their greatest value to the botanist—his ready pencil found frequent employment. He drew with great neatness and rapidity, and it was his custom to record his observations by means of sketches of remarkable distinctness and accuracy.
For several years subsequent to 1861 he was engaged in herbarium work. His removal to Columbia College, and the disposal of his most valuable collection to that institution, rendered it necessary that the accumulations of years, including numerous typical specimens, should be put into complete order. He entered into the drudgery of assorting, determining, labelling, and putting into the herbarium the mass of unarranged material, with the same industry and zeal that he brought to more congenial work. No other hands than his could have completed this important task, and botanists have reason to be grateful that he was spared long enough to put this, in some respects, the most important herbarium in the country, in proper condition for study and reference.
This work being completed, we find him, though advanced in life, again contributing to his favorite science, and, in 1870, "The Revision of the Eriogoneæ," the joint production of himself and Prof. Asa Gray, was published in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Upon the return of Wilkes's exploring expedition, the botanical collections were divided between Drs. Torrey and Gray, except the Cryptogamia, which were given to several specialists. In this division Dr. Gray took the extra-American share, while those collected upon our Pacific coast were elaborated by Dr. Torrey. Before his memoir could be published, the civil war came on, and stopped all appropriations for such work. Last winter, the proposition to publish was revived, and the last botanical work of Dr. Torrey was to take up, during a rally from his fatal illness, this long-delayed manuscript of the botany of Wilkes's expedition, and prepare it for the press. Although his mind was as clear and his perceptions as acute as ever, his strength was unequal to the task. It will be published as a posthumous work, under the supervision of his intimate friend and associate of many years, Dr. Gray.
This enumeration of his scientific labors would be incomplete without reference to his great work in educating others in science. In the various professorships he held he was always to the students a loved instructor, and many now eminent in science can trace the commencement of their careers to the teachings of Dr. Torrey. Not only in the class-room, but out of it, was his influence constantly exerted, and he was always surrounded by a circle of young men who never came to him in vain for sympathy and encouragement. He gave to such what was better than pecuniary aid, comfort, hope, and help in its best sense. There is many a chemist, now standing high in his profession, who owes his position to his kindly aid, and scarcely a botanist in the country who has not been a recipient of favors from his ever-open hand.
