Asa Geay was born November 8, 1810, in the township of Paris, 

 "Oneida Co., New York. He was descended on the father's side from 

 a Scotch-Irish family that had emigrated early in the 18th century. 

 His mother was a lady of English descent. As a boy he assisted in 

 his father's farming, and, showing an aptitude for and love of book- 

 work, he was sent, first to a private school, thence to the Grammar 

 School of Clinton, N.Y., and lastly to the Fairfield Academy. To this 

 latter institution a medical school of repute was attached, and it was 

 through attendance on its lectures that Gray became interested in 

 scientific pursuits, and especially in botany, through an article in "The 

 Edinburgh Encyclopedia.' In 1825 he entered the Fairfield Medical 

 School, the sessions of which occupying only half the year, left him 

 ample time for following his favourite pursuits of botany and 

 mineralogy in the study and in the fields. In 1831, having taken his 

 doctor's degree at Fairfield, he forthwith abandoned the thoughts of 

 medicine as a profession, and accepted the post of Instructor in 

 Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Botany in the High School of Utica, 

 N.Y. After spending several years in botanising and in lecturing in 

 various educational establishments, he became Assistant to Professor 

 Torrey in the Chemical Laboratory of the Medical School at New 

 York. This, though it led to nothing professionally, was perhaps the 

 turning point in Gray's career, for Torrey was an able and ardent 

 botanist, who had already recognised Gray's ability, and a life-long 

 friendship was established between them, to be emphasised by the 

 joint publication of ' The Flora of the North American Continent,' a 

 work justly esteemed as second alone to De Candolle's ' Prodromus 

 Regni Vegetabilis ' as a contribution to a knowledge of the vegetation 

 of the globe. 



In 1835 Gray became Curator and Librarian of the New York 

 Lyceum of Natural History, a post which gave him abundant leisure ; 

 and this he employed in the preparation of his ' Elements of Botany,' 

 which was at once accepted as the best text-book of the science that 

 had appeared in the States, and as second to none in the English 

 language. The ' Elements ' is the first of a series of educational 

 works on morphological, physiological, and systematic botany that 

 have been for half a century the class-books of schools and colleges 

 throughout the United States and in British America, and which 

 have been cordially recommended by teachers in England as the best 

 of their class. Nor should mention be omitted of two smaller educa- 

 tional works, entitled ' How Plants Grow,' and ' How Plants Behave,' 

 which, " for the interest of their subject, the elegance of their diction, 

 and the lucidity of their style, have led the general public to appre- 

 ciate the scientific aspect of botany more perhaps than have any other 

 in the English language."* 



* Of the.se libelli a competent American author has written that "they found 



