XX1l BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
in the same vessel on board of which he had sailed from the port of Bordeaux, eighteen months before, 
and landed at that port on the 26th of the same month. On his arrival in Paris, he made every effort 
in hastening the publication of his father’s “‘ Histoire des chénes d’ Amérique,” which had been printed 
in 1801, but the plates of which had not yet been completed. He attended also to the publication of 
the “ Flora Boreali Americana,” under the supervision of Claude Richard, an eminent botanist and 
a superior writer. Both these works were finally announced to the scientific world in the years 1803 
and 1804, and were eagerly expected by those who took an interest in the vegetable productions of 
North America. 
In the latter year, Michaux published his “Journey to the West of the Allegheny Mountains,” and 
the following year his memoir “ Sur la Naturalisation des Arbres Forestiers del Amérique du Nord.” 
In this memoir, addressed to the Central Society of Agriculture of Paris, of which he was a prominent 
member, he endeavoured to prove the great advantage which might accrue to France from the accli- 
mation of better trees than those which her native forests actually possess, and of such, principally, as 
might well succeed in soils too poor for any of the French trees to thrive therein. In support of his 
opinion, he pointed out the swampy lands of France, as producing no wood of any value, whilst simi- 
lar lands in America are covered over with noble and valuable trees, such as the Red Elm, Willow 
Oak, white Cedar, white and black Cypress, &c. He, likewise, pointed at the sandy, and certain cre- 
taceous 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 which might also well succeed in the sandy maritime soils of the 
southern departments of France. 
Besides these advantages, Michaux proposed to increase the number of forest trees which, in France, 
is limited to thirty-six, attaining the height of thirty feet; eighteen of which form the bulk of the fo- 
rests, and seven only are 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 forcibly supported in a report made to the Cen- 
tral Society of Agriculture by Messrs. De Perthuis, Correa de Serra and Cels, and he was, finally, in- 
trusted with this mission, under the special patronage of the Duke De Gaéte, then minister of Finance 
and for the account of the Administration of the Forests. 
He, subsequently, embarked at Bourdeaux, on the 5th of February, 1806, in a vessel bound to 
Charleston. After being three days at sea, they were boarded by the British man of war Leander, Com- 
mander Witheby, 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 Natural History, in a memoir entitled ‘‘ Notice sur les Iles Bermudes, et, par- 
ticulitrement, sur St. Georges.” 
Michaux was finally released, and permitted to sail for the United States, which he reached towards 
the end of May. Beginning his explorations at the district of Maine, where the winter is as rigorous 
as in Sweden, though ten degrees farther south, he travelled over all the Atlantic States as far as 
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 north-east to south-west, he made five explorations into the interior of the 
