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ISTUDY
Introduction to Modeling and Simulation
Introduction to Modeling and Simulation

A Systems Approach

Mark W. Spong
The University of Texas at Dallas
USA
This edition first published 2023
© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material
from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

The right of Mark W. Spong to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with law.

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John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

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MATLAB® is a trademark of The MathWorks, Inc. and is used with permission. The MathWorks
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The MathWorks of a particular pedagogical approach or particular use of the MATLAB®
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Hardback ISBN: 9781119982883

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Cover design: Wiley

Set in 9.5/12.5pt STIXTwoText by Straive, Chennai, India

To Lila
 vii

Contents

Preface xiii
About the Companion Website xvii

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.1.1 Systems Engineering 1
1.1.2 The Input/Output Viewpoint 2
1.1.3 Some Examples 2
1.2 Model Classification 5
1.2.1 Static and Dynamic Systems 5
1.2.2 Linear and Nonlinear Systems 5
1.2.3 Distributed-Parameter Systems 6
1.2.4 Hybrid and Discrete-Event Systems 6
1.2.5 Deterministic and Stochastic Systems 7
1.2.6 Large-Scale Systems 7
1.3 Simulation Languages 9
1.4 Outline of the Text 10
Problems 11

2 Second-Order Systems 15
2.1 Introduction 15
2.2 State-Space Representation 19
2.3 Trajectories and Phase Portraits 22
2.4 The Direction Field 27
2.5 Equilibria 30
2.6 Linear Systems 33
2.7 Linearization of Nonlinear Systems 41
2.8 Periodic Trajectories and Limit Cycles 45
viii Contents

2.8.1 Relaxation Oscillators 45

2.8.2 Bendixson’s Theorem 49
2.8.3 Poincaré–Bendixson Theorem 51
2.9 Coupled Second-Order Systems 53
Problems 55

3 System Fundamentals 61
3.1 Introduction 61
3.2 Existence and Uniqueness of Solution 61
3.3 The Matrix Exponential 64
3.4 The Jordan Canonical Form 67
3.5 Linearization 71
3.6 The Hartman–Grobman Theorem 72
3.7 Singular Perturbations 73
Problems 79

4 Compartmental Models 83
4.1 Introduction 83
4.2 Exponential Growth and Decay 84
4.3 The Logistic Equation 87
4.4 Models of Epidemics 88
4.5 Predator–Prey System 95
Problems 97

5 Stability 101
5.1 Introduction 101
5.2 Lyapunov Stability 102
5.3 Basin of Attraction 109
5.4 The Invariance Principle 110
5.5 Linear Systems and Linearization 113
Problems 116

6 Discrete-Time Systems 119

6.1 Introduction 119
6.2 Stability of Discrete-Time Systems 123
6.3 Stability of Discrete-Time Linear Systems 124
6.4 Moving-Average Filter 126
6.5 Cobweb Diagrams 128
6.5.1 Cobweb Diagrams in Economics 130
6.5.2 The Discrete Logistic Equation 131
Problems 134
 Contents ix

7 Numerical Methods 137

7.1 Introduction 137
7.2 Numerical Differentiation 138
7.3 Numerical Integration 141
7.4 Numerical Solution of ODEs 147
7.4.1 Euler Predictor–Corrector Method 150
7.4.2 Runge–Kutta Methods 152
7.5 Stiff Systems 155
7.6 Event Detection 160
7.7 Simulink 163
7.8 Summary 168
Problems 169

8 Optimization 173
8.1 Introduction 173
8.2 Unconstrained Optimization 177
8.2.1 Iterative Search 179
8.2.2 Gradient Descent 180
8.2.3 Newton’s Method 184
8.3 Case Study: Numerical Inverse Kinematics 187
8.4 Constrained Optimization 191
8.4.1 Equality Constraints 191
8.4.2 Inequality Constraints 196
8.5 Convex Optimization 200
Problems 204

9 System Identification 209

9.1 Introduction 209
9.2 Least Squares 209
9.3 Regression 212
9.4 Recursive Least Squares 217
9.5 Logistic Regression 220
9.6 Neural Networks 224
Problems 230

10 Stochastic Systems 233

10.1 Markov Chains 233
10.1.1 Regular and Ergodic Markov Chains 240
10.1.2 Absorbing Markov Chains 244
10.2 Monte Carlo Methods 249
10.2.1 Random Number Generation 250
x Contents

10.2.2 Monte Carlo Integration 253

10.2.3 Monte Carlo Optimization 255
10.2.4 Monte Carlo Simulation 255
Problems 258

11 Feedback Systems 261

11.1 Introduction 261
11.2 Transfer Functions 263
11.3 Feedback Control 269
11.4 State-Space Models 273
11.4.1 Minimal Realizations 274
11.4.2 Pole Placement 280
11.4.3 State Estimation 283
11.4.4 The Separation Principle 285
11.5 Optimal Control 288
11.6 Control of Nonlinear Systems 289
Problems 292

12 Partial Differential Equation Models 297

12.1 Introduction 297
12.1.1 Existence and Uniqueness of Solutions 297
12.1.2 Classification of Linear Second-Order PDEs 298
12.2 The Wave Equation 299
12.2.1 The D’Alembert Solution 300
12.2.2 Initial-Value Problem 300
12.2.3 Separation of Variables 302
12.3 The Heat Equation 310
12.4 Laplace’s Equation 313
12.5 Numerical Solution of PDEs 315
Problems 319

13 Complex Networks 321

13.1 Introduction 321
13.1.1 Examples of Complex Networks 322
13.2 Graph Theory: Basic Concepts 324
13.2.1 Graph Isomorphism 327
13.2.2 Connectivity 327
13.2.3 Trees 331
13.2.4 Bipartite Graphs 332
 Contents xi

13.2.5 Planar Graphs 333

13.2.6 Graphs and Matrices 335
13.3 Matlab Graph Functions 341
13.4 Network Metrics 343
13.4.1 Degree Distribution 343
13.4.2 Centrality 347
13.4.3 Clustering 350
13.5 Random Graphs 354
13.5.1 Erdős–Rényi Networks 354
13.5.2 Small-World Networks 358
13.5.3 Scale-Free Networks 360
13.6 Synchronization in Networks 362
Problems 366

Appendix A Linear Algebra 371

A.1 Vectors 371
A.2 Matrices 373
A.3 Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors 375

Appendix B Real Analysis 379

B.1 Set Theory 379
B.2 Vector Fields 380
B.3 Jacobian 381
B.4 Scalar Functions 381
B.5 Taylor’s Theorem 382
B.6 Extreme-Value Theorem 383

Appendix C Probability 385

C.1 Discrete Probability 385
C.2 Conditional Probability 386
C.3 Random Variables 389
C.4 Continuous Probability 391

Appendix D Proofs of Selected Results 395

D.1 Proof of Theorem 2.2 395
D.2 Proof of Theorem 5.1 395
D.3 Proof of Theorem 5.5 396
D.4 Proof of Theorem 13.3 397
D.5 Proof of Corollary 13.2 397
xii Contents

D.6 Proof of Proposition 13.2 398

D.7 Proof of Proposition 13.3 398

Appendix E Matlab Command Reference 399

References 403

Index 407
 xiii

Preface

This book grew out of a one-semester course, Engineering Modeling and

Simulation, in the Systems Engineering and Management Master of Science
degree program at the University of Texas at Dallas. In the spring 2020 semester
I was asked to teach this course after the previous instructor left the university,
and it has been an enjoyable experience both to teach topics familiar to me and
to prepare topics that I had never taught before. My vision in developing this text
is to introduce students to a broad range of topics in mathematical modeling that
can prepare them for deeper studies of one or more of these topics in subsequent
courses. The individual topics in the text were chosen with this in mind, partly
based on the availability of more advanced courses in our own curriculum. At
the same time, I wanted to include enough material so that the students acquire
a basic understanding of each topic whether or not they continue their studies
beyond the present text. The emphasis is on systems concepts rather than proofs.
I include proofs if doing so adds some particular insight. Otherwise, proofs are
either omitted, with pointers to the literature, or else included in the appendix.
The intended audience for this text includes advanced undergraduates and
beginning graduate students in science, engineering, management, or mathe-
matics. I assume that the students have a basic knowledge of calculus, linear
algebra, probability theory, and differential equations, as well as some familiarity
with Matlab, although instructors may wish to supplement this text with an
introductory Matlab text.

