Letters of Asa Gray; Vol. 2

by Asa Gray

My dear Friend,—I am all the more glad that I can direct your attention to the fourth volume (new series) of the “Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,” p. 382, where you will find your name enrolled as the sole Honorary Member for Switzerland.

Ordinarily neither you nor I would be at all solicitous for such recognition. I care not to have them except where (as in the Linnæan Society of London, the French Academy, and your own society of Geneva) I well know the nominations are strictly and conscientiously weighed, and where the list to be filled is a limited one. But we here prize the name of De Candolle so highly that we count it a privilege to have it on our foreign list....

I should state that this academy, the oldest but one in America, was in a state of inactivity and hebetude since the death of its former president, Bowditch, till 1843, the year after I came to Cambridge, when it was determined, chiefly by some of my colleagues in Cambridge, to restore it to life and vigor. It is now full of life. The number of its foreign members is now limited to seventy-five, and they are chosen by a very formal process and a very rigid scrutiny, so as to have only the very best names in the several departments of knowledge. Formerly they were chosen without such care; so that there are names on the list that could not be placed there now. Hereafter the list will be a most select one....

Hereafter we will send our parcels through the Smithsonian Institution and through its agent, Mr. Hector Bossange, Paris. You justly praise the publications of this institution. It is on the point of issuing another splendid volume; and at least one a year will continue to be issued.[24]

Liberal in its distribution, the Smithsonian Institution looks to its exchanges as a means of building up a library valuable for scientific researches in this country. You may remember that, when at Geneva, I ventured to ask you to recommend to the Société de Physique et d’Histoire Naturelle de Genève, to vote its series of memoirs to the Smithsonian Institution. But you thought it would not then be quite proper to request it. Now that the institution has given such evidences of its vigor and productiveness, and that I can assure you it is only beginning to do its work, and that in number of volumes it will soon overtake you, I venture to renew the request which I was then requested to make; and I think that your society, with these assurances, and in view of the good offices of the Smithsonian in promoting interchanges (at no small expense), would freely accord the earlier volumes of its memoirs, on your proposition....

Dr. Harris[25] has made interesting researches on the plants cultivated by our aborigines, which I urge him to publish; but he is one of those persons who are never quite ready to print as long as they live.

I have long suspected that Helianthus tuberosus came from North America. I should like to study from what indigenous species it comes....

As to the “Botany of the South Sea Exploring Expedition,” the manuscript and the drawings are ready up nearly to the Leguminosæ; and the printing, which is not under my control, is about to commence. The work will probably make three quarto volumes and 300 folio plates. I shall be sure to have a copy to send you. As to the specimens, there are few duplicates; and of these I am not myself allowed to retain any. Possibly, hereafter, some may be awarded to me. That expedition did not land on the high Antarctic coasts it saw, and therefore made no collections there. Its Antarctic collection is all from Orange Harbor, Tierra del Fuego, and has little that is new.

The most interesting part of the collection was made at the Sandwich and Feejee islands.

My wife and I well remember what a charming place Vallon is, and retain pleasant memories of our trip to the Salève under the charge of Madame De Candolle, despite the bad weather which spoiled the view. We should delight to revisit Switzerland. Having no children, it is not impossible that we may do so; but the time, I fear, is far in the future....