Toward the middle of October went to Portsmouth, and came back to New York in a London packet-ship. Steamers were then only just beginning to make regular trips. Returning, Michigan University was quite ready to give me a furlough of a year or two, without pay; took hold sharp of “Flora of North America,” and in beginning of next summer (June, 1840) we issued the parts 3 and 4 of vol. i. Then went at the “Compositæ;” was interrupted a while in summer of 1841, when I went with John Carey, and James Constable for a part of the time, on a botanical trip up the Valley of Virginia to the mountains of North Carolina, getting as far as to Grandfather and Roan. It was, I think, in the spring of 1841 that the first part of the “Compositæ” was published, _i. e._, vol. ii. pp. 1-184; the second part, to p. 400, was out the next spring. Sometime in January, 1842, I made a visit of two or three days to B. D. Greene in Boston; the first time I ever saw Boston. Came out one day to Cambridge, dined with his father-in-law, President Quincy; the company to meet us was Professor Channing[23] and Professor Treadwell.[24] Sometime in April, I received a letter from President Quincy, telling me that the Corporation of the university would elect me Fisher professor of natural history if I would beforehand signify my acceptance. The endowment then yielded fifteen hundred dollars a year. I was to have a thousand and allow the rest to accumulate for a while. Meanwhile I was to give only a course of botanical lectures, in the second spring term, and look after the Garden. But more work was soon added. I came in July, in the midst of vacation, before Commencement, which was then in September; got lodgings, with room for my then small herbarium, in the house of Deacon Munroe. Went late in September on an excursion to Mount Washington, by way of the Notch, along with Tuckerman, then living at his father’s in Boston. Worked away at “Compositæ,” and in the winter went to New York and carried the remainder through the press. it was issued in February, 1843. I must not forget that my little “Elements of Botany” had been sold out, and the publishers, Carvill, had gone out of business or died. I prepared in 1841-42 the first edition of my “Botanical Text-Book;” it was in the course of printing when I was appointed to the Fisher professorship, so that I could put that title on the title-page, and have a text-book for my class.