Letters of Asa Gray.

Houghton, Mifflin and Company have just published from the Riverside Press the "Letters of Asa Gray," edited by Jane Loring Gray. The book is in two volumes, crown octavo, with several portraits of Dr. Gray, and a few illustrations of the Botanic Garden.

Dr. Gray's early life, to the age of thirty, is briefly described in some thirty pages of autobiography. His correspondence is then taken up from the year 1831, when he was twenty-one years old; and it is the aim of the editor to trace the varied interests and occupations of his life by means of carefully chosen extracts from his own letters. These were, of course, largely on scientific subjects; but when the majority have been omitted, there yet remains enough to give an idea of the personality of the writer.

The interest in the book, for college men, lies in the fact that for many years Dr. Gray held the position of Fisher professor of Natural History at Harvard. This position he accepted in July, 1842, and retained till his death in 1888. His great interest here was in the maintenance and increasing of the herbarium. In 1864 he presented the college with his own valuable collection, containing at the time over two hundred thousand specimens; and in his will he left to the herbarium the proceeds of all his copyrights. Many of the students are doubtless familiar with some of Dr. Gray's works, but few are aware of the wide field covered by his numerous publications, both in independent volumes and in contributions to periodicals.