Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/711

Rh two volumes of about six hundred pages each and illustrated with excellent woodcuts. In the course of his residence at Cambridge he contributed papers to the various scientific periodicals of the time, and issued a little book entitled An Introduction to Systematic and Physiological Botany.

About the beginning of 1833 Mr. Nuttall went to Philadelphia with a collection of plants gathered by Captain Wyeth during a journey overland to the Pacific Ocean. Captain Wyeth was soon to start on a second expedition, to establish posts for the Columbia Fishing and Trading Company, and Nuttall wished to accompany him. Not being able to obtain a sufficiently long leave of absence from Cambridge, he resigned his position at the college and spent the interval before the departure of the expedition in Philadelphia studying the collection already referred to and his own Arkansas plants.

Mr. Nuttall and Mr. John K. Townsend, a young naturalist, sent out jointly by the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences, joined Captain Wyeth's party at Independence, Mo., from which place the start was made April 28, 1834. The details of the journey are given in Townsend's Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, etc. On September 3d they came to the Columbia, and, descending it, reached Fort Vancouver. Here the two naturalists remained for the rest of the autumn to explore the surrounding region. Then desiring to pass the winter months where inclemency of the season would not interfere with their pursuits, they took passage on a Boston brig for the Sandwich Islands, where they arrived January 5, 1835.

Here for the first time Mr. Nuttall enjoyed the beauties of a tropical vegetation. He remained two months collecting plants and sea shells on the several islands, and then, separating from his companion, sailed for California. He spent a great part of the spring and summer on the Pacific coast, then returned to the Sandwich Islands, where he embarked on a Boston vessel to come home by way of Cape Horn. It happened to be the vessel on which Mr. Dana was serving his two years before the mast, and the latter relates in his book that when rounding Cape Horn Nuttail's passion for flowers was aroused by the near view of land. He entreated the captain to put him ashore, if only for a few hours, that he might become acquainted with the vegetation of this dreary spot, although the wind was blowing furiously and the ship was surrounded with icebergs. When his persistent requests were sternly refused he was much disappointed and displeased, being unable to comprehend such indifference to the cause of science.

He arrived in October, 1835, and again took up his abode in