LIFE AND LABOES OF PROF. JOHN TORRE Y, 215 



■ward those of ]N^uttall. As tbey clearly belonged to our own phyto- 

 geograpMcal province, Texas and California were accordingly annexed 

 botanically before they became so politically. 



While the field of botanical operations was thus enlarging, the time 

 which could be devoted to it was restricted. In addition to his chair in 

 the medical college. Dr. Torrey had felt obliged to accept a similar one 

 at Princeton College, and to all was now added, as we have seen, the 

 onerous post of State botanist. It was in the year 1836 or 1837 that 

 he invited the writer of this notice — then pursuing botanical studies 

 under his auspices and direction — ^to become his associate in the Flora 

 of North America. In July and in October, 1838, the first two parts, 

 making half of the first volume, were published. The great need of a 

 full study of the sources and originals of the earlier-published species 

 was now apparent; so, during the following year, his associate occupied 

 himself with this work in the principal herbaria of Europe. The re 

 maining half of the first volume appeared in June, 1840. The first j)art 

 of the second volume followed in 1841 ; the second in the spring of 1842 • 

 and in February, 1843, came the third and the last ; for Dr. Torrey's asso- 

 ciate was now also immersed in professorial duties and in the conse- 

 quent preparation of the works and collections which were necessary to 

 their prosecution. 



From that time to the present the scientific exploration of the vast 

 interior of the continent has been actively carried on, and in consequence 

 new plants have poured in year by year in such numbers as to overtask 

 the powers of the few working botanists of the country, nearly all of 

 them weighted with professional engagements. The most they could do 

 has been to put collections into order in special reports, revise here and 

 there a family or a genus monographically, and incorporate new materials 

 into older parts of the fabric, or rough-hew them for portions of the edi- 

 fice yet to be constructed. In all this, Dr. Torrey took a prominent part 

 down almost to the last days of his life. Passing by various detached 

 and scattered articles upon curious new genera and the like, but not 

 forgetting three admirable papers published in the Smithsonian Con- 

 tributions to Knowledge, {Plantce Fremontiance, and those on Batis and 

 Darlmgtonia,) there is a long series of important, and some of them very 

 extensive, contributions to the reports of Government explorations of 

 the western country, from that of Long's expedition, already referred 

 to, in which he first developed his powers, through those of i^icollet, 

 Fremont, and Emory, Sitgreaves, Stansbury, and Marcy, and those con- 

 tained in the ampler volumes of the surveys for Pacific liailroad routes, 

 doAvn to that of the Mexican boundary, the botany of which forms a 

 bulky quarto volume of much interest. Even at the last, when he rallied 

 transiently from the fatal attack, he took in hand the manuscript of an 

 elaborate report on the plants collected along our Pacific coast in Ad- 

 miral Wilkes's celebrated expedition, which he had prepared fully a 

 dozen years ago, and which (except as to the plates) remains still un- 



