142 



HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. 



PART 1. 



sidered the native country of a tree to be that in which it is most numerous, 

 and where it acquires the greatest height and thickness. Thus he fixed on 

 Kentucky as the native country of the tulip tree, because it there forms vast 

 forests, has a trunk eommonly 7 ft. or 8 ft. in diameter, and grows 120 ft. 

 high, thriving in a moist clayey soil, but not in one that is frequently inundated. 

 In higher or lower ground, or in a different soil, these trees become smaller 

 and more rare. It was with a view to trace in this manner the botanical 

 .topography of North America, that Michaux visited the Floridas, and went 

 as far as Hudson's Bay. He left Charleston in April, 1792; arrived at 

 Quebec in June of the same year; and reached Tadoussac, lat. 52°, in October, 

 160 leagues from any human habitation. He afterwards planned a journey to 

 Mexico, for the benefit of the United States ; but, after very many journeys', he 

 returned to Paris by Amsterdam, where he arrived on the 3d of December 

 1796, after ten years' absence. He found his friends well, but was grieved be- 

 yond measure to learn that the beautiful plantations of Rambouillet, to which 

 he had sent 60,000 young trees, had been destroyed during the revolution, 

 and that but a very small number of the trees was remaining. Seeing that 

 tranquillity was restored, he instantly thought of repairing the loss. After 

 ■unsuccessfully endeavouring to get sent again to America, he was sent to New 

 Holland. He stopped at the Isle of France, and was very desirous of going 

 •to Madagascar; in which island he was attacked by the fever, and he died 

 there in November (an ix.), 1803; aged 57 years. 



Michaux not only sent many new trees and shrubs into France, but lie sent 

 great quantities of the seeds of the more useful species ; such as Juglans 

 Fuccan, used for making furniture, and which produces the nut oil ; Tax- 

 odium distichum (the deciduous cypress), suitable for planting in very moist 

 soil ; Nj'ssa caroliniana, useful for the naves of wheels ; Quercus tincroria, for 

 tanning and dying ; and Q. virens, which, he says, grows rapidly on the sandy 

 beach, exposed to the stormy winds of the ocean, where 'scarcely any other 

 tree can exist, and the v/ood of v,'hich is excellent for ship-building; to these 

 may be added the caryas of Pennsylvania, the tulip trees, and the American 

 ashes, maples, &c., which, in many parts of France, are preferable to the indi- 

 genous trees. The administration of the Museum, aware of the services ren- 

 dered to natural history by Michaux, ordered his bust to be placed on the 

 facade of the green-houses, along with those of Comnierson, Dombey, and 

 other travellers who had enriched their collection. 



Michaux was too fully occupied in travelling to have much leisure to write; 

 nevertheless, he is the author of Histoire des Chenes de VAmerique Scptcn- 

 trionalc, pubhshed in 1804^; a North American Flora, and a. Memoir on the 

 Bate Palm. The particulars of his life, at great length, and proportionately 

 interesting, will be found in the Annales du Museum, torn. m.]). 191.; from 

 which this notice of his life has been abridged. 



F. A. Michaux, the author of Histoire des Arbres de rAmerique, after his 

 father's death, was sent to Charleston, by tfie French government, to bring 

 over the trees collected in his father's nurseries, and supplies of seeds. During 

 his stay in America, M. Vilmorin informs us that he sent to the Administra- 

 tion Forestiere larger quantities of acorns and other seeds of foreign trees, than 

 had ever before been sent over from that country. He took that opportunity 

 of visiting Kentuckj', the Tenessee, and of penetrating nearly a thousand miles 

 beyond the Alleghany Mountains. On his return to Europe, he pubhshed his 

 great work on the trees of North America, and other memoirs on relative 

 subjects; particularly one Sur la Naturalisation des Arbres Forestieres de 

 rAmerique, &c. _ He now resides in the neighbourhood of Paris, and appears 

 to be as enthusiastically devoted to the study of trees and shrubs as his late 

 father. ' We are much indebted to him for various useful communications 

 having reference to the Arboretum Britannicwn. 



Georges Marie Louis Du Mont, Baron de Courset, author of the Botaniste 

 Cultivateur, was the Du Hamel of his time; and, after the revolution, his 

 example and exertions contributed, even more than the influence of the Em- 



