142 THE CORRESPONDENCE OF SCHWEINITZ AND TORREY 
on account of his inclination to make short work. Dr. Schwag- 
richen is certainly the more correct & accurate of the two & I 
intend to send to him all those of which I entertain any doubts- 
Below. I shall try to discuss the observations you have made 
on the particular mosses. I am glad you seem to favor and 
encourage my undertaking of a Cryptogamic flora. I shall however 
not proceed to the execution before I have made larger collections 
& more accurate observations. Unhappily the death of Muhlen- 
berg deprived me of the advantage of his communications. He 
had begun & about half finished a letter to me commenting upon 
my Musci & Lichens sent to him—& all my endeavors to regain 
possession of the specimens (it was the whole of my then collection, 
so that I do not know to which species his observations apply) 
after his death proved unsuccessful. He has a number of Species 
—to which Swar[t]z is subjoined in his Catalogue [52] of which 
it seems impossible to know what was meant but by examining 
his Herbarium—& a good many new Lichens too which he has 
named. Finding such to which his specific name might justly 
be applied I have hazarded to call them by the names found 
in his Catalogue altho’ I have no means of judging whether those I 
designated thereby are the same with his, in hopes that I shall 
have an opportunty one day of personally consulting his collection. 
I should be loth to publish my intended FI. before I have accom- 
plished this purpose. All my endeavors to gain some knowledge 
thereof by writing to his son Dr. Muhlenberg & Z. Collins have 
hitherto been in vain. 
I am particularly obliged to you for your communications con- 
cerning Mr. Nuttall & am extremely happy that he had an op- 
portunity of seeing the plants I sent you. I have lately written to 
him & expect his answer. I think Mr. Nuttall’s observations un- 
commonly excellent. His Genera [55] have given me more light 
than any other book—it is so evident from all his remarks in that 
work, that they are the fruits of real personal acquaintance with ` 
the plants in nature. I am delighted with the prospect of seeing 
his botanical discoveries published soon—but I sincerely deplore 
that his cryptog. specimens have been swallowed by that retentive 
gulph, Mr. Collins, going into whose cave so many footsteps may be 
traced & none coming forth! I have among the rest written to Z. 
