The next year, in the spring, Dr. Torrey went to Europe, sent to purchase apparatus for the New York City University, then just established. He engaged me to go that summer to collect plants in the pine barrens of New Jersey, he to take the half of my collection, paying what would be required to defray my very moderate expenses in the field. I found afterwards that these plants went to B. D. Greene and his brother Copley, then abroad and full of botany; and I have encountered them, i. e., the specimens, in various places, especially in Herb. De Candolle, as “Coll. Greene.” I got down, I hardly now know how, to Tuckerton on the Jersey coast, botanized at Little Egg Harbor, Wading River, Quaker Bridge, and Atsion. While at Quaker Bridge my loneliness was cheered by the appearance of a fine-looking man, who came in a chaise, looking after some particular insect. It proved to be Major Le Conte.[19]
The next winter at Bartlett’s school. In the spring went north to Watertown; visited Dr. Crawe, botanized on Black River, made mineralogical excursions, and back to Utica via Sackett’s Harbor (lake to Oswego, and canal to Utica). After the spring term of school there—I think it was that year, but am uncertain—I took through the summer Professor Hadley’s place at Hamilton College, Clinton; gave for him a course of instruction in botany and mineralogy. This, I have reason to think, was a ruse of my good friend, who wished me to succeed to that professorship, which he was on the point of resigning. Fortunately, Charles Avery, my old academic preceptor, became a candidate and secured the election.
These years are a good deal mixed up, and I cannot settle their dates nor the order of events. Only I know that the next autumn I got a furlough from the school until toward the end of winter, that I might accept Dr. Torrey’s invitation to be his assistant during his course of chemical lectures in the Medical School, and at his house in the herbarium, living with him, and receiving eighty dollars as pay. This I can fix as the winter of 1833-34 or 1834-35. The first century of my “North American Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ” was got out that winter, and it bears the date of 1834.[20] In February or March I went up by stagecoach from New York to Albany, thence to Bridgewater, and so to Utica, to do my work at Bartlett’s school. That finished, made a second trip to the northeast part of the State, collecting in botany and mineralogy with Dr. Crawe, extending the tour to St. Lawrence County, where we found fine fluor-spar and great but rough crystals of phosphate of lime, idiocrase, etc. I wrote some account of these for the “American Journal of Science,” the earliest of my many contributions to that journal. Returning toward autumn to Bridgewater, I there received a letter from Dr. Torrey, informing me that the prospects of the Medical College were so poor that he could not longer afford to have my services as assistant. Bartlett’s school I had resigned from on account of my prospects in New York. And, in fact, the school was then going down, and he [Bartlett] was transferred soon after to Poughkeepsie, where he flourished anew for a time. I was in a rather bad way. But I determined to go to New York, assisted Dr. Torrey as I could, got out the second part of my “North American Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ.” I am not sure whether I was in Dr. Torrey’s family or not, or for only a part of the winter. But in the spring of 1835, I went up to my father’s house for the summer, with some books, among them a copy of De Candolle’s “Organographie” and “Théorie Elémentaire.” These or at least the former came from Professor Lehmann,[21] of Hamburg, with whom for a year or two I had corresponded and exchanged plants, or received books in exchange for plants. I had made a still earlier exchange with Soleirol, a French army surgeon, who had collected in Corsica. While at home I blocked out and partly wrote my “Elements of Botany.” Returned to New York in the autumn; went into cheap lodgings, arranged with Carvill & Company to take my book. I think they gave one hundred and fifty dollars, which was a great sum for me. We got it through the press that winter. John Carey had then come down to New York, and was a great help to me in proof-reading, and the little book was published in April or May, 1836.
I think it was in the autumn of 1836 that the Lyceum of Natural History, New York, having with a great effort erected their hall, on Broadway just below Prince Street, I was appointed curator; had a room for my use, some light pay, proportioned to light duties, and this was my home for a year or two. There I wrote my papers, “Remarks on the Structure and Affinities of the Ceratophyllaceæ” (which dates February 20, 1837),—not a very wise production, and some of the observations are incorrect; also the better paper, really rather good, “Melanthacearum Americæ Septentrionalis Revisio,” published in 1837.