Organization of the Text

Each chapter of the text is intended to give a more or less self-contained overview
of an important topic in systems modeling and simulation. After an introductory
chapter, Chapter 2 deals with second-order systems. Second-order systems are an
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
think, go to Vienna by way of Innsbruck, to be there the first week in June.
All else is uncertain, except that we mean to be in Switzerland in July....

Dr. Gray said he found more botany in a half day in the desert than in a
week in Egypt! A country cultivated for five thousand years had no weeds.
There were long walks and occasional excursions in Nubia into the desert
when the dahabeah was lying still.

TO CHARLES WRIGHT.

Munich, June 8, 1869.

... It is hurrying and distracting work, this traveling with a pair of nice
young ladies, sharp for sight-seeing, ... and a lot of botanists and gardens,
etc., you want to see on your own hook. So you will excuse all curtness in
letters....
At Munich we saw, of course, much of Madame de Martius,[77]—a
sweet, good soul, deeply grieved by the loss of her husband, and yet bears
up bravely. And we learned many interesting things about good Martius.
Notices of Martius’ death were sent, as usual, to all friends....
11th. Nuremberg is a queer old place indeed. We have nearly twenty-four
hours here, and go on the way to Dresden to-day.

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

Dresden, June 13, 1869.

I’ll tell you what our plans are at present. To stay here till Friday noon,
the 18th; Mrs. G. to be very quiet, as she cares mainly to see the gallery and
enjoy it leisurely. On Tuesday, I, with the young ladies, go up to Freiberg to
visit the celebrated mining school, etc., and on return next day, to see the
Forst-Akademie at Tharand. Friday night all to Töplitz, to pass two days
with a friend,—the Sunday’s rest. Monday to Prague, Tuesday to
Regensburg, Wednesday or Thursday to Munich, and Saturday evening to
be at Ragatz (or Pfeffers). Soon after at least Mrs. G. and I will be settled
for a while at Geneva.
Hôtel Byron, Villeneuve, July 15, 1869.
 ... Boissier has been seriously sick with a pleurisy, etc.; is at Orbe, or
was. If still there I should go to see him; but he has now gone to Gries, in
Appenzell, to a bathing-place, and I shall not see him.... Reuter, his curator,
was away last week, but I shall see him, I presume, to-morrow.
I have just lost my mother, at a good old age. My father died twenty-four
years earlier....
It is a charming place here. We are spending the morning lazily, and go
on soon to Geneva. The young people have gone on to Chamouni, which
we do not care to revisit.... Kindest regards to Professor Fenzl, with regrets
that I shall not see him.

TO JOSEPH HOWLAND.

Interlaken, July 26, 1869.

... We have had a joyful time in Switzerland, and for me a complete
rejuvenation. And as to Mrs. Gray, who did not need that, what we call “the
movement cure” has done her more good than all Egypt. That my
lamentable failure of breath on Piz Langarde was owing, not to advancing
years, as I had foreboded, nor wholly to the rarefaction of the atmosphere
above 9,000 feet, as Mrs. H. suggested, but to a violent cold, then
impending, I proved satisfactorily by walking the other day down from
Mürren to Lauterbrunnen (having walked up the eve before), and then right
on over the Wengern Alp to Grindelwald, and I believe as comfortably as I
did it (all but the first part) thirty, and then nineteen, years ago!
Weather has been all we could ask for,—this the first rainy day to keep
us indoors, and it now promises to be pleasant by noon, so that we can go to
Giessbach. Let me tell you what we have done....
Wife and I started Thursday, to Sierre, by rail. Friday, carriage to Visp,
and horses to St. Nicolaus. Saturday, char-à-banc to Zermatt, and horses to
hotel on the Riffel. Only my wife’s own pen can relate how she felt in flesh,
bones, and spirit after that, nor her surprise to find next morning that she
was “alive, and alive like to be,” nor her keen delight in Matterhorn, Monte
Rosa, and surroundings, and the profusion of alpine flowers. Sunday and
Monday on Riffel most enjoyable. Tuesday, Mrs. G., thinking facile
descensus inapplicable to such a steep path, insisted upon walking down to
Zermatt, which she did; a long rest at Zermatt, with pleasant English
friends, and a dinner enabled us to go in char to St. Nicolaus to sleep, taking
a small thunder-shower in the way.
Wednesday, “we still live,” and go on horses, through two showers, to
Visp again, and then carriage to Sierre and rail down to Hôtel Byron, to get
charming view and sleep.
Thursday, all fresh comparatively, and go in a chaise to Chillon, and then
back to our pleasant quarters in Hôtel de la Metropole, Geneva. Here we
rest, see friends, and do botany till Tuesday last.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

London, August 22, 1869.

... With all my endeavors I could not get off a note to you by yesterday’s
(Saturday’s) post, and so shall be late in announcing to you our prosperous
return to England. We left Paris on Thursday, reached Amiens in time to
visit the cathedral, a most striking specimen of fullest-flowered Gothic, saw
it again on Friday morning, and, after a smooth crossing, got to London
before sunset. Yesterday I had to go to the banker’s, to Kew, and to see our
Harvard men at Putney.[78] I must now needs be with them on their trial
day; and then, tell me frankly if it would perfectly suit Mrs. Church and
yourself if we came to you on Saturday (28th) for a few days. Later would
serve us, if you prefer....
After that I hope we can get settled at Kew, and do some work, for which
I have little enough time left.
As to Exeter meeting of British Association, I am on the whole glad
enough to keep away, especially from Darwinian discussions, in which I
desire not to be at all “mixed up” with the prevailing and peculiarly English
materialistic, positivic line of thought, with which I have no sympathy,
while in natural history I am a sort of Darwinian.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

Kew, [Charlton House],

September 20, 1869.
The skies were propitious to us in Switzerland, and the only very warm
day was the one which we passed, very pleasantly indeed, with Godet at
Neufchâtel. Thence we went to Paris, stopping at Dijon en route....
 Oliver and Baker are here steadily at work. Dr. Masters[79] drops in now
and then. Dr. Hooker, after some respite, was at home. Dr. Thomson
returned last week; and now Bentham is here also, fresh from the Continent.
At British Museum I find Dr. Carruthers[80] and the new assistant, Dr.
Trimen. Mr. Bennett still, I think, away on his holiday. Botanical and other
news I have none. I send you this mere apology for a letter, in the hope of
getting something from you; and later I may have more to say. Can I be of
any use to you here?
Remember me kindly to Dr. Müller,[81] to whom best thanks for all the
friendly services which he has rendered me.
Our united kind regards to Madame De Candolle, and to your son (from
whom I still expect a photograph), and my wife’s to yourself. We have the
most pleasant recollections of our brief visit to Geneva.
Believe me ever your devoted
Asa Gray.

TO GENERAL HOWLAND.

Kew, October 3, 1869.

I don’t know when you would get a response to your welcome letter of
August 22, which reached us here in due course, so long as things went on
in the ordinary way,—I working at botany as much as possible, but
presiding here over a considerable household, some sight-seeing and much
intermittent visiting. But now that I am all alone, and my wife with the rest
of them girareing over the north of England, sober reflection has its hour,
and I remember the friends that are far away, perhaps on the shores of
Italian lakes, and long to know how they get on and what they are about. To
attain which knowledge and put myself en rapport I should first, I know,
give you some account of ourselves and our doings.
But where to begin? I think we wrote you from Paris. We had three
weeks there, I mostly at the Jardin des Plantes till near dinner-time....
For ourselves, after cool weather in Paris we came in for a piece of very
sultry weather in London, where we had to stay awhile, our lodgings here
not being available till about 15th September. So after staying to the
Harvard boat-race,—which I saw from the umpire’s boat, and Mrs. Gray,
with good Miss S., from some grounds above Fulham,—we set off on a
little round of visits, first to the Darwins’, near Bromley, then to the
Churches’ in Somersetshire, a pleasant country rectory and a delightful
couple. You remember the university sermons we had up the Nile were his.
Next we passed a day with an old bachelor botanical acquaintance near
Taunton, who makes a capital squire; then to Torquay for three days (with a
daughter of Sir William Hooker, and her husband, Dr. Lombe), one of
which I devoted to an excursion down the river Dart from Totness to
Dartmouth (which the English think much of, but you dwellers on the
Hudson would not), and to a view of that quaint little town. On our way
back we had an hour at Exeter to see the cathedral; a night and morning at
Salisbury, the cathedral as to exterior, site, and all, and beautiful spire, one
of the most satisfactory in England; took a glance at Wilton, a peep into old
George Herbert’s little church of Bemerton and into his house and garden;
stopped over a train at Romsey to see the fine Norman abbey church, and to
Winchester, most interesting cathedral as to the interior, Winchester school
and the old Hospital of St. Cross. Then, on returning to London, we settled
down here, and after a few days were joined by the rest of our party from
France.
... No one in England recognized me with my venerable white beard!
Ever, dear Howland, your affectionate
Asa Gray.
The winter Dr. Gray spent in Egypt, in 1869, he raised a full beard,
which so changed his appearance that, though eyes and voice were there,
his oldest friends did not know him on his return, and he had great glee in
imposing himself on his old friend Dr. Torrey, when he went to the station
to meet him in Boston, as a persistent hack-driver. Even when he declared
himself, Dr. Torrey would scarcely believe him; he and Professor Henry
always maintained a man had no lawful right so to change his outward
appearance after middle age.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

