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