328 A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. [1845, 



not interfere witli Fremont's botanical plans, while the 

 results would redound to Fremont's advantage. He is 

 a most amiable, quiet, and truly gentlemanly fellow, 

 retiring to a fault, but full of nerve, and surely is to 

 be the great man of this country in the highest 

 branches of zoology and comparative anatomy. I 

 therefore very strenuously solicit your influence at 

 court in his behalf. 



I am glad that Fremont takes so much personal in- 

 terest in his botanical collections. He will do all the 

 more. I should like to see his plants, especially the 

 Compositae and Kosacese. As to Coniferse he should 

 have the Taxodium sempervirens, so imperfectly 

 known, and probably a new genus. Look quick at it, 

 for it is probably in Coulter's collection which Harvey 

 is working at. . . . Cordially yours, 



A. Gray. 



February 12, 1845. 



My first lecture is to-day finished, and has this 

 evening been read to Mr. Albro.^ Half of it is de- 

 voted to a serving up of " Vestiges of Creation " (which 

 Boott says is written by Sir Richard Vivian), show- 

 ing that the objectionable conclusions rest ixpon 

 gratuitous and unwarranted inferences from estab- 

 lished or probable facts. Peirce is examining Mul- 

 der,^ that we may fairly get at his point of view. His 

 conclusions as to equivocal generation are non-constat 

 from his own premises. On the whole series of sub- 

 jects Peirce — who is much pleased with the way I 



1 This was Dr. Gray's second course of Lowell lectures. Dr. John 

 A. Albro, the Congregationalist minister of Camhridge, was his pas- 

 tor. 



^ G. J. Mulder, 1802-1880; professor of chemistry in the University 

 of Utrecht. Wrote on Animal and Vegetable Physiology. 



