Early numbers of the Journal present with sufficient fullness accounts of the remarkable discovery by Daguerre and others of a process for taking pictures by light, on a silver plate or upon paper (37, 374, 1839; 38, 97, 1840, etc.). Before many years passed, the Journal had occasion to show that these novel photographic delineations could be made useful in the investigation of problems in botany. In the pages of the Journal it would be easily possible to trace the development of this art in its relations to natural history. Silliman possessed great sagacity in selecting for his enterprise all the novelties which promised to be of service in the advancement of science. In 1825 (9, 263) the Journal republished from the Edinburgh Journal of Science an essay by Dr. (afterwards Sir) William Jackson Hooker, on American Botany. In this essay the author states that “the various scientific Journals” which “are published in America, contain many memoirs upon the indigenous plants. Among the first of these in point of value, and we think also the first with regard to time, we must name Silliman’s Journal of Science.” The author enumerates some of the contributors to the Journal and the titles of their papers.
It has been a useful practice of the Journal, almost from the first, to transfer to its pages memoirs which would otherwise be likely to escape the notice of the majority of American botanists. The book notices and the longer book reviews covered so wide a field that they placed the readers of the Journal in touch with nearly all of the current botanical literature both here and abroad. These critical notices did much towards the symmetrical development of botany in the United States. And as we shall now see, the Journal notices and reviews in the hands of Asa Gray continued to be one of the most important factors in the advancement of American botany.
Asa Gray and the Journal.
In 1834 there appears in the Journal (25, 346) a “Sketch of the Mineralogy of a portion of Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties, New York, by J. B. Crawe of Watertown and A. Gray of Utica, New York.” This appears to be the first mention in the Journal of the name of Dr. Asa Gray, who, shortly after that date, became thoroughly identified with its botanical interests. In the early part of his career both before and immediately after graduating in medicine, Gray gave much attention to the different branches of natural history in its wide sense. He not only studied but taught “chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and botany,” the latter branch being the one to which he devoted most of his attention. Among his early guides in the pursuit of botany may be mentioned Dr. Hadley, “who had learned some botany from Dr. Ives of New Haven,” and Dr. Lewis C. Beck of Albany, author of Botany of the United States North of Virginia. At that period he made the acquaintance of Dr. John Torrey of New York, with whom he later became associated in most important descriptive work. During the years between his graduation in medicine and 1842, the year when he came to Harvard College, his activities were diverse and intense; so that his preparation for his distinguished career was very broad and thorough. His first visit to Europe, in 1838, brought him into personal relations with a large number of the botanists of Great Britain and the Continent. This extensive acquaintance, added to his broad training, enabled him even from the outset to exert a profound influence upon the progress of his favorite science. He made the Journal tributary to this development. His name first appears as associate editor in 1853, but there are articles in the Journal from his pen which bear an earlier date. The first of these early botanical papers is the following: “A Translation of a memoir entitled ‘Beiträge zur Lehre von der Befruchtung der Pflanzen,’ (contributions to the doctrine of the impregnation of plants, by A. J. C. Corda:) with prefatory remarks on the progress of discovery relative to vegetable fecundation; by Asa Gray, M. D.” (31, 308, 1837). Dr. Gray says that he made the translation from the German for his own private use, but thinking that it might be interesting to the Lyceum, he brought it before the Society, with “a cursory account of the progress of discovery respecting the fecundation of flowering plants, for the purpose of rendering the memoir more generally intelligible to those who are not particularly conversant with the present state of botanical science.” The translation occupies six pages of the Journal, while the prefatory remarks fill nine pages. The prefatory remarks constitute an exhaustive essay on the subject, embodied in attractive and perfectly clear language. The translator shows complete familiarity with the matter in hand and gives an adequate account of all the work done on the subject up to the date of M. Corda’s paper. A second important paper by him near this period is his review of “A Natural System of Botany: or a systematic view of the Organization, Natural Affinities, and Geographical Distribution of the whole Vegetable Kingdom; together with the use of the more important species in Medicine, the Arts, and rural and domestic economy, by John Lindley. Second edition, with numerous additions and corrections, and a complete list of genera and their synonyms. London: 1836” (32, 292, 1837). A very brief notice of this work in the first part of the volume for 1837 closes with the words, “A more extended notice of the work may be expected in the ensuing number of the Journal.” The extended notice proved to be a critical study of the work, signed by the initials A. G. which later became so familiar to readers of the Journal. Citation of a few of its sentences will indicate the strong and quiet manner in which Dr. Gray, even at the outset, wrote his notices of books. In speaking of the second edition of Professor Lindley’s work, he says:
“It is not necessary to state that a treatise of this kind was greatly needed, or to allude to the peculiar qualifications of the learned and industrious author for the accomplishment of the task, or the high estimation in which the work is held in Europe. But we may properly offer our testimony respecting the great and favorable influence which it has exerted upon the progress of botanical science in the United States. Great as the merits of the work undoubtedly are, we must nevertheless be excused from adopting the terms of extravagant and sometimes equivocal eulogy employed by a popular author, who gravely informs his readers that no book, since printed Bibles were first sold in Paris by Dr. Faustus, ever excited so much surprise and wonder as did Dr. Torrey’s edition of Lindley’s Introduction to the Natural System of Botany. Now we can hardly believe that either the author or the American editor of the work referred to was ever in danger, as was honest Dr. Faustus, of being burned for witchcraft, neither do we find anything in its pages calculated to produce such astonishing effects, except, perhaps, upon the minds of those botanists, if such they may be called, who had never dreamed of any important changes in the science since the appearance of good Dr. Turton’s translation of the Species Plantarum, and who speak of Jussieu as a writer who has greatly improved the natural orders of Linnæus.”