Kew,
October 6, 1869.
... A week ago Saturday Mrs. G. and I went down via Warwick to
Stratford-on-Avon, where we had never been, with Professor Flower,[82] to
visit his father and mother, whose house (almost always thronged by
Americans), a short mile out of Stratford, commands one of the most
charming and wholly English views (that of English landscape-painters).
On Monday morning Loring and the girls, who had passed the Sunday at
Warwick, drove down and took us up, and we saw the Shakespeare
memorials, even to Anne Hathaway’s cottage (all but myself, who studied
brewing instead), and back to “The Hill” for a lunch-dinner. Then they took
my wife and departed to pass night and next day at Warwick. At evening I
went by a direct train to Oxford to sleep, seeing first Professor Rolleston[83]
for a moment. And, breakfasting with him and his agreeable wife next
morning early (his windows command a lovely view), set about seeing all
the structures, etc., that have sprung up since the almost twenty years that
have passed: the Museum and its workings, the Ratcliffe turned into an
admirable reading-room, chapel of Exeter, also Balliol, new buildings of
Christ Church, etc. I did not fail to look in upon the quadrangle of Oriel,
also, to ask for Mr. Burgon, but he was in France. After lunch I took train,
and was in Kew soon after sunset. Since then I have been away one day and
one night, with Mr. Rivers of Orchard-house fame, at Sawbridgeworth,
Herts....

TO JOHN TORREY.

Kew,October 11, 1869.

I am now almost through with my examination of the Polemoniaceæ, for
which I brought over all mine here. I have got them into good shape, settled
many things only to be determined here, and have a clear and definite idea
as to what I would do with the genera, and have straightened out the
species.
October 31.
After so long a drought—as happens in some climates—when the
change comes, you pour refreshingly. But with all your three rapidly
following letters not one of them makes the least reference to my letter,
written for one special purpose.
Bennett is as pleasant as ever. When I go up next to British Museum I
will give your regards.
 Old Gray (J. E.), who has ever been particularly kind to us, has had a
paralytic stroke, which, with other infirmities, seemed about to close his
life. But he is wonderfully rallying....
How glad we are about the grandchild, and what real comfort and delight
you will have with the little fellow! And then the satisfaction of having your
name go down in the direct line. Why, he may be a botanist, or at least a
chemist, and add honor to the name in another generation. Please give, with
our love, our united congratulations to the happy papa and mamma.
We have been corresponding with Carey, and shall see him soon.
The sheet is full; so adieu for a few weeks. Ever your affectionate
A. Gray.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

Queen’s Hotel, Liverpool,

November 8, 1869.
We broke up our establishment at Kew, this afternoon, and are having
the night here, preparatory to embarkation. Before leaving Kew I received
the proof of your sermon,[84] and here I found your last note, and Loring
another proof-copy of the sermon; for which he sends best thanks.
So you have been again to Windsor, and this time, I trust, had her
Majesty in the congregation....
Loring, the young ladies, and myself had the Sunday at Canterbury, our
last cathedral, and a most interesting one, both in the sight and the
associations. We have Stanley’s “Memorials” to read up, with other things,
on the voyage, if the Atlantic will allow it.
Wednesday morning.—Off Irish coast; shall reach Queenstown before
noon; very smooth water, especially since we were out of the St. George’s
Channel. We are all doing very well, though some of our party, including
Mrs. Gray, are poor creatures on the water.
I have read over the sermon with real interest. What I much like in it is
the broadness of view and moderation of claim, which adds strength to the
argument. It seems to me that every Christian man, churchman or no, would
yield full assent to all you say.
And, dear Mr. Church, consider that all your friends think, no doubt, as I
do, that you are hardly at liberty to take counsel of your misgivings and
humility, if asked to take some position in which your gifts may tell more
directly upon educated men, especially the younger men. I don’t want to see
you in a position which brings cares and anxieties along with high honors;
these I do not covet for you in the least. What I covet for you is fruitful
leisure, some position for you which, while it gives you time, and income
enough to supply real wants, makes also some demands; for rarely does one
do anything to much purpose that he is not somehow constrained to do.
We leave behind us in England most delightful friends, and we are not
likely to forget them; but we are somehow drawn to you in a peculiar way,
and shall often be thinking of you and yours when settled down again, if it
please God that we may be, at our pleasant home on the other side of the
Atlantic.
Cambridge, Mass., November 23, 1869.
Just a line to tell you—which you will be glad to know—that we safely
accomplished our voyage home, landing yesterday morning [Monday]
early, on the thirteenth day. Very well for that vessel, the slowest of the line,
and at this season, with much head wind. No gales, but some stiff breezes,
and the vessel tumbled and rolled about, to our discomfort. However, it is
all over; and Mrs. G. and the other ladies, who suffered a good deal, are
looking brighter again.
My wife sends kind love to you and all yours, and the young people, if
they knew of my writing, would send kind and grateful messages. The
voyage now seems to me only as a disturbed night’s sleep, dozing off in Old
England to awake in the New.
Ever yours affectionately,
A. Gray.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

Cambridge,February 14, 1870.

My dear Darwin,—Being eve of post-day we respond at once to yours of
the 27th January—which arrived this very morning—lest you should send
us down to posterity with a fabulous dog-story.
I well remember telling you of our “Max”[85] and his habit of washing
cat-fashion; which you suggested might have come from being brought up
with a cat, and I think I told you that I had not been able to learn definitely
whether that was the case or no. Here, you see, by some shuffling of
memory, a suggestion of what might explain a fact has taken the place of
the fact itself. I am curious to know if it be true, for it is the only
explanation I can think of.
I trust you have some of the slender-leaved Drosera I sent through
Hooker.
Well, our homeward voyage was not a nice one, especially for Mrs.
Gray, and it now seems a long time ago. I dropped at once into a world of
work; but am not killing myself. The main struggle for existence will come
in the spring, when my duties crowd on me dreadfully.
It gave us both very great pleasure to see again Mrs. Darwin’s well-
known handwriting, and your signature.
I knew you would be pleased with young Agassiz and his Yankee wife. I
wish his health were better; and I do hope your own will be such that you
can next summer see and know my trump of a colleague J. Wyman.

TO GEORGE BENTHAM.

Cambridge, March 28, 1870.

... You hope that I will not resign my chair here unless to devote myself
wholly to botanical work. What other object could I have in view? I am not
likely to be idle, and I care for nothing else. The difficulty is, that the
university cannot well spare me now, nor find a fit person to take either the
whole or a part of my work, but there is a good disposition to favor my
views.
Charles Wright is helping me as curator of the herbarium, and is getting
the large accessions into it—rather slowly.
The winter is nearly passed; I have employed diligently all the time I
could command, but the net result looks small. All I have for the printer is a
revision of Eriogoneæ, which I have turned over to him, and which you
shall soon see. I think I have done it very well. I have in Eriogonum made
use of a character which you have not employed, i. e., the attenuation of the
base of the flower into stipes, which marks the umbellata and the eriantha
well, and I have increased the number of the sections. The species I have
actually diminished from eighty-one to seventy-nine, although several had
been added to those in the Prodromuses, and I have added half a dozen
myself.
I should have written to you long ago, but as you would always have
news of me through Hooker, and I had nothing special to say, I refrained. It
is always a pleasure to hear from you, and I have no idea that our long
correspondence should drop. I should have seen more of you and Mrs.
Bentham (and my wife, too, regretted much), but you were much laid up
with that sciatica, and we were dreadfully pressed at the last. Could we have
had this winter in England, as we had at first hoped, it would have been
well.
Torrey made me a visit in January; is well and happy, except that he gets
only odds and ends of time for botany, and so cannot do anything to much
purpose. The Eriogoneæ being a pet group of his, and his old sketches very
useful in my elaboration, I have joined his name to my own in the paper I
am now printing.
At the wonderful rate you are going on you will soon complete the
“Flora Australiensis.” Happy and fortunate man that you are, both in the
faculty of accomplishing work and in having your whole time for just what
you want to do.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

Cambridge, Mass., U. S., February 15, 1870.

