1894.] Recent Literature. 153 
Dr. Humphrey has added here and there many valuable notes, and 
at the end has added six pages of useful “ Tables for Reference.” The 
literature of the subject is given with such completeness thas it requires 
nineteen pages. A full index with from 1200 to 1500 references com- 
pletes this most satisfactory book. 
CHARLES E. Bessey. 
The Letters of Asa Gray.*’—It is rarely the case that a life is 
more justly and clearly set forth in a biological writing than is the life 
of the eminent botanist Asa Gray, in those two volumes prepared by 
Mrs. Gray. With rare good taste and admirable tact she has woven. 
from the brief autobiography and the letters scattered through fifty-six 
years the charming story of his life. We can all wish for a such hand 
to set forth our life-work, when we have passed away 
The quaintly written autobiography tells of his early life, and of 
his struggles to reach some position in which he might do the work 
Nature had fitted him to do. There were many disappointments; 
many plans were made only to be overthrown or abandoned. At last 
came the appointment to the chair of Natural History in the newly 
chartered University of Michigan, and the year’s leave of absence and 
commission to purchase books for its library. How well he used that 
yearin Europe is told in the enthusiastic letters he wrote home to Dr. 
and Mrs. Torrey and “the girls.” Thenceforward his life-work was 
assurred, and upon his return he took up with vigor the work on the 
Flora of North America with Dr. Torrey, a work which he left unfin- 
ished after forty-eight years of continuous work. 
It is impossible to give an adequate idea of these books in a brief 
notice. These extracts from letters more than fifty years apart may 
be suggestive. To his mother he wrote from New York in February, 
1835, “I wish very much to spend a few weeks Georgia early in the 
spring, but I see that I shall not be able to do so. My time is spent 
ere very profitably, and Iam advancing in knowledge as fast as I 
ought to wish, but I make no money, or scarcely enough to live upon. 
Just at present I am rather behind hand, but think that by next fall 
Ishall with ordinary success be in better circumstances. It is unpleas- 
ant to be embarrassed in such matters, for I should like much to be 
independent, and this with my moderate wishes would require no very 
large sum, and I have no great desire to be rich.” 
“Letters of Asa.Gray. Eñited by Jane Loring Gray, im two volumes.. Boston 
and New York, Houzhton, Mifflin and Company. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 
1893, 12 mo., 838 pp. 
