ar. 17.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 15 
(It was really C. Caroliniana, but the two were 
not distinguished in that book.) I was well pleased, 
and went on, collecting and examining all the flowers 
T could Jay hands on; and the rides over the country 
to visit patients along with my preceptor, Dr. Trow- 
bridge, gave good opportunities. I began an herba- 
rium of shockingly bad specimens. In autumn, going 
back to Fairfield for the annual course of medical lee- 
tures, I took specimens of those plants that puzzled me - 
to Professor Hadley, who had learned some botany of 
Dr. Ives of New Haven, and had made a neat herba- 
rium of the common New England and New York 
plants, which I studied carefully that winter. At 
Professor Hadley’s suggestion I opened a correspond- 
ence with Dr. Lewis C. Beck of Albany,! who was 
the botanist of the region. The next summer I col- 
lected more easily and critically. The summer after, 
I think, or probably the summer of 1830, I had an 
opportunity to make a little run to New York, being 
sent by Dr. Trowbridge to buy some medical books, 
driving in a one-horse wagon, with my own horse, 
ninety miles to Albany, thence by steamer to New York 
over night; one night there, and back next day by 
boat to Albany, and so driving back to Bridgewater 
in company with a man of business who joined me in 
this little expedition. I stopped to see Lewis C. Beck 
at Albany Academy; there I first saw a grave-look- 
ing man who I was told was Professor Henry, who 
had just been making a wonderful electro-magnet. 
had procured from Professor Hadley a letter of in- 
troduction to Dr. Torrey, whose “ Flora of the North- 
ern United States,” vol. i., was our greatest help so 
1 Lewis C. Beck, 1798-1853; professor in Albany Academy ; author 
of Botany of the United States North of Virginia. 