My dear Church,—My good wife has just handed me these sheets for
Mrs. Church, and if it were not just on post-morning I should gossip with
you, I suppose, to the extent of a sheetful, and send you our hearty thanks
for your most kind and welcome Christmas letter,—the acknowledgments
for which have been deferred too long already.
For myself, I have had three or four delightful weeks out of our short
winter vacation, which have been given wholly to botanical work in my
study. But this week begins again my round of official duties, to continue
till July.
I rather weary of it as I grow older; and still more I grudge the time. I
could now, I see, make fair arrangement for relinquishing a large part of my
work in the university if there were some one ready to come in as a
colleague or suffragan. But the person wanted is not to be found, and it will
take a long while to hatch and raise one. We shall see.
I keep up all my lively interest in English affairs. But I do not get the
items of news now as early as I used to do when the “Gardener’s Chronicle”
had a news-sheet attached. I do well enough in the scientific line, however,
as I see both “Nature” and the “Academy.” The former should bear for its
motto “Natura non facit saltum;” it does not jump at once to perfection; the
articles are many of them rather weak and washy. The “Academy” in its
way seems better. The “Athenæum” (which I hope will revive, now that
Dixon is out of it), the “Saturday Review,” and the “Pall Mall Budget”
come to us in our book club, after a while, in our turn.
So Temple, having carried his point, is now making his over-active
opponents look a bit foolish by preaching earnest orthodox sermons. And
Gladstone has done a (to me not unexpected) thing which gratifies his
friends here, in giving to Mr. Fraser the see of Manchester; I had not heard
of the death of the former incumbent when the news of this offer came.
What a run Gladstone is having in the way of church patronage! Then the
memorial from both universities themselves for the abolition of religious
tests! How you are getting on! And how are you to manage to secure proper
religious influence at the universities? By moral power and the strength of
your cause alone? which may, after all, be more truly effective than statutes.
Yet there will be natural anxieties.
Pray give me, now and then, an inside view of what is going on, or
better, what is thought.
Why, here is my sheet filled and nothing said. I have nothing to tell you
from here—nothing worth sending you. I don’t think much of Lowell’s
“Cathedral.” The grotesque bits are not in half as good keeping as the
gargoyles and other queer pieces of ornament on the old cathedrals.
Cambridge, April 4, 1870.
I have for a long while been wishing and endeavoring to write to you,
but it is not so easy, so many other letters have to be written, to answer
letters from persons that I don’t particularly care for, as to leave little time
for those that I do.
I owe you for two very interesting letters; for it was a hurried note of
mine that we need not count, which crossed yours of February 4, and then
there is your later one of March 1, along with Mrs. Church’s to my wife. I
leave it for her to tell you about the novelists. And I have not much to say of
myself. I have pottered all winter over the herbarium and upon an article for
our “American Academy’s Proceedings,” of a wholly technical nature,
which is just in the printer’s hands. I am about to begin another,—a study of
another group of North American plants; but the professional work absorbs
so much of my time and energy that it will, I know, make no great progress
until July brings a long vacation. And then I may have my hands full,
somewhat as yours will be, superintending building. I have my church to
enlarge. I need a lecture-room here on the spot, and a students’ laboratory in
connection with it; and I have a plan for this, to form a wing to the
herbarium building, and a fair prospect that I may get it done. We shall see
before long; and if the means are forthcoming, I will soon let you know,
with all the details....
The last “Spectator” received gives an abstract of Gladstone’s and
Forster’s Irish Land and Education bills, and of the general favor they were
received with upon their introduction. To have almost satisfied all parties
and interests is really a wonderful and a most unexpected achievement. You
ought to be proud of Gladstone, and well satisfied at having inevitable and
great changes wrought out under so strong a ministry, and so high-minded a
leader. Courage, earnestness, and high principle here are seen to command
success, in Parliament at least. How anything will work in Ireland remains
to be seen. But don’t think as some of my English friends do, that the Irish
are incapable of good things. The race over here, as a general thing, develop
at once what they seem to lack at home, thrift, and with thrift come order
and respect for law.
I happened to be in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day, and was stopped in my
carriage while a very long Irish procession passed. They were mainly of the
more well-to-do sort, no doubt; but they had made themselves so. Probably
nearly every one of middle age was born in Ireland, and would have been a
peasant laborer at home, very likely ill-conditioned enough. They were,
however, in holiday attire; still they were fair representatives of the race,
and I wished we could send them over to you for a day, as specimens of
what may be made out of such material, under circumstances, not altogether
the best, but much better than those at home. They are not the best element
of our population, certainly, but they make by no means a bad lower
stratum, out of which many show a truly Yankee-like aptitude for rising.
They are almost all Romanists, to be sure; and there is an element of
danger. But the influence of the priesthood is much tempered (as witness
how they ran into Fenianism, against their exhortations) and in most
respects is far from bad. The Germans are counted as a much better
population, but they are quite as clannish, and in the towns are rather
disposed to be actively anti-Christian.
By the way, I met some time ago Mr. Stanley, who has been in the
country before; is now on his way round the world via California, a favorite
route. He is, or was, an M. P., a son of Lord Stanley of Alderley, an Oxford
man, bright, sharp, and very talkative. He is a specimen of ultra-secularistic
liberalism, I should think, of a set that will be apt to give you some trouble
hereafter, in the questions that are to come up; if I do not misjudge him, one
who thinks the world, or at least England, has not much farther use for
distinctive Christianity; just one of the sort you must have had in view, in
yours of February 4, as extremely generous “in making free with what other
people value, and you don’t care for.” Most uncivilly, I fear, I fell almost
into a wrangle with him directly. He even seemed to think us on the whole a
bigoted set here in Cambridge,—rather a novel view to us....
Well, I must break off.
Our spring is tardy, after a wintry March. Only snowdrops yet out in the
Garden, and those in the sunniest place, a lot which I brought with me from
England. For primroses we have to look into a cold frame, in which they,
with violets, have been blossoming all the latter part of the winter.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

November 15, 1870.

My dear De Candolle,—Many thanks for your most kind letter of the 24th
October. Taken along with one from Mr. Bentham of about the same date, it
gives me tidings of several of our French confrères, who are now in such
great tribulation. What a change since last year, since last summer even; and
for Mrs. Gray and me, how fortunate that we had our visit made and over
before the deluge! And what can be the end, and when? It is useless to
conjecture. And now there is fear that while Germany is holding the Gallic
wolf by the ears,—a situation growing daily more uncomfortable and
dangerous for Prussia, and England is left quite alone,—Russia is to take a
step forward in the Black Sea, etc., which will greatly vex England and
Austria, and perhaps send the torch of war all over Europe; and if all closes
up soon Europe will feel this powerful Germany. But it may be the better
for Switzerland, whose danger is always from France. It used to make me
uneasy and indignant to see the French flag on the shore of your Lake,
where it has no business to be!
The Caruel[86] pamphlet reached me to-day. To the first question the
answer is simple and easy. About the second, there is perhaps more to be
said. As the publication of a name without a character goes for nothing, why
should the dubious proposal of a name with a hypothetical character go for
more? And suppose the suggested character does not prove true, and a
genus afterwards be founded well upon the same species with a good
character, and under another name, must that give place to the conditional
name, etc.? Vain the endeavor to settle every such little question by the
terms of any positive enactment.
One thing I see, that is, that our solitary point of disagreement will
erelong disappear. The fact of the publication of a certain name, at a certain
date and a certain place, being the main thing, the form (and I add the
agent) of publication being a subsidiary consideration, I think you will
come to agree that, e. g., names proposed by Fischer and published in his
name by De Candolle, must be said to be Fischer’s, and cited, in the last
resort, as, e. g., “A. dasyglottis, Fisch. in DC.,” just as I write “Phlox rigida,
Benth. in DC.” For all the rest, I think I agree with you fully. I perfectly
agree that, e. g., “Diceratium Lag.” is correct only as a generic name, that
“Sect. Diceratium DC.” is the only correct way. I myself and others have
not followed this proper course always in former times; but should do so
hereafter....
Believe me to remain as ever, most cordially yours,
Asa Gray.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

