260 • Scientific Intelligence. 



4. Botanical Necrology of the year 1887, by Dr. Gray: his 

 last work for this Journal. — The first two names in the American 

 list belong rather to the obituaries of the preceding year. 



W. E. Tolmie died in British Columbia, near the close of 1886, 

 at an advanced age. A brief notice of his life and services to 

 botany will be found in this Journal, vol. xxxiii, p. 244. To him 

 was dedicated by Torrey and Gray, the Saxifrageous, genus, 

 Tobniea, a native of the country in which his life was passed. 



Johx Goldib, who was born near Maybole in Ayrshire, March 

 21, 1793, died at Ayr, Ontario, Canada, where he had long re- 

 sided, in June, 1886, in his ninety- fourth year. From materials 

 communicated by the family, a biography was published in the 

 Botanical Gazette for October, 1886; but his name was acciden- 

 tally omitted from our necrology of that year. Mr. Goldie was 

 educated as a gardener; and most Scotch gardeners in those days 

 were botanists. From the Glasgow Botanic Garden, then in 

 charge of Sir Wm. Hooker, he came to America for botanical 

 exploration in the year 1817. The interesting particulars of this 

 expedition are entirely omitted from the biography mentioned 

 above, and were probably unknown to the writer. They are 

 here given in an abstract from his " Description of some new and 

 rare Plants discovered in Canada in the year 1819," published in 

 the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. vi, April, 1822. "Hav- 

 ing had for many years a great desire to visit North America, 

 chiefly with a view to examine and collect some of its vegetable 

 productions, I contrived in 1817 to obtain as much money as 

 would just pay my passage there, leaving when this was done 

 but a very small surplus." He sailed from Leith to Halifax, 

 went to Quebec, whence he despatched his collections of living 

 roots and dried plants in a vessel bound for Greenock, " but 

 never heard of them afterwards." At Montreal, he found Pursh, 

 who advised him to explore the northwest country and promised 

 to obtain for him permission to accompany the traders going to 

 that region the following spring. "I travelled on foot to Albany, 



thence proceeded by water to New York I explored the 



eastern part of New Jersey, a country which though barren and 

 little inhabited, yet presents many rarities to the botanist, and 

 gave me more gratification than any part of America that I have 

 seen. At a place called Quaker's Bridge, I gathered some most 

 interesting plants, and having accumulated as large a load as my 

 back would carry, I took my journey to Philadelphia," — thence 

 to New York, whence a ship was about to sail to Scotland, "and, 

 having again committed my treasures to the deep, I had again, 

 as the first time, the disappointment of never obtaining any in- 

 telligence whatever of them. My finances being now extremely 

 low and winter having commenced, I hardly knew what to do ; 

 but, after some delay, went up to the Mohawk river, where I found 

 employment that season as school-master," — thence in the spring to 

 Montreal, and failing to make the connections necessary to reach- 

 ing the northwest district, he " took to the spade " all summer 