Dr. Torrey had planned the “Flora of North America,” but had not made much solid progress in it. I, having time on my hands, took hold to work up in a preliminary way some of the earlier orders for his use. This was to pass the time for a while, for in the summer of 1836 I was appointed botanist to a great South Pacific exploring expedition, which met with all manner of delays in fitting out, changes in commanders, etc., until finally, in the spring of 1838, Lieutenant Wilkes was appointed to the command, the number and size of the vessels cut down, and the scientific corps more or less diminished. The assistant botanist, William Rich, an appointment of the Secretary of the Navy, was to be left out. I resigned in his favor, having been about that time appointed professor of natural history in the newly chartered University of Michigan. As I had thus far done fully half the work, Dr. Torrey invited me to be joint author in “Flora of North America.” The first part was printed and issued in July, the second in October, 1838, at our joint expense, my share being contributed from the pay I had been receiving while waiting orders as botanist of the exploring expedition.
By this time we had come to see that we did not know enough of the original sources to work up the North American flora properly, and as Dr. Torrey could not get away from home, I was determined to get abroad and consult some of the principal herbaria. On being appointed professor in the University of Michigan, which had as yet no buildings, I made it understood that I must have a year abroad. The trustees of the university in this view gave me, in the autumn of 1838, a year’s leave of absence, a salary for that year of fifteen hundred dollars, and put into my hands five thousand dollars with which to lay a foundation for their general library. I sailed early in November, 1838, in the packet-ship Philadelphia, for Liverpool; went direct from Liverpool to Glasgow; was guest of Dr. William J. Hooker till Christmas—his son, Joseph D. Hooker, was then a medical student; went to Arlary, December 26-7, to visit Arnott; stayed till the day after New Year; thence to Edinburgh for two or three days. Greville was the best botanist, but Graham was the professor, Balfour then a young botanist there. Heard old Monro, Wilson (Christopher North), Chalmers, Traill, Charles Bell, etc., lecture. On way south stopped at Melrose and Abbotsford; coach to Newcastle, Durham (over Sunday), and through Manchester, where rail was taken, to Birmingham and London. Took lodgings till some time in March. Dr. Boott was of course my best friend there. But Hooker and Joseph came up to London for a week. Hooker insisted on taking me in hand as of his party, and so I was introduced to all his friends; took me to the Royal Society, etc.; dined one day with Bentham, to whose house I often went, and who gave me a full supply of letters to the botanists on the Continent. I worked a good deal at the British Museum; Robert Brown was very kind to me, and his assistant, J. J. Bennett, very useful, putting me up to all the old collections and how to consult them. At Linnæan Society, thanks to Boott, had every facility for the Linnæan herbarium. Old Lambert too; he had the Hookers and myself at dinner, and gave me as good opportunity as he could to consult the Pursh plants, etc., in his herbarium, which, not long after, was scattered, but it was in his dining-room, which was very much lumbered, and to be reached only at certain hours. Lindley had me down for a day to his house at Turnham Green, and a little dinner at the close. First visited Kew with the Hookers; called on Francis Bauer, who lived in a house near the river; found him at ninety making beautiful microscopic drawings to illustrate the genera of ferns; and Hooker then arranged for their publication in the well-known volume for which he furnished the text. Saw not rarely N. B. Ward, who lived at Wellclose Square in Wapping, and whose cultivation of plants in closed cases attracted much attention. Went with Ward one day to dine with Menzies, then over ninety; he lived, with a housekeeper, at Maida Vale, or somewhere beyond Kensington.
George P. Putnam, of the firm of Wiley & Putnam, was then resident in London, and through him I managed the expenditure of the money placed in my hands for the purchase of books for the University of Michigan, in a manner that proved satisfactory.
There is still in my possession, but not in reach for ready reference, a file of letters which I wrote home to the Torrey family while I was in Europe. If I were to find them and refresh my memory by them, I should make these notes quite too long. I will therefore trust to memory and touch lightly here and there on my Continental journey. I think it was early in March, 1839, that one morning I took passage on a small steamer from London, Bentham coming to see me off, to Calais; thence diligence for Paris. My lodgings, near the Luxembourg, were not far from the house of P. Barker Webb, to whom I had introductions, and who was very useful to me; he owned the herbarium of Desfontaines. At the Jardin des Plantes were old Mirbel, who occupied himself only with vegetable anatomy, Adrien Jussieu, with whom I corresponded as long as he lived, Brongniart, Decaisne, then aide-naturaliste, and Spach, curator of the herbarium. Jussieu had his father’s herbarium in his study. Besides Michaux’s herbarium at the Jardin des Plantes, I had also to consult, for a few things, the set taken by the actual writer of the “Flora,” L. C. Richard. This I found at the house of his son Achille Richard, botanical professor in the Medical School, living in the Medical Botanic Garden, then occupying a piece of the Luxembourg grounds. The other French botanists I recall were Dr. Montagne, the cryptogamist, a pleasant man, Gaudichaud, whom I saw little of, Auguste St. Hilaire, who I think spent only the winter in Paris. I had an introduction to Benjamin Delessert, who lived in fine style in a hotel in the Rue Montmartre. Lasègue, the librarian, acted as curator to the herbarium (Guillemin had died not long before), which I found occasion to consult only once. I should not forget Jacques Gay, with his large herbarium very rich in European plants. I never dreamed then that so many of them would find their way into our own herbarium. He lived close to the Luxembourg Palace, then the palace of the House of Peers. Gay was the secretary of the Marquis de Semonville, who was a high official there, and so lived near by. He held a weekly reception for botanists, etc., and was a good soul. It was at the herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes that I first made the acquaintance of a botanist of about my own age, Edmond Boissier of Geneva, who was studying some of the plants of his collections in Granada and other parts of Spain, soon after brought out in his work on the “Flora of Granada,” etc.
