LETTERS OF ASA GRAY
EDITED BY
JANE LORING GRAY
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1894
Copyright, 1893,
By JANE LORING GRAY.
All rights reserved.
NOTE.
It has been my aim, in collecting and arranging the “Letters” from Dr.Gray’s large correspondence, to show, as far as possible in his ownwords, his life and his occupation. The greater part of the immense massof letters he wrote was necessarily purely scientific, uninterestingexcept to the person addressed; so that many of those published aremerely fragments, and very few are given completely. I have made noattempt to estimate his scientific or critical labors, for they aresufficiently before the world in various printed works; but something ofthe personality of the man and his many interests may be learned fromthese familiar letters and from even the slight notes.
Dr. Gray began an Autobiography, but went no further than to give abrief sketch of his early life. This fragment is placed, with some notesillustrative of the early conditions in which his youth was passed, atthe beginning of the work.
It is owing to the kind assistance of many friends that theAutobiography and Letters are thus presented; among whom should beespecially mentioned Professors C. S. Sargent and Charles L. Jackson,Dr. W. G. Farlow, Mr. J. H. Redfield, and Mr. Horace E. Scudder.
J. L. GRAY.
Botanic Garden, Cambridge,
July 1, 1893.