532 BOTANICAL OPPORTUNITY. 



Some years since I was privileged to assist Dr. Gray in collecting and 

 republishing the botanical writings of Dr. Engelmauu, and it was a 

 matter of surprise to us both, as it has been to others, to see how volu- 

 minous these were. Had Dr. Engelmaun devoted his entire life to 

 botany, they would have been as creditable in quantity as in quality, 

 but for the leisure-hour productions of a busy professional man they 

 were truly marvelous. Some years later, when his herbarium and 

 library having found a resting place at the botanical garden, in the 

 development of which he had felt an interest for many years, it fell to 

 my lot to arrange in form for permanent preservation Dr. Engelmann's 

 manuscript notes, sketches, etc., I was far more surprised at the extent 

 of these than I had been on collecting his printed works, for when 

 mounted and bound they form sixty large volumes. In addition to their 

 intrinsic value, these are of more than usual interest as showing the 

 methodical manner in which Dr. Engelmann worked. On his table 

 seems to have been always a bundle of plants awaiting study. As each 

 specimen was examined its salient features were noted and sketched on 

 the back of the ever-ready prescription blank. When interrupted he 

 laid his unfinished sketch away with the specimen to resume his obser- 

 vation and complete his study at the first opportunity, without any 

 doubt as to what had been seen in the first instance. And so from 

 individual to variety, from variety to species, from species to genus, and 

 from genus to family, his observations were preserved in memoranda 

 that facilitated the resumption of interrupted work at any time and 

 after any lapse of time. In no other way could the odd moments 

 between the daily calls and occupations of a busy physician have con- 

 tributed so much to botanical knowledge; in no other way could his 

 seemingly small opportunity for investigation have been converted into 

 a great one. 



Almost as important as the early selection of a worthy subject for 

 study and the adoption of a method insuring the preservation and use 

 of even the most trivial information bearing on it, is the adoption of 

 suitable library methods. The student whose specialty is small and 

 little explored has mainly the task of observing and reasoning from the 

 facts before him; but in the departments that have long been the sub- 

 ject of study, while a part of the work is already done to his hand, and 

 the prospect is that he can go much further than on entirely new ground, 

 the task of ascertaining and profiting by what his predecessors have 

 done is often a difticult one. Not infrequently the literature of a sub- 

 ject is so scattered as to make it next to impossible to pass it all in 

 review, and at best the task of finding the fragments is one calling for 

 a special faculty. One or more attempts have been made to form gen- 

 eral bureaus of scientific information, to which one need only turn if he 

 would be possessed of references to the principal literature of any sub- 

 ject in which he chanced to be interested. Perhaps as library facilities 

 accumulate at the great centers of research, some method may be found 

 of supplementing them with the skill of expert librarians who shall be 