I left Paris in early spring, by malle-poste to Lyons; passed a day with Seringe; steamer to Avignon, diligence to Nîmes, and thence to Montpellier, where I passed two or three days. Delile and Dunal were the professors; saw Bentham’s mother and sister, then resident there. Diligence to Marseilles, steamer to Genoa, Leghorn, a day at each; to Civita Vecchia; a carriage to Rome, along with an English clergyman; thence back same way to Leghorn, Pisa, Florence. Vetturino to Bologna, Ferrara, Padua (Visiani at the garden), Venice; then steamer to Trieste; a day with Biasoletto, including a botanical excursion, and Tommasini. Fell in there with a young artist of New York, whose name I have forgotten. We took places in the malle-poste together to Vienna, but went on two days ahead to Adelsberg; visited the grotto on a fête day when it was all lighted, and all the country people there in gala trim; that night went on by malle-poste. At Vienna, Endlicher, and his assistant Fenzl, but the latter laid up with lame knee. Never saw him afterward, but we had a long correspondence. Steamer up the Danube to Linz, tramway, etc., to the Gmunden See, and so to Ischl; climbed the Zeimitz, all alone, picked my first Alpine flowers; traveled over night to Salzburg, then to Munich; fine times with Martius and Zuccarini, joined the celebration out in the country of Linnæus’ birthday,—but not the 24th May; I think two or three weeks later. From Munich to Lindau on Lake Constance; thence to Zurich; up the lake to Horgen; walked over to Art; walked up the Rigi; descended the Rigi to take the boat up the lake, missed it, got a man to put me across in Canton Unterwalden; walked to Stanz, slept, walked next morning to Engelberg, and then over the [Joch?] Pass, and down to Meyringen; next day to Interlaken and the Staubbach, next over the Wengern Alp to Grindelwald, next over the Grand Scheideck to valley of Hassli, up to the Grimsel, passed a Sunday in the snow; walked down to the Rhone glacier and down to Brieg; thence partly on foot, partly char-à-banc, to Martigny; made excursion to the Col de Balme to get a good view of Mont Blanc; back to Martigny, down to Villeneuve, and steamer to Geneva. I reached there, I think, July 4; worked there ten days or so, very sharp; De Candolle, father and son, and Reuter[22] the curator; saw again Boissier. Leaving boat at Lausanne, diligence to Freiburg, Berne, Bâle. Got across country, I hardly remember how, to Tübingen, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Frankfort; thence to Leipzig; made excursion to Dresden, then to Halle, where was Schlechtendal, and where I looked over old Schkuhr’s originals of his Carex plates; thence through Wittenberg to Potsdam and Berlin; worked diligently a week in herbarium. Willdenow, Klotzsch the curator; saw old Link, Kunth, and Ehrenberg. Diligence to Hamburg, where was Lehmann, one of my very earliest correspondents. Steamer from Hamburg to London, late in September. Toward the middle of October went to Portsmouth, and came back to New York in a London packet-ship. Steamers were then only just beginning to make regular trips.
Returning, Michigan University was quite ready to give me a furlough of a year or two, without pay; took hold sharp of “Flora of North America,” and in beginning of next summer (June, 1840) we issued the parts 3 and 4 of vol. i. Then went at the “Compositæ;” was interrupted a while in summer of 1841, when I went with John Carey, and James Constable for a part of the time, on a botanical trip up the Valley of Virginia to the mountains of North Carolina, getting as far as to Grandfather and Roan.