Isaac F Holton And John Torrey Correspondence PDF Download

Correspondence from Isaac F. Holton to John Torrey, dated 1840-1870. In his early letters, the young preacher Holton writes from his first teaching post in Illinois, where he complains of a lack of mental stimulation ("I see absolutely nothing of a scientific nature except at Dr. Mead's ... The last prairie flower is dead & I have not till now seen a Botanical work this year"), not to mention his own books and clothes, held up for months in shipping. Throughout the 1840s Holton leads an almost itinerant existence, cobbling together a meagre living from preaching and lecturing on scientific subjects; he reflects often on his uncertain future ("Am I to circulate in an eddy all my life? I hope not.") and asks Torrey for advice. By the latter half of the decade he has moved to New York and found work teaching in girls' and boys' schools and later, at the New York College of Pharmacy. After some years in New York and Princeton, New Jersey, Holton finds his way to New England, and finally again to Illinois, and a late marriage. Surprisingly little mention is made of his journey to South America and the book which came out of that trip, "New Granada: twenty months in the Andes" (1857). The collection also includes letters from Holton to Asa Gray, Samuel Barnum Mead, Charles Wilkins Short, Oliver Rivington Willis, Peter Vincent Le Roy, and Seth Hastings Grant. Obsolete plant names mentioned include Annona triloba, Canchalagua, and Nelumbium. The final letter makes use of the phrase "metric florin" and includes an unidentified annotated newspaper clipping pertaining to systems of currency.