Dr. iHanassd) Cutler. 27 



After Cutler, there appeared nothing of importance * on 

 our botany, till the prefent elder fchool of New-England 

 botanifts — a fchool characterized by the names of an 

 Oakes, a Boott, and an Emerfon — was founded, now more 

 than fort\- years ago, by the claffical Florula of Bigelow. 



1 The late Dr. Waterhouse, Professor of Medicine at Cambridge, read lectures 

 on Natural History to his classes as early as 17SS, and published the botanical 

 part of these lectures in the Monthly Anthology, 1S04-8; reprinting this in 1S11, 

 ■with the title of the Botanist (Boston, Svo. pp. 22S). In the preface to this vol- 

 ume, the author's are claimed to have been the first public lectures on Natural 

 History given in the United States. The Massachusetts Professorship of Botany 

 and Entomology was founded in 1S05, and the Botanical Garden in 1S07 i Du ' ' ne 

 eminent naturalist who first filled the chair left little behind him to bear witness 

 to his acknowledged "learning and genius." — Quincy, Hist. Harv. Univ., vol. ii. 

 p. 330. The studies of Peck were not, however, confined to the Fauna and 

 Flora of New England ; and his distinguished successors in the lecture-room 

 and the botanical garden — Mr. Nuttall, the late Dr. Harris, and Professor Gray 

 — may be said to have maintained a like general, rather than local character, in 

 the entomological and botanical investigations pursued at the University. 



