1G8 Biography of F. A, Michaitx, 



ilar lands in America are covered over with noble and valuable 

 trees, such as the red Elm, AVillow, Oak, white Cedar, white and 

 black Cypress, <fec. He, likewise, pointed at the sandy, and cer- 

 tain cretaceous soils of France, as giving growth to nothing but 

 dwarfish and insignificant pines, while the equally arid lands of 

 the southern states produce an abundance of the live Oak, a tree 

 exceedingly valuable in naval architecture, and wdiich might also 

 well succeed in the sandy maritime soils of the southern depart- 

 ments of France. 



Besides these advantages, Michaux proposed to increase the 

 number of forest trees, — which, in France, attaining the height of 

 thirt}^ feet, is limited to thirty-six, eighteen of these forming the 

 bulk of the forests, and seven only being employed in civil and 

 naval constructions — whilst he alone had observed in the North 

 American forests as many as one hundred and forty species of 

 similar height and utility. 



The means proposed by Michaux to attain these desiderata, 

 were simply " to send a naturalist to the United States, with the 

 mission to collect seeds and young trees, and to forward the same 

 to the national nurseries of France." His propositions were for- 

 cibly supported in a report made to the Central Society of Agri- 

 culture by Messrs. De Perthuis, Correa de Serra and Cels, and 

 he was, finally, intrusted with this mission, under the special 

 patronage of the Duke De Gaete, then minister of finance and 

 for the account of the Administration of the Forests. 



lie, subsequently, embarked at Bourdeaux, on the 5th of Feb- 

 ruary, 1806, in a vessel bound to Charleston. After being three 

 days at sea, they were boarded by the British man of war Lean- 

 der, Commander AVitheby, who, suspecting the vessel to be laden 

 for the account of French merchants, sent her to Halifax, there 

 to be disposed of by the court of Admiralty, which would decide 

 whether she was a legitimate prize, or should be liberated. Of 

 all the passengers, Michaux was the only one ordered on board 

 the Leander, where he remained during a cruise of forty-three 

 days, after which they reached the Bermuda Islands. While in 

 port, he was permitted freely to go ashore, and had thus the op- 

 portunity to make some interesting observations, the details of 

 which he addressed to the Professors of the Paris Museum of 

 Xatural History, in a memoir entitled ^^ Notice sur les lies Ber- 

 miides et particulihement siir jSL Georges^ 



Michaux was finally released, and permitted to sail for the 

 United States, which he reached towards the end of May. Be- 

 ginning his explorations at the district of Maine, where the Avin- 

 ter is as rigorous as in Sweden, though ten degrees farther south, 

 be travelled overall the Atlantic States as far tis Georgia, where 

 the heat during six months of the year, is as great as in the 

 West Indies, Besides a journey of 1800 miles from northeast 