Cambridge,
October 14, 1870.
My dear Friend: ... I have the hour of leisure and am in the mood for
writing this evening. The latter I may count on, but the former I cannot, in
these busy and rather distracting days.
 On Tuesday evening last I heard Tom Hughes give a public lecture, the
only one he gives in America. He manfully stood up and turned the tables
upon us, by insisting that the Americans were wronging the British, by
blaming them when they ought to be praised for their general conduct
during the war of the Rebellion. His lecture was very able and pleasant; and
he seemed well pleased, as well he might be, at the reception of it. He, at
least, did excellent service in our behalf, in our times of trial.
The next evening I met him at the house of a colleague here in
Cambridge, and had a very pleasant talk with him. On telling him that I
came near to hearing him speak to the electors of Frome, and was prevented
only by the rainy day that made our walk to Longleat too late, he spoke of
you with much interest, and told me, what I did not know, that he was of
Oriel while you were tutor. He is very much pleased with his trip through
the country.
As to the Franco-German war, it is thus far a succession of wonders, and
now when a week passes, like the last, without any astounding event, one
feels dissatisfied. At first, the crowning and unexpected result, of judgment
overtaking Louis Napoleon here on the spot, was only to be rejoiced over.
And I think you in England must all be glad to see the vulgar Empire vanish
in a day, and in the collapse show how hollow and good for nothing it was
in what we supposed its strong side, military force and military ability. But
now, it is painful to see France reduced to such straits, and I long to see
peace made with as little weakening of France as may be. Only, if it goes
on, this chastening, and the effort it may induce France to make, may
regenerate her spirit. But, as you say, only the prophetic books of Scripture
furnish language in which to express one’s feelings and sentiments.
“And then this nation will I judge, saith the Lord”—sounds in your ears,
as these vast changes sweep on.
If I fail to enter wholly into your feelings as to Bismarck and Prussia,
here is Mrs. Gray, who has been anti-Prussian from the very first, and who
shares all your misgivings, and more. Now, I think it a pity, and a loss to the
world, that the German people should be broken up into jealous rival
kingdoms and little principalities, always liable to be played off against
each other by outlying nations. I think Germany as such ought to take its
place as a great Central European power. And yet a simple centralized
government is dangerous; at best could ill replace local governments. So I
hope for, and expect, a close confederation of German states, in a restored
and efficient German empire, the states of which will be as closely united as
those of our Federal Union, but yet sovereignties in all that relates to
internal concerns. I don’t despair of the Germans working out a fairly
successful constitutional parliamentary system, along with state
parliaments, etc., after their own fashion. And I fancy that a united
Germany will tend to peace in Europe, when one section can no more be
played off against another.
But what sort of a policy is this which Great Britain seems to have been
pursuing in weakening, and as if inclined to sever, her connections with her
principal colonies? Why not contrive some mode of uniting home and
colonial interests, giving the colonies imperial representation, or something
of the sort, or somehow be making sure that the men you will be wanting
one of these years shall be sturdily growing up on these virgin soils, where
crowding is out of the question, and who may feel as they grow up that they
are part and parcel of a strong empire. For myself, I can’t abide the idea of
the English nation ever coming to play any secondary part.
As for ourselves, I feel more and more what a good thing it is, and what
an economy in the long run, to have no neighbors, but the whole breadth of
country to ourselves, and to be so far away from Europe that we may look
with unconcern upon the rise or fall of states there, so far as they affect any
interests of ours. That does not prevent our being all alive to events in
Europe, however. The telegraph feeds our lively curiosity, day by day; but
what I write about to-day will have ceased to interest by the time it reaches
you: perhaps the strife all over there; devoutly do I wish it may be.
I see you have taken up “Anselm” again; and that, I presume, is the book
you are going to send me, and which I shall be pleased to see.
Yes, you must come over here; but when you do, please arrange for time
enough. When you cross the ocean, be sure to stay long enough to get your
money’s worth. If it be the summer after next, perhaps we may cross the
continent together, and see the parent of your Wellingtonia tree on the lawn,
and the rest of the grove, and visit the wondrous Yosemite Valley, as yet an
arduous journey from San Francisco, but it will soon be within easy reach.
I see that my writing is very bad, and will stop short.
Inclosed are seeds of the two passion-flowers which are so good for
showing the movements of tendril, both the coiling after being touched, and
revolution, etc. Sow in April in your little conservatory, or in hotbed, and
you may have good plants for your purpose in June. The tendrils show off
best under a temperature of 80° or 90° Fahr. P. acerifolia will give you
tendrils a foot long, when in full growth.
I note the uneasiness in England, and the rumors of difference in the
cabinet,—dangerous times for Gladstone’s ministry, but I do hope it will
last.
I suppose your church is all in order, and your cares over as to the
rebuilding....

TO JOHN TORREY.

November 4, 1870.
I have to-day a long letter from Bentham, which I would send to you, but
that it is full of Compositæ queries and statements, which I have soon to
attend to. What a worker he is, and what a good one!
At last accounts Decaisne and Brongniart were drilling. Rather old
sojers, I think! Cosson[87] had dispatched his wife and daughter and
granddaughter to England, and was communicating now and then by
balloon-post! Bentham very well, and working hard at Compositæ for
“Genera.” ...
I have an advanced class this year, and they come up here, and take up a
vast deal of my time. But it is enjoyable work, as they are the pick of a
dozen out of fifty or sixty of the preceding year.
March 28, 1871.
... I hope, with you, that the Domingo annexation will break down. But
Grant is working for Cuba too, and that is worse than the other; ignorant
blacks are better than Creole Spaniards to deal with.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

February 27, 1871.

... There are so many things I wanted to write about your church (for
which it was shabby of me not to remember and send you a contribution, in
a small way) and the reopening services of which you sent us a newspaper
account; your “Anselm,” which we read aloud in our deliberate way, on
successive Sunday evenings, when not interrupted, and very much enjoyed;
I think the later chapters most; perhaps because we got more interested as
we went on, perhaps, too, the narrative flows on with a more free
movement in the later than in the earlier chapters. Then there is this
wonderful German-French war, which is only now closing, if it be the
close, in such bitter humiliation of the French as no Frenchman could ever
imagine possible, nor any but a German contemplate without deep sorrow
and pity: all their hard measures of former generations meted out to them
again, to this one hapless generation, in a way that till now it could never
have dreamed of. For long years France must play a secondary political
part, which of itself will be a bitter thing, we may hope a wholesome thing;
and when with long care and nursing of resources she recovers, she cannot
be so strong relatively again, while the German empire holds together. And
I suppose you in England have a good deal of misgiving as to what this
Germanic power portends. Perhaps the next great wonder, and surely the
best thing, may be a great defensive alliance of English-speaking people
round the world, which would render any European continental changes
less momentous.
 It seems to me that the hopeful prospect for France is in the ascendency,
seemingly assured, of the conservative republicans and the Orleanists. But
there are rumors that even the Orleans family are falling out among
themselves.
As I grow older I can sympathize thoroughly with a disinclination you
may feel as to assuming any new public duties. The deep ruts which the
daily routine of life has worn for us do become such pleasant paths, as one
ages, that we do not thank anybody for trying to force us out of them.
Nothing have we heard or seen of Mr. Horner yet: he has gone South
probably, which is wise. I hope he will come this way in June, when we
shall be very glad to see him....
By the way, I see in “Popular Science Review” a neat presentation of
Wallace’s points on the limitations of natural selection as applied to man, by
Buckle (I suppose your Oriel friend), who makes the point very well that
these limitations apply hardly less, in their way, to other parts of the animal
kingdom.
I am too much occupied with humdrum botanical work to read or think
much of such matters.
Have you read or seen Bryant’s translation of the Iliad? It was discussed
in our club last week by my neighbor, who read extracts from this, Lord
Derby’s, and other translations: it was thought to be as readable as Lord
Derby’s, to adhere quite as closely to the original, and to reflect more truly
the simple directness of Homer, both of expression and thought. I should
like to know what you think of it.
The most important matter, as concerns myself, is, that I am busy with
plans of building, having found a man who is disposed to give the money
for constructing here, adjacent to the herbarium, a much needed botanical
lecture-room and laboratory for students. Between the herbarium (which,
you know, adjoins our house, and communicates with it) and the
conservatory, there is a space of 127 feet. This we mean to fill up: First,
with a one-story brick building 60 × 38 feet, rather less than one half for
botanical laboratory and cabinet, the rest lecture-room; then a lobby, and the
remainder of the distance a low stove and a short, cool greenhouse, to
establish connection with our present hothouse. Then, on the one hand, I
can bring plants at all seasons into the lecture-room; and on the other I can
reach the same under cover, from my private study, through the herbarium;
and Mrs. Gray may walk, in winter, from her dining-room, through our little
drawing-room, entry, library or parlor, my study, greenhouse corridor,
herbarium, lobby, laboratory, lecture-room, passage, stove and coolhouse,
into conservatory, of three compartments, a long affair, but don’t imagine
anything at all grand. A snake, of which our house is the head and the
farthest wing of the conservatory the tail, will give the best idea. In a lucky
time I asked a man to build in this 127 feet, at an expense of at least twelve

THE RANGE OF BUILDINGS, BOTANIC GARDEN IN 1893

thousand dollars; and I am authorized to get plans and estimates complete,

and I suppose it will be done, though I have no positive assurance of it yet. I
thought you would like to know it, without waiting till all is absolutely
settled.
Here is a second sheet filled: thick paper, too, and I must cut all short.
How I wish we could be with you in Switzerland next summer!
Ever yours affectionately,
Asa Gray.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

March 10, 1871.

