Goodale.] 
196 
[Feb. 15, 
time to the meetings here, and the records show that he presented 
not only memoirs of a systematic character, but also more famil- 
iar communications. 
Dr. Gray must have entered on the duties of the office of pro- 
fessor with some misgivings ; not that he was unprepared in any 
way for the place, but that the place was unprepared for him. Dr. 
Joshua Fisher’s bequest was to be devoted to the support of a pro- 
fessor of Natural History comprehending “the mineral, vegetable 
and animal kingdoms, or any part of them.” But the professor- 
ship had no appliances for investigation or instruction except an 
impoverished' botanic garden. At the time of Dr. Gray’s arrival, 
the garden was in a wretched condition, and his account of its low 
estate would excite a smile if it were not so pathetic. 
His first task was to begin an herbarium, and to this he devoted 
no small share of a slender income. To the acquisition, the care 
and the study of the plants which constitute the great herbarium, 
he gave the next forty-five years. 
His college duties were not wholly free from anxiety. He was 
scrupulous in the care with which he prepared himself to speak ; but 
in those days botany was, for a while at least, a prescribed study, 
and his words fell sometimes on unheeding ears. In the pleasant 
spring mornings it is said that, after the roll had been called, the 
class would be diminished by the surreptitious withdrawal of some 
who thought they were escaping without attracting the attention 
of the absorbed professor, but it is surmised that he was not wholly 
averse to this anticipation of the elective system, preferring to 
have a few willing listeners instead of those to whom the sci- 
ence was unattractive. This view is confirmed by the well-known 
hearty welcome accorded to his work-room to the very few who 
wished to make a practical acquaintance with plants. It may well 
be questioned whether he found class teaching other than irksome : 
the quiet direction of studies in his private work-room was always 
?to him a pleasant task. 
The acquisition of an herbarium involves an enormous corre- 
spondence. Questions came in from every hand, and demanded a 
{prompt response. Dr. Gray conducted this for more than forty j^ears 
•with his own hand, answering even the most trivial questions with 
a patience seldom seen. His published works are roughly grouped 
under the four heads, educational, systematic, philosophical, criti- 
cal. The enumeration of these works is startling : in the Royal 
