 

 chemist. Although he was not the first to practice medi- 

 cine here, he was the most notable of the early represen- 

 tatives of the profession because of his broad learning 

 and scholarly attainments. 



Dr. Saugrain 2 was educated as a physician and chem- 



2 Bliss, E. F. Dr. Saugrain's relation of his voyage down the Ohio 

 river from Pittsburgh to the Falls in 1788. Proc. Amer. Ant. Soc. 11: 

 369-380. 1897. 



