Daniel Cady Eaton. 185 
During the Civil War his father becoming Quartermaster- 
General, he went into the commissary department in New 
York as inspector of stores. In this capacity he became very 
expert, and ever after retained a special interest in certain 
_ vegetable products which had been under his study and inspec- 
tion. These duties, while interrupting botanical work, did not 
prevent it absolutely. He botanised about New York, he 
became acquainted with the local botanists there, he delivered 
some lectures on botany and studied some small collections of 
ferns sent from various places, but he published nothing more 
until the close of the war. 
In July, 1864, he was elected Professor of Botany at Yale 
at the same time with the writer of this sketch. As with 
his colleague, the late Wm. D. Whitney, the professorship 
was on a university foundation, not specially attached to 
any one department of the institution but practically his labors 
were chiefly in the Sheffield Scientific School, where he was a 
member of the Governing Board, and in which he was an 
active and successful teacher for thirty-one years. Regular 
classes in botany in-the Academic department only began 
many years later, but from the first he gave instruction to such 
advanced students as wished it, and a considerable number 
_ have enjoyed this privilege. 
As a teacher he was intensely conscientious, sympathetic, 
courteous, kind, and helpfulin the extreme to those who wished 
to learn. Compelling students to learn was very distasteful to 
him, although he was patient to a fault with those who were 
indolent or indifferent. 
During his professorship he published fifty botanical papers, 
works or contributions which are enumerated in the “ Yale 
Bibliographies,” and this list need not be repeated here. They 
related mostly to Ferns and Acrogens. The number but illy 
describes the work. Some of the contributions consisted of 
several parts of some larger work, and some were complete 
works of themselves. He prepared the Composite for the 
Report on the Botany of the Geological Exploration of the 
40th Parallel, as well as the Acrogens, and both are enumer- 
ated as but one title in the published list cited. 
His largest single contribution to botany was his “ Ferns of 
North America,” a sumptuous quarto in two volumes, pub- 
lished in 1879-80, and dedicated to his old instructor, Prof. 
Gray, for whom he always had a strong affection. The work 
is beautifully illustrated wit colored figures, from drawings 
by Emerton and Faxon. It gives technical descriptions and 
full synonomy, as well as a popular discussion of each species 
in his own charming style. This work is classic in the botani- 
eal literature of this country. 
