Now for a little personal matter. I have long been anxious for the safety and final destination of my herbarium and other botanical collections, which in my house (besides that, there is not room for them) are too liable to destruction from fire. I had offered them, with my botanical library, to our university, if they would build in the Botanic Garden a fireproof building to hold them, and raise a small fund for their support. Recently and quite unexpectedly, a banker in Boston, almost unknown to me personally, has offered in any case to construct the building, and a few friends are taking steps, with good prospects, to raise by gifts a fund of $10,000 for the support of the establishment. When done, I shall feel that my collections, which are most important for North American botany, are secure for the use of future botanists. To secure this I gladly divest myself of the ownership of collections which have absorbed most of my small spare means for the last thirty years, and which are valued at $20,000 or more.... In the council of our American Academy (of which since May last I have been president) we have nominated Dean Milman to the foreign honorary membership vacated by the death of Whately, and Max Müller to that vacated by Grimm. The election has not yet taken place. Mrs. Gray, with kind regards, joins me in best wishes for the new year to you and yours. Very sincerely yours, ASA GRAY. TO A. DE CANDOLLE. CAMBRIDGE, December 22, 1863. MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--I thank you cordially for your letter of the 13th November, and for the copy of Thury’s interesting and curious paper. This I had not seen, neither Pictet’s notice. I find it very interesting, but I do not see how he got a legitimate deduction from the facts given by Knight in the vegetable kingdom to his principle in the animal kingdom. However, that is of small moment if the principle holds. The subject is one which will naturally attract much attention, and which, as you remark, has philosophical bearings. I mean to bring it up, next week, for discussion at our private (social) scientific club in Cambridge.