JUNE 15, 1900.] 



SCIENGE. 



941 



searches upon this material depends di- 

 rectly upon the facilities offered by its her- 

 baria, library, and laboratories, and the 

 spirit in which these opportunities are ad- 

 ministered. 



The mainherbarium, library, and labora- 

 tories of the New York Botanical Garden 

 are chiefiy located on tbe third floor of the 

 Museum and their arrangement is illus- 

 trated by the diagram in figure 4. 



The main herbarium occupies a room 

 eighty-five by forty-seven feet in the east 

 wing, which is illuminated by four large 

 skylights in addition to the windows. The 

 plants are arranged in two parallel series 

 of cases occupying opposite sides of the 

 room, with large oak tables in the middle 

 and at the ends of the room. 



The Columbia University herbarium oc- 

 cupies the western side of the room, and 

 " it is one of the oldest, andin itself one of 

 the largest in America, contains over 600,- 

 000 specimens. This herbarium was be- 

 gun early in the century by Dr. John Torrey, 

 and contains the material upon which his 

 classic botanical writings, extending over 

 half a century, were based. Upon his death, 

 1873, this collection came into the posses- 

 sion of Columbia College. On this as a 

 foundation the present Columbia herbarium 

 was built. Mr. John J. Crooke presented 

 two valuable collections to Columbia ; the 

 one, that of Professor C. F. Meisner, of 

 Basle, Switzerland, one of the world's lead- 

 ing botanists, the other that of the late Dr. 

 A. W. Chapman, of Apalachicola, Florida, 

 in which are contained the specimens upon 

 which Dr. Chapman founded his ' Flora of 

 the Southern United States.' A few years 

 later the mosses, and many of the hepatics 

 and lichens accumulated by Mr. C. F. Aus- 

 tin, came into the possession of Columbia, 

 while the latest acquisition of great size 

 and importance, secured through the kind- 

 ness of friends of the university, was the 

 famous collection of mosses brought to- 



gether from all parts of the world by the 

 late Dr. J. G. Jaeger, of Switzerland. To 

 this ample nucleus Dr. Torrey's successor, 

 Dr. N. L. Britton, while professor at Co- 

 lumbia, and his associates, added continu- 

 ally by securing collections from all parts 

 of the globe, and by special collecting trips 

 to various parts of JSTorth America. 



The most complete sets of specimens se- 

 cured on two noteworthy South American 

 journeys of exploration are here preserved ; 

 the one trip was that made by Dr. Busby 

 through the Andes of Bolivia, the other 

 thatofMr. Morong in Paraguayand Chili." 



The Grarden has accumulated about 

 200,000 herbarium specimens since its or- 

 ganization. In this number is included 

 the famous Ellis collection of fungi, includ- 

 ing over a hundred thousand and forming 

 one of the largest and most complete col- 

 lections of fungi in the world, outranking 

 any similar collection in America. Yarious 

 private herbaria have been acquired by gift 

 and purchase, among which are those of 

 John J. Cooke, F. M. Hexamer, H. E. 

 Hasse, P. A. Bydberg, Lewis B. Gibbes, 

 Peter Y. LeBoy, Harry Edwards, Anna M. 

 Yail and Francis E. Lloyd. Accessions 

 are being made at the rate of fifty to a 

 hundred thousand specimens per year. 



The main herbarium room is supple- 

 mented by two store rooms, and the office 

 of the curator of the museums near it. In 

 addition adequate preparation and storage 

 rooms in the basement serve for the recep- 

 tion and handling of duplicate and un- 

 mounted material, as well as for the press 

 upon which final labels are printed. Di- 

 rectly west of the herbarium suite is the 

 taxonomic laboratory, which is especially 

 adapted for systematic and anatomical in- 

 vestigations. 



The laboratory of the Director-in-chief 

 occupies a large room between the taxo- 

 nomic laboratory and the library. The 

 embryological laboratory occupies a cor- 



