zT. 56.] TO CHARLES WRIGHT. 555 
have been indeed shamefully trampled upon by the 
President and the dominant party at the South. 
I have not time to answer all your interesting botan. 
ical notes, and can only thank you for them. ope 
you will continue to keep well. 
Our spring is late and wet. There is still quite a 
covering of snow in the garden, and we have had 
a deal of it in the winter, and wretched walking and 
getting about in every way. Happy you, in the 
tropics. 
You ask who Austin! is. He was an old protégé 
of Dr. Torrey ; lives now in New Jersey, and studies 
Lemnacez and Hepatic. 
. . - You will be more delighted than I am to know 
that the Democrats have probably carried Connecti- 
eut. But I am not much the contrary; for the Re- 
publicans are too many in Congress for their own 
good, or ours, and it secures the defeat of Barnum 
for Congress; as it should be. . . 
April 8. 
I have been having a Sunday’s work over your 
plants. 
It grieves my heart and will grieve yours badly 
when I tell you that your boxes were put under a 
cargo of wet sugar, which drained into them, and 
have ruined the collection. 
. As to specimens to dispose of, say only one 
half or one third of the whole mass is left fit for 
it. Oh dear! God grant you patience! Will you 
have the courage to set to work over again? 
I will try next to tell you what is worst. 
Ever your disconsolate, A. Gray. 
1 Coe F. Austin, 1832-1880; especially devoted to the study of 
Hepatic. 