My dear Darwin,—It is very good of you to send me, and so kindly
address, a copy of your new book,[88] which safely reached me two days
ago. I have not yet had time to read any of it, except the preface and the
ending; and I do not like to dip into it and so blunt the edge of curiosity. So
I keep it well out of sight, not caring to look just yet at any of the pages
which you think likely to “aggravate” me, until some day I can get a good
pull at it....
April 14, 1871.
You have such a way of putting things, and you write in such a
captivating way. One can only say:—
Almost thou persuadest me to have been “a hairy quadruped, of arboreal
habits, furnished with a tail and pointed ears,” etc.
But I have read only the first part of the book and the closing chapters;
have left all the Sexual Selection till I can read it leisurely next summer, and
have lent it to a judicious friend, who has just returned it.
I have been besought to write notices of the book, but I decline. You
don’t know how distracted I am in these days,—doing the work of
professor, gardener, builder, financier, and what not, all at once.
But I must not let this mail pass without sending you the little I could get
as to Laura Bridgman.
Through Dr. Jarvis, a medical man, etc., I got the queries put to the
woman who has now the personal charge of Laura, and he brought me the
inclosed, which I think I should not much rely on.
When Dr. Howe is on hand, some day, I will see if I can get anything
authentic and particular,—not, I fear, in time for you.

TO CHARLES WRIGHT.

Cambridge,
June 28, 1871.
... Well, I say the same as then, only I feel sad about the chance of the
“Flora of North America.” What is my bête noire, as I said before, is the
care of the Garden; and till I can get rid of that, by some complete
reorganization, which shall result in the Garden’s being much better seen to
than it has been,—better taken care of and better named up and
superintended,—I shall not be comfortable nor of much use in writing
“Flora of North America.”
 I am going to try if I cannot find or make some sort of superintendent,
and pay him out of what I pay for rent of house, and have succeeded in
getting credited to Botanic Garden fund. This will leave me to pay for work
in the herbarium (which is the work you prefer) out of the only $800 a year
yielded by herbarium fund, which has first of all to pay for books, paper,
fuel, and freights,—in short, most of it, and some years all,—must come out
of my own pocket, until I can find somebody who will endow a curatorship.
Or else I must put this work in the herbarium on to my assistant, Farlow,
who, however, will have his hands full enough without it.
As to the way you are doing up Cuban botany, I do not find fault with it.
I think, with you, that you are doing about the best possible thing under the
circumstances. The only thing that you may justly complain of me for, I
think, is my sensitiveness and pooh-poohing new-species-making in
families where old species are yet all in a jumble, and where I have thought
that you could not yet tell what were new and what old. I dare say I have
been too impatient about it, and I see I have hurt your feelings somewhat,
which I am sorry for. I only meant, take time and pains to clear up the old
ones in the books, and get a better assurance, if you can, about the proposed
new ones. But, after all, it is wrong and foolish in me to worry myself, or
you, about them.
You will have more experience of the sort, in the working up of your San
Domingo collection. But if we can get time to refer doubtful cases to say
Oliver at Kew, and some one at Paris (where they have many old San
Domingo plants), I suppose you may get them pretty straight....

TO R. W. CHURCH.

September 10, 1871.

I have addressed the envelope for this letter before writing it, determined
to use once more the familiar superscription. The official may bide its time.
[89]
Only yesterday we learned of Gladstone’s doings by a newspaper slip
sent us by a friend who knew of you through us on the Nile, Mrs. Howland.
But I had a sort of premonition of it and was on the lookout....
I do not know where the Deanery is,—not in so attractive a situation as
Whatley Rectory, one may safely say. But I suppose you are not expected to
reside there in summer, that you will be fairly able to have some country
quarters to your liking. And there is Switzerland always within reach.
Happy mortals, who can reach the Alps within forty-eight hours, and with
only a narrow, though proverbially nasty, bit of water to cross! But what we
hope to gain from this upturning is to see you over here. When Mr. Horner
returns (we have heard nothing since they vanished in the West) he will tell
you it is no formidable matter even to cross the continent. At least you can
come and see us, make us a long visit, and be as quiet here as in a Swiss
wayside inn, and sally forth upon an excursion when you like.
Please thank Mrs. Church from me for thinking of us, and writing the
very next day after this anxious matter was concluded. It is wonderful she
could find time, with so much to do and to think of. And such a full account
of the Swiss journey, too.
I owe you letters, too,—one at least lies reproachingly in a drawer of my
table, where it was thrust a long while ago along with many others which
could be postponed; but once postponed it is not easy to overtake them.
Say to Mrs. C. it is not a part of our house which was moved; that would
not have been difficult, for it is of wood (though the herbarium, etc.,
adjacent is of brick). It must have been the Law School the moving of
which Mrs. Gray was describing. Tell Mr. Horner that, like some other
things, when once you have seen it done it ceases to be wonderful or even
difficult.
As to my lecture-room, etc., all work stopped for near a month,
including the fortnight or more when I was away; and now (September 11)
all has been clatter and hurry for the last week or so, and they really seem
determined to fulfill the terms of their contract, to finish by the 15th instant.
They cannot do that; but I trust the workmen may go out with the month.
These cares of building have sadly interferred with scientific work all
summer. I have accomplished very little of what I intended. I attended, and,
when the last year’s president retired on delivering his address, presided
over, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, twentieth
meeting, at Indianapolis, capital of the State of Indiana,—a journey of
forty-eight hours, in very sultry summer weather, over long stretches of
country. I broke the journey by a day in New York, to see two sons of Mr.
Darwin just as they landed, and by a three days’ stay, including Sunday,
with my old friend Mr. Sullivant, in Ohio. The meeting was a pleasant,
though not especially interesting one. I met botanical correspondents of
many years’ standing whom I had never seen. At the close we were invited
to make an excursion to the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, which I counted
on seeing. But I found that the excursion was to be an overcrowded one....
So I hastened homeward, and was with Mrs. Gray at Beverly Farms, where
she had been passing holidays at Mrs. Loring’s at the paternal homestead on
the seashore,—a place that you have heard us talk of not a little. It is
delightful. I know nothing to give you so good an idea of it as the
Devonshire coast, there being plenty of wood quite down to the water. Were
we there now, Miss K. and Charles Loring would, I know, charge me with
messages.
I must tell you that the Scientific Association is invited to meet at San
Francisco, California, next summer; and that we have fixed the meeting
there conditionally, that is, in case the Californians care enough for our
presence to transport a certain number of our representative men free of
cost, or nearly so, across the wide continent. If not, we are to meet on the
northern part of the Mississippi,—at Dubuque, Iowa, far enough west in all
conscience, but a place from which we may easily reach the Falls of St.
Anthony and Lake Superior. I must needs attend, as I shall have a retiring
address to deliver. And though I can ill spare the time or afford the expense,
yet Mrs. Gray and I are longing to see California. What say you and Mrs.
Church about joining us for your next summer’s vacation? The mountains
which form the sides of the Yosemite Valley will hardly offer as many kinds
of flowers as the alpine turf of the Riffelberg, but they may be more novel
to you....

