INTRODUCTION. 
167 
north of the Highlands. Doctors John Torrey and Asa Gray have been many 
years engaged in collecting and preparing materials for a complete “ Flora of 
North America.” The first volume of their work, comprising the polypetalous 
division of the dicotyledonous or exogenous plants, was published at intervals 
between 1838 and 1840. The authors adopt the natural system, and the work has 
been executed in a manner entirely in harmony with its high design. Besides 
these more elaborate works, other contributions to botanical science have appeared 
from time to time in scientific journals. Among these we refer to papers in 
“ Silliman’s Journal,” by doctor Gray, David Thomas and others; descriptions of 
new and rare plants in the state of New-York, by doctor Gray, published in the 
“ Annals of the New-York Lyceum of Natural History;” catalogues of the indi¬ 
genous plants of particular counties or towns, printed in the reports of the regents 
of the university; and especially papers by professor Dewey and doctor Knies- 
kern, contained in the last annual report. Many valuable papers on practical 
botany, and its relations to agriculture, are to be found in agricultural journals. 
The science of zoology in this state owes its origin to Samuel L. Mitchill, 
who, in 1813, commenced, and in the succeeding year completed, an elaborate 
account of the fishes of New-York. This paper was given to the public in the 
“ Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New-York.” The 
work, although strictly local, and limited chiefly to a description of the fishes 
found in the waters in the vicinity of the city of New-York, became a standard 
of reference and conrparison for succeeding laborers in the field of ichthyology. 
That science not only received from the labors of doctor Mitchill a great im¬ 
pulse, but its votaries here won for themselves regard from the savans of the old 
world, and were encouraged to persevere in their labors, even under disadvan¬ 
tageous and almost discouraging circumstances. To that impulse may be attri¬ 
buted the formation of the “ Lyceum of Natural History” in the city of New- 
York in 1818. In connection with this department of natural history, it would 
be unjust to pass without notice the efforts and researches of De Witt Clinton, 
who, although engrossed in public duties, devoted himself with assiduity to the 
