1879. | In North America from 1635 to 1840. 761 
to Clarksville, and arrived, via Louisville and North Carolina, at 
Charleston in August, 1796. 
His travels in the Alleghanies are more particularly spoken of 
by Prof. Asa Gray, in his “Notes of a botanical excursion to the 
mountains of North Carolina.” He had already sent to France 
more than sixty thousand living woody plants, and forty boxes with 
seeds, when he returned in 1796. Unfortunately, he suffered ship- 
wreck off the coast of Holland, but he, and the collections which 
he brought, were saved, though the latter were damaged. He 
arrived at Paris in December, 1796, and published, in 1801, his 
great work on the American oaks, with excellent engravings. 
He then prepared the material for his Flora Boreali-Americana, 
but did not live to see it published. 
Though he had desired to return to America, he accepted a prop- 
osition of Captain Baudin, to take part in an expedition to New 
Holland, and embarked on the 18th of October, 1801. Arrived 
in Isle de France, he left the expedition for Madagascar, where 
a malignant fever caused his death, on the 13th of November, 
1802. 
Louis Claude Richard arranged the material of his Flora, and, 
in 1803, it was published by François André Michaux, the son. 
In this work are described 596 genera (555 vascular and 41 cellu- 
lar) and 1740 species (1641 vascular and gg cellular). Though 
many changes and reductions have been made in the course of 
time, 17 of the genera, proposed by him as new, are valid yet, 
and about 350 species. 
Considering the vast area he traveled over, often without com- 
pany, the poor facilities for traveling at that time, the troubles he 
had to undergo in transporting so many living trees and shrubs, 
the dangers he had to fear, risking his scalp at every step in the 
Western wilderness, we must admire that indefatigable traveler. 
His name stands as a prominent landmark at the dividing line of 
two periods, from which the labors of working botanists in this 
country took a new departure. 
1800—1840.—TIill then, at the close of the sichieenth century, 
as we have seen, most of the work was done by foreigners, partly 
engaged by European institutions or by private men. The few 
Americans did the work at their own expense, for there was no 
subvention by the Government at that time. Michaux, after his 
return from Canada, had, in 1792, entered into negotiation with — a 
