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274 forms of the orchis and polygonum, in a tone of pioneer information, one must recall that his day afforded meagre facilities for classification and identification. Moreover, his pride was of the kind suggested in the first chapter,—an idealization of Concord as a centre of observation and collation. After reading the story of the Arctic discoveries by Kane, he caused a laugh among his friends by asserting that many of the same plants and formations might be found in the vicinity of his home; searching diligently, he did identify one or two of the northern flora, or their counterparts, and exulted in the discovery of red snow. His descriptions are intended to glorify Concord, not to exalt himself. Its landscape is made beautiful to him and his readers by simple pictures,—the delicate, pale purple spikes of the orchis amid the hellebore and ferns of the alder swamp, or the polygonum articulatum "with its slender dense racemes of rose-tinted flowers, apparently without leaves, rising cleanly out of the sand." Even the common shells on the shore of river and lakes near Concord are vested with unusual beauty in their freshly-colored nacre.

If he lacked the penetrative eye of some modern trained naturalists who, through his volumes and those of later students, can quickly anticipate and