Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/220

210 He had been interested in mineralogy, but his ﬁrst visit to Professor l'arton, a Philadelphia botanist, "decided his vocation to the worship of ﬂora. to whose shrine he remained devoted to the last days of his life."

In 1810-11 Nuttall, with Mr. John Bradbury, went up the Missouri River to the Mandan village. They accompanied to that point Wilson P. Hunt's overland expedition, a part of the Astor enterprise. Later he explored the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. As a result of these investigations he published in 1818 "The Genera of the North American Plants." "Upon this work principally stands the reputation of Mr. Nuttall as a profound botanist." Then he explored the Arkansas River and its tributaries, traveling more than 5,000 miles in a period of'sixteen months, mainly over a country never before visited by scientiﬁc explorers. In 183:2 he wrote a "Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada."

In March, 1834, Nuttall started for the Northwest Coast with the Wyeth Expedition, arriving at the Snake River in the following August. Then they went to The Dalles and down the Columbia to Fort. Vancouver. Nuttall made several short trips into the surrounding country collecting botanical specimens. exploring the Willamette as far as the falls. On December 13, he. started for the Sandwich Islands to winter. In the following spring he returned and made further excursions, going up the Columbia as far as The Dalles. In October he went again to winter in the Sandwich Islands. The next summer he spent in California, after which he returned to his home in Massachusetts. The results of this journey were published in 1840 in the "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society." Thomas Nuttall spent the last seventeen years of his life in England, where he died September 10, 1859.

Mr. Nuttall did not enjoy himself in society; he had such a retiring disposition. "To me," said Mr. Nuttall, "hard-