Ml. 28.] A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 23 



scopic drawings to illustrate the genera of ferns ; and 

 Hooker then arranged for their publication in the 

 well-known volume for which he furnished the text. 

 Saw not rarely N. B. Ward, who lived at Wellclose 

 Square in Wapping, and whose cultivation of plants 

 in closed cases attracted much attention. Went with 

 Ward one day to dine with Menzies, then over ninety ; 

 he lived, with a housekeeper, at Maida Vale, or some- 

 where beyond Kensington. 



George P. Putnam, of the firm of Wiley & Put- 

 nam, was then resident in London, and through him 

 I managed the expenditure of the money placed in my 

 hands for the purchase of books for the University of 

 Michigan, in a manner that proved satisfactory. 



There is still in my possession, but not in reach for 

 ready reference, a file of letters which I wrote home to 

 the Torrey family while I was in Europe. If I were to 

 find them and refresh my memory by them, I should 

 make these notes quite too long. I will therefore 

 trust to memory and touch lightly here and there on 

 my Continental journey. I think it was early in 

 March, 1839, that one morning I took passage on a 

 small steamer from London, Bentham coming to see 

 me off, to Calais; thence diligence for Paris. My 

 lodgings, near the Luxembourg, were not far from the 

 house of P. Barker Webb, to whom I had introduc- 

 tions, and who was very useful to me ; he owned the 

 herbarium of Desf ontaines. At the Jardin des Plantes 

 were old Mirbel, who occupied himself only with 

 vegetable anatomy, Adrien Jussieu, with whom I cor- 

 responded as long as he lived, Brongniart, Decaisne, 

 then aide-naturaliste, and Spach, curator of the her- 

 barium. Jussieu had his father's herbarium in his 

 study. Besides Michaux's herbarium at the Jardin V 



