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.