On December 15, 1871, Dr. Gray wrote to President Eliot, after

describing formally the completion of the new buildings, and something of
the history and arrangement of the department, the following letter:

... I beg to add, for your consideration and that of the corporation, a few
words of a personal character.
With the present academic year I shall have completed thirty years of
service in the professorial chair to which I was called in the spring of 1842.
The Garden, which had been under no professorial care for years, and
which has since had a long and hard struggle for existence, the
conservatories, the herbarium and its library, both steadily increasing, and
now the lecture-room, laboratory, etc., make up an establishment which has
grown by degrees into one which requires much time, care, and anxiety to
administer, and for which I have now done the main part of what could be
expected of me or any one man. The experience of the last and the present
year clearly shows me that the work of instruction, steadily increasing in its
demands under the present system, weighted more and more with the load
of administration, is more than I can carry on. I have some warnings,
besides, of the increase of years, which I ought to consider; and I
definitively propose to lay down, at the close of the present academic year,
as large a part of this load as I possibly can without serious prejudice to this
department and this establishment. I suppose that either the duties of
instruction or of administration, beyond that of the herbarium, must be
entirely surrendered. If I can be spared, and if what I could do for the
herbarium could be reckoned an equivalent for rent of the house I reside in,
I should crave to resign both the charge of the Garden and of the
professorship. There is reason to think that the time is at hand when changes
such as are here suggested may be propitiously made.
When I came here, in 1842, I was carrying on and publishing a most
important original work, the “Flora of North America.” I have worked on it
from time to time, but I never have been able to publish any more of it. And
now what was done has all to be done again, and carried if possible to a
completion; and there is no one else to do it if I do not. My educational
books, or most of them, require to be re-edited; and I fail to find time and
sufficient freedom of mind for the undertaking. If I could accomplish these
tasks, or a good part of them, I am of opinion that I should in consequence
be able (as is especially my desire) to do a great deal more for the university
and the permanent interest of this establishment than I can expect now to
do, as at present situated, even if it were possible or probable that I could so
continue for any length of time. I am,
Very respectfully and truly yours,
Asa Gray.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Cambridge,
January 4, 1872.
Dear Doctor,—I have a horrid cold, which makes me unwell.
 I write a brief line, in response to yours of yesterday, mainly to say that I
fear I disagree with you about the reply to be made to Wilkes’s urgent
request to print the manuscript of the Oregon collection of Wilkes’
Expedition.
It was prepared to print long ago; is not your fault that it has been
delayed so long. The library committee have a right to print it, and might do
so without your corrections if you decline to make any. We want the plates,
which are now thrown away, and must be published. I would print in the
form of a naked list,—except where remarks and descriptions are still
wanted,—and to make all right and sure, and to relieve you, I, with
Watson’s kind help, will fix it all up for you and read the proofs once, and
so save you the worry. And I urgently request you to send this line to
Professor Henry, as embodying my opinion, and my offer of help.
I am sure that if the rest of my manuscript is called for, I shall turn it
over with satisfaction, though the same applies to it as to yours. And I
should either alter accordingly or add notes.
The rest of your letter I will respond to in due time.
But I feel concerned to have those Oregon plates out.
I think I have some right to, as I paid for one hundred of them; but that is
no matter. They are now neither published nor unpublished, which is a bad
state of things.

Dr. Gray had the manuscript prepared some years before for the second
volume of the “United States Exploring Expedition,” and notified the
library committee that he was ready for publishing. Meantime came the
war, and there was no money or thought for such things. When the country
was again quiet and prosperous, the library committee who had formerly
known and been interested in the work and its printing had passed away;
there was no one to care for it, and the manuscript was never called for.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

Cambridge,
March 7, 1872.
Mr. Packard, one of our best entomologists, a most excellent and modest
man, has asked to be introduced to you, that he may pay his respects.
 I shy or refuse such applications generally, saying you can rarely see
visitors or callers. But Packard is “fish to your net,” has his head crammed
with facts bearing on derivation, is a disciple of the Hyatt-Cope school, that
you may have heard of,—people who have got hold of what they call a law,
though I do not see that they contribute any vera causa at all.
If you will turn the world of science upside down, you must expect that
people will wish to see you....
May 31.
By the hand of an old correspondent of yours, and cousin of ours, Mr.
Brace, I send you a little book, which may amuse you, in seeing your own
science adapted to juvenile minds.[90] In some of those hours in which you
can do no better than read, or hear read, “trashy novels,” you might try this
instead. It will hardly rival “The Jumping Frog,” and the like specimens of
American literature which you first made known to us....

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

Botanic Garden, June 10, 1872.

My dear De Candolle,—You must set me down as a faithless
correspondent. Your pleasant letter of April 6, from Paris, has been long
upon my table, and I think there is one of older date somewhere below. But
all this spring I have been so overworked that I could respond only to the
most necessary letters of business, duties of my professorship, of the
Garden, and many other things. Well, my lectures are over, and for the
ensuing year I may hope for some emendation. I give up the
superintendence of the Botanic Garden, which has become a great burden,
and I nominally devolve other university work in part upon an assistant,
surrendering at the same time a part of my salary, hoping thereby to
purchase time. We shall see if it be possible. But I have to begin with a new
assistant, who will need training; but will then, I hope, take much off my
hands. My youthful assistant of the past two years goes in a week or two to
Europe, to study in some German university for a year or two; to Strasburg,
I think, unless he first should go to Sweden, and there study Algæ, with
Agardh, if he will receive him. He takes a fancy to lower Cryptogamia. His
name is Farlow, an honest, good fellow. He will most likely be in
Switzerland in the summer; and I shall give him a letter of introduction to
you, whom he will wish to know. But take no trouble on his account, except
to introduce him to Dr. Müller, from whom, as a working lichenologist, he
could learn much.
Well, Mrs. Gray and I are going to set out, two weeks hence, for
California. We both need the change, and are curious to see the country,
having never seen even the Mississippi! The scientific meeting was to have
been held there; but there is now a hitch about it. We go, however, at all
events, and expect to pass a month in the Yosemite Valley, and elsewhere in
the mountain region. I wish you were here to go with us. Hooker was
counted on to go with us; but the very bad state of his mother’s (Lady
Hooker) health, and the state of affairs at Kew prevent it....
I hope soon to receive your “Mélanges historiques,” which are sure to
interest me. If I can I will write you a long letter from California, or Utah,
or the Rocky Mountains!—more interesting than this scrawl from yours
ever,
Asa Gray.

TO JAMES D. DANA.

June 22, 1872.

My dear Dana,—I fancy you have got hold of a good topic for your
handling, and have a promising inquiry before you, in coördinating
cephalization and natural selection as operative on the nervous system of
animals. I expect you to get something interesting out of it.
But every now and then something you write makes me doubt if you
quite get hold just right of Darwinian natural selection. What you still say
about struggle not applicable to plants makes me think so.
Suppose the term be a personification, as, no doubt, strictly it is. One so
fond as you are of personification and good general expressions ought not
to object to what seems to me a happy term.
Speaking from general memory, I should say that the term, as used to
express what we mean, was introduced by the elder De Candolle and
applied in what I thought a happy way to the vegetable kingdom. I cannot
drop it because you say there is no struggle where there is no will; perhaps
you mean without consciousness, and then the field of struggle will be
much limited. But call the action what you please,—competition (that is
open to the same objection), collision, or what not,—it is just what I should
think Darwin was driving at. Read “Origin” (4th ed.), pp. 72, 73, and so on,
through the chapter, especially pp. 81-86.
This is enough to show you that when you speak of “Darwinian
struggle” as occurring only “when the faculties of an animal are called into
requisition,” you take too limited a view of what Darwin means.
For myself I should say that the faculties of the lowest animals and the
faculties of plants were equally called into requisition in the case, in a
manner so parallel that there is no drawing any but a purely arbitrary
distinction between the one and the other.
I conceive one as effective as the other as regards the leading on and
fixing variation.
When I say now again that the expression “fitted by its regional
development to the region” conveys no clear meaning to me, I am only
telling you, as I did before, my way of looking at things, not finding fault
with yours.
By the way; “variation (inherent) in particular directions,” is your idea
and mine, but is very anti-Darwin. Good-night.
A. Gray.
Dr. Gray greatly enjoyed his visit to California, with the long overland
journey thither. It was an ever-renewed excitement to see plants growing
which he had seen only as dried specimens, and the conductor of the train
was at last almost in despair at the scattering of his passengers to grab what
they could in the short halts, as they became inspired by seeing Dr. Gray
rush as the engine slowed, to catch all within reach. Then when in motion
again the specimens were brought from all sides to see what they were. And
the preparing and drying went on to the wonder of some and the interest of
all.
His ascent of Gray’s Peak was made a great occasion in the
neighborhood. A large party gathered from Georgetown and Empire City,
and started the afternoon before, after having been most hospitably dined by
Judge McMurdy, in Georgetown; the night was passed in a mining-tavern
cabin, and the ascent, some going on horseback, some on foot, was made
the next morning. Speeches were made on the summit, and resolutions
passed to confirm the names Gray’s and Torrey’s peaks given in 1862 by
Dr. Parry, who was himself happily with the party. The ascent is not as
difficult as in most mountains of that height, as one can ride on horseback
to the top in August, when the snow lies only in patches; the trail is mostly
over the rough shale, and for a month or two the summit, though over
14,000 feet, is almost bare. The view of the innumerable peaks is very
magnificent.
At Dubuque he was the guest of an old Fairfield comrade. As the retiring
president of the American Association he gave his address,[91] written
mostly in the cars on the long overland journey, in which he explained still
further some of his long-meditated conclusions on the distribution of the
flora of Western North America.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

Cambridge, October, 1872.

My dear Church,—I promised to myself, if I did not to you, that I would
write you from the other side of this continent; but writing and journeying
are incompatible, at least in case where the time for the one is too short for
your undertakings. But now we have been a month at home, and more; the
accumulation of things to be seen to is worked off or nearly, and I mean
now to tell you something of our summer’s doings.
As soon as we were free we set out.... At Chicago we had two nights and
a day in which to see the desolated and fast rebuilding town. From this
place, over a thousand miles west of Boston, we made our proper start.... A
welcome rain cooled the air and laid the dust that morning, and not a drop
more of rain did we see, any more than in Egypt, from that day onward,
until, six or seven weeks later, we were back at the eastern base of the
Rocky Mountains, when there was an evening thunderstorm, and the next
morning I called Mrs. Gray to the window to see a novel sight,—the streets
dripping and muddy! I wish I could describe to you our journey, and the
sort of life we were leading. But if I go into particulars there will be no end.
At Omaha we were on the Pacific Railroad proper, and soon upon the
plains, at first the larger part cultivated, but barer and drier as we advanced
westward, and ascended imperceptibly; so that the next twenty-four hours
brought us, with some fine views of the range, to the foot of the Rocky
Mountains and a height of 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the sea; that afternoon
over the Black Hills of the Platte, 2,000 or 3,000 feet higher, and the highest
elevation of the road,—higher than the passes through the Rocky Mountains
beyond,—and at nightfall we were traversing the wide grassy Laramie
Plains, a vast, sequestered sub-alpine meadow. And when I rose early next
morning, we were running through a dry desert “sage brush” (wormwood)
region (desert, except for the botanist,—the first plant I saw and clutched
proved to be Grayia), the scanty waters of which run into the Colorado of
the West and the Gulf of California.
Another twenty-four hours, through grand scenery, brought us, after
three nights in our car berths, to Ogden, on Salt Lake, where we took a
branch road and, skirting the lake along the whole eastern shore, reached
Salt Lake City, the Mormon town, before sunset. Here we passed two nights
and a day, and enjoyed scenery worth crossing the ocean for, and saw
something of the strange life of the district.
Back to Ogden; two more nights and days, one long day crossing the
Humboldt desert, rendered passable only by the Humboldt River, which,
though the ragged mountains all run north and south, yet runs from east to
west and marks its course by a narrow line of greenness, and at dusk we
saw its end in the Humboldt sink, a lagoon without outlet on the western
verge of the basin, against the Sierra, the arid side of which we were
ascending all night, to awake among pine forests at sunrise; to breakfast
upon the very summit soon after; to descend through most striking scenery
into the great valley of California, and, traversing that and the Contra Costa
range, to see the head of the Bay of San Francisco at dusk; to cross the bay
in a steam-ferry, and reach our hotel in San Francisco at ten P.M.,—a journey
full of interest, not a bit monotonous or dull, from first to last. There were
fatigues and small discomforts, of course, but these are all forgotten long
ago, and the whole transit dwells in memory as one continual and delightful
piece of pleasant, novel, ever-varied, and instructive sight-seeing. Of course
the identifying at sight, as we flew by, of flowers new to me in the living
state, and the snatching at halts, and the physical features of districts which
I had always been interested in, and knew much about but had never seen,
all gave me occupation and continual pleasure. But it was much the same
with all the party. Even the return journey was hardly less interesting....
From Dubuque we took steamer up the Mississippi River, through its
finest scenery up to St. Paul, Minnesota; saw the falls of St. Anthony and
Minnehaha; thence, while the rest of our party essayed Lake Superior, Mrs.
Gray and I returned home by rapid stages.
 I have only to-day finished the study and laying into the herbarium of
specimens I gathered and dried, regretting the while that I did not collect
more specimens and many other species, as I might have done.
Tyndall is in Boston, and I trust will be with us next week. I have not yet
seen him, nor Froude, nor even MacDonald, the third lecturing notability in
Boston.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

Cambridge, October 6, 1872.

You delight me by your promise to take up Dionæa and Drosera now,
and I imagine you as now about it. Good! And I am so glad you will take
that opportunity to collect your botanical and quasi-botanical papers. These,
with the Dionæa, etc., will make a nice and most welcome volume.
In answer to your query, I think I can “support the idea,” or the
probability of it, “that tendrils become spiral after clasping an object from
the stimulus from contact running down them.” For though some “tendrils
do become spiral when they have clasped nothing,” others do not. The
adjustment of the unstable equilibrium is more delicate in the former, so
that it starts under some inappreciable cause or stimulus. That the stimulus
may be so propagated downward is clear in the sensitive plant, where the
closing of the leaflets in succession will follow the closing of the ultimate
pair under slight and local irritation. And in the tendril the coiling below is
just a continuation of the same movement or same change as that which
incurved the tip in clasping, that is, a relative shortening of concave or
lengthening of the convex side of the tendril. Would you not infer that the
action was propagated downward?
So you were astonished at Mrs. Gray’s audacity. Well, “toujours
l’audace;” she is all the better for it. Some horseback work in getting to and
into the Yosemite Valley was severe, but she bore it so well that I ventured,
when we made our detour into the Colorado Rocky Mountains, to take her
up to the summit of Gray’s Peak, 14,300 feet, or thereabouts, where she
acquitted herself nobly. The day was perfect, the success complete, and the
memory of it one of the most delightful of the many pleasant memories of
the whole journey. Our great trip was the round from San Francisco to
Mariposa Grove, Yosemite Valley, entering over Glacier Point, from which
(tell your sons) is a new trail down the 4,000 feet into the valley; made
excursions from the valley during several days, and returned by a long
sweep through the little Tuolumne grove, round foothills to Murphy’s and
the Calaveras Grove, and so back to San Francisco. Afterwards Mrs. Gray
and I went to Santa Cruz and up the San Lorenzo Valley among noble
redwoods, rivaling the Sequoia gigantea. On return we made one stretch to
the east base of the Rocky Mountains, then down to Denver, and up into the
mountains, to 8,400 feet, where we had a pleasant week or more (just the
climate to give strength to an invalid), whence I climbed a high mountain or
two, among them Gray’s Peak, the highest, as already mentioned. Thence
we came down to Dubuque and hot weather, on the Mississippi to St. Paul
and St. Anthony, etc., and then home by rail, having been twelve busy
weeks away.
Well, we are longing to do it again, and more! But I am settling down to
my work as well as I may, well content with the summer’s holiday.
December 2, 1872.
Well, it is wonderful, your finding the nervous system of Dionæa!!! Pray
take your time next spring, and do up both Drosera and Dionæa. I will
endeavor next spring to get hold of Drosera filiformis and make the
observations. I will also do better, by sending your note on to Mr. Canby,
who lives near its habitat, and has done something already in such
observations.
As to coiling of tendril. I think your idea is that in the coiling of a fixed
tendril, one coil has its concave side the opposite of the part that has coiled
the other way.
Now take a piece of tape say a span long; black one side, let some one
hold the two ends while you twist in the middle. The two halves are coiled
in opposite directions, just as a tendril which has caught does. The same
color will be on the outside of the coil all the length.
Blacken with a stroke of paint a line along the whole length of a caught
tendril. On straightening it out the black will be all on one side.
I have not had time to follow it up, and need not, since you are sure to do
it. But I think it clear that one and the same side is concave, that is, the
relatively shortened side, the whole length of the caught tendril. Do not
you?
 Mrs. Gray is absent while I write, or she would add her best regards and
best wishes to my own for a happy New Year to you all.

TO C. W. ELIOT.

Botanic Garden, Cambridge, January 1, 1873.

My dear President Eliot,—Will you kindly present the inclosed
communication to the corporation at its next meeting.
I need not say to you that I could not take so serious a step as this
without much consideration, and that I would not do it if I were not
confident that the department which I have served in the university for
almost thirty-one years need not now suffer by my withdrawal. I am warned
