408 Goodale — Development of Botany Since 1818. 



if adopted, to make confusion worse confounded. ? ' This 

 feeling led him to be very conservative in the matter of 

 reform in nomenclature. 



This subject of botanical nomenclature illustrates a 

 method frequently employed by Professor Gray to elu- 

 cidate a difficult matter. He would find in the treatise 

 under review a text, or texts, on which he would build a 

 treatise of his own, and in this way he made clear his own 

 views relative to most of the important phases of botany. 

 "When he faced controverted matters, his attitude still 

 remained judicial. While he was tolerant of opinions 

 which clashed with his own, he was always severe upon 

 charlatanism and impatient of inaccuracy. The pages 

 of the Journal contain many severe criticisms at his 

 hands, but an unprejudiced person would say that the 

 severity is merited. 



Sometimes, however, instead of reviewing a book or an 

 address, he would follow the custom inaugurated early in 

 the history of the Journal, of making copious extracts, 

 and thus give to its readers an opportunity of examining 

 materials which otherwise might not fall in their way. 



Gray's contributions to the Journal comprise more 

 than one thousand titles, without counting the memorial 

 notices and the shorter obituary notes. In these notices 

 he sums up in a few well-chosen words the contributions 

 made to botany by his contemporaries. Even in the few 

 instances in which he felt obliged to note with disap- 

 proval some of the work, he expressed himself with per- 

 sonal friendliness. The necrology, at it appeared from 

 month to month, was a labor of love. All of the longer 

 memorial notices are what it is the fashion now-a-days 

 to call appreciations, and these are so happily phrased 

 that it would seem as if the writer in many a case asked 

 himself, " Would my friend, about whom I am now writ- 

 ing, make any change in this sketch V 9 



Gray on Darwinism. — In October, 1859, Darwin's 

 epoch-making work, The Origin of Species, was pub- 

 lished. An early copy was sent to the editor of the Jour- 

 nal, Professor James D. Dana. This arrived in New 

 Haven on December 21, but it was preceded by a personal 

 letter which is of so much interest that it is here tran- 

 scribed in full. It should be added that Dana was at this 

 time in Europe where he was spending a year in the 

 search for health after a serious nervous breakdown. 



