Asa Gray. 189 



of the excursions into these regions by his predecessors^ Bartram, 

 Michaux, and. John Fraser, of the last century, and John Lyon, 

 Michaux the younger, Pursh, Nuttall, Curtis and others, of this, 

 mentioning their discoveries, with critical remarks on the species 

 they observed and on their distribution ; and then he describes 

 his own journey, adding notes on the plants met with by the 

 way and in the mountains, commencing his observations at 

 Harper's Ferry. His journey among the North Carolina Moun- 

 tains included the ascent of the " Grandfather," 5897 feet in ele- 

 vation, and the Roan Mountain, 6306 feet. This is one among 

 a number of such excursions. 



Another labor of this period was the revision of his " Elements 

 of Botany," which, without much change of general method, 

 he made a far more comprehensive and thorough treatise, and 

 in 1842 issued, under the title of the " Botanical Text-book." 

 Since then successive editions have appeared with large ad- 

 vances, as the science required. By the fifth edition, that of 

 1879, the subject had so expanded that it was divided, and the 

 work made to include only Structural Botany, covering Mor- 

 phology, Taxonomy and Phytography, leaving Physiological 

 and Cryptogamic botany to other hands. The second volume, 

 an exposition of Physiological Botany, appeared in 1885, from 

 the pen of his colleague, Prof. G. L. Goodale. A third vol- 

 ume on Cryptogamic Botany is promised by another colleague, 

 Prof. W. G. Farlow. 



Gray never entered on duty at the Michigan University, 

 it being impossible for him to carry on his publications so far 

 away from the New York herbaria and botanical libraries. In 

 1842, he was invited by the Fellows of Harvard College to the 

 Fisher Professorship of Natural History, recently founded on a 

 bequest of Dr. Joshua Fisher. The duties of the j)rofessorship 

 included the delivery of a course of lectures on Botany, and 

 the direction of the small botanic garden which had been estab- 

 lished in Cambridge in 1805, under the auspices and with the 

 assistance of the Massachusetts Society for promoting Agricul- 

 ture. Thomas Nuttall had charge of the garden from 1822 to 

 1828, and after that it was without a head until the appoint- 

 ment of Dr. Gray. The garden was still poor in funds, and 

 had not even an herbarium to aid Gray in his botanical 