In the Journal for 1840 there is a large group of unsigned book reviews under the heading, “Brief notices of recent Botanical works, especially those most interesting to the student of North American Botany.” The first of these short reviews deals with the second section of Part VII of De Candolle’s “Prodromus.” In 1847 the consideration of the “Prodromus” is resumed by the same author and the initials of A. G. are appended. This indicates that Dr. Gray was probably the writer of some of the unsigned book reviews which had appeared in the Journal between 1837 and 1840. Doubtless Silliman availed himself of the assistance of his associates, Eli Ives and others, in New Haven, in the examination of current botanical literature, and it is extremely probable that he early secured help from young Dr. Gray, who had shown himself to be a keen critic as well as a pleasing writer. The notices of botanical works from 1840 bear marks of having been from the same hand. They cover an extremely wide range of subjects. While they are good-tempered they are critical, and they had much to do with the development of botany, in this country, along safe lines.
Gray as Editor.—Gray’s name as associate editor of the Journal appears in 1853. He had been a welcome contributor, as we have seen, for many years. His influence upon the progress of botany in the United States was largely due to his connection with the Journal. His reviews extended over a very wide range, and supplemented to a remarkable degree his other educational work. It must be permitted to allude here to his sagacity as a writer of educational treatises. In his first elementary text-book, published in 1836, he expressed wholly original views in regard to certain phases of structure and function in plants, which became generally adopted at a later date. His Manual of Botany was constructed, and subsequent editions were kept, on a plan which made no appeal to those who wanted to work on lines of least resistance; in fact he had no patience with those who desired merely to ascertain the name of a plant. In the Journal he emphasizes the desirability of learning all the affinities of the plant under consideration. At a later period, when entirely new chapters had been opened in the life of plants, he sought by his contributions in the Journal to interest students in this wider outlook.
Professor C. S. Sargent has selected with good judgment some of the more important scientific papers by Professor Gray and has republished them in a convenient form.[[184]] Many of these papers were contributed to the Journal in the form of reviews. These reviews touch nearly every branch of the science of botany. As Sargent justly says, “Many of the reviews are filled with original and suggestive observations, and taken together, furnish the best account of the development of botanical literature during the last fifty years that has yet been written.” In these longer reviews in the Journal, Gray was wont to take a book under review as affording an opportunity to illustrate some important subject, and many of the reviews are crowded with his expositions. For example, in his examination of vonMohl’s “Vegetable Cell” (15, 451, 1853) he takes up the whole subject of microscopic structure, so far as it was then understood, and he points out the probable errors of some of Mohl’s contemporaries, showing what and how great were Mohl’s own contributions to histology. Such a review is a landmark in the science. The physiology of the cell and the nutrition of the plant were favorite topics with Professor Gray, and he brought much of his knowledge in regard to them into such a review as that of Boussingault (25, 120, 1858) on the “Influence of nitrates on the production of vegetable matter.”
As a systematic botanist, Gray was naturally much interested in the vexed question of nomenclature of plants. One of his most important communications to the Journal is his review, in the volume for 1883 (26, 417), of DeCandolle’s work on the subject. He deals with this strictly technical matter much as he did in a contribution to the Journal which he made in 1868 (46, 63). In both of these papers he states with clearness the general features of the code of nomenclature. He says explicitly that the code does not make, but rather declares, the common law of botanists. The treatment of the subject at his hands would rightly impress a general reader as showing a strong desire to have common sense applied to doubtful cases, instead of insisting on inflexible rules. For this reason, his rule of practice was not always acceptable to those who were anxious to secure conformity to arbitrary rules at whatever cost. As he said in a paper published in the Journal in 1847 (3, 302), “The difficulty of a reform increases with its necessity. It is much easier to state the evils than to relieve them; and the well-meant endeavors that have recently been made to this end, are, some of them, likely, if adopted, to make confusion worse confounded.” This feeling led him to be very conservative in the matter of reform in nomenclature.