162 FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1839, 
I have been seized with a mania for collecting 
prints on a small scale, and shall send home some 
very good ones, —to adorn my parlor and study at 
Michigan, of course! There are astonishing quanti- 
ties to be found here. I am endeavoring to get all 
the portraits of botanists I can, and from this I have 
been led to pick up ancient ones, which show the early 
state of the art or old-fashioned costumes, ete., and 
also a few choice engravings from the old masters; but 
most of these I can obtain better in Italy or Germany. 
Tell Dr, Torrey not to be alarmed, for I shall not 
spend much money upon them. 
As a general thing Paris is not very beautiful. But 
there are some magnificent sights, I assure you. At 
odds and ends of time I have already seen. most of the 
ordinary sights which attract the attention of travelers, 
but must leave all account of them for the journal from 
Paris, which so far is addressed to the girls, though I 
fear it will scarcely interest them or any one else. . . . 
Decaisne has given me separate copies of his 
papers. He is now publishing a most splendid (bo- 
tanically speaking) memoir upon the order Lardi- 
zabalex, in which I see he has found out some things 
which have been known to Brown only, for a long time. 
He will give us copies, I dare say. He is one of the 
best botanists here. I like Gaudichaud also very 
much. 
I iniee _ finished the examination of Michaux’s 
herbarium, which has proved worth looking over. I 
shall write the doctor more particularly, indeed have 
already begun a letter for him. Mr. Webb showed me 
last evening a letter from Hooker, which contains a 
good deal of botanical intelligence for himself and me. 
The British Antarctic expedition, he says, is to sail 
