[Illustration: Photo of Asa Gray (signed)] LETTERS OF ASA GRAY EDITED BY JANE LORING GRAY IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1894 Copyright, 1893, BY JANE LORING GRAY. _All rights reserved._ NOTE. It has been my aim, in collecting and arranging the “Letters” from Dr. Gray’s large correspondence, to show, as far as possible in his own words, his life and his occupation. The greater part of the immense mass of letters he wrote was necessarily purely scientific, uninteresting except to the person addressed; so that many of those published are merely fragments, and very few are given completely. I have made no attempt to estimate his scientific or critical labors, for they are sufficiently before the world in various printed works; but something of the personality of the man and his many interests may be learned from these familiar letters and from even the slight notes. Dr. Gray began an Autobiography, but went no further than to give a brief sketch of his early life. This fragment is placed, with some notes illustrative of the early conditions in which his youth was passed, at the beginning of the work. It is owing to the kind assistance of many friends that the Autobiography and Letters are thus presented; among whom should be especially mentioned Professors C. S. Sargent and Charles L. Jackson, Dr. W. G. Farlow, Mr. J. H. Redfield, and Mr. Horace E. Scudder. J. L. GRAY. BOTANIC GARDEN, CAMBRIDGE, _July 1, 1893_. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 1810-1843 1 II. EARLY UNDERTAKINGS. 1831-1838 29 III. FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. 1838-1839 85 IV. A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. 1840-1850 272 NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS. The frontispiece portrait of Dr. Gray is a photogravure from a photograph taken in 1867. The portrait facing page 286 is from a daguerreotype taken about 1841. The view of the Botanic Garden House, facing page 358, is from a drawing by Isaac Sprague. LETTERS OF ASA GRAY. CHAPTER I. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 1810-1843. My great-great-grandfather, John Gray, with his family, among which was Robert Gray, supposed to be one of his sons, emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland, to Worcester, Mass., being part of a Scotch-Irish colony.[1] The farm they took up was on the north side of what is now Lincoln Street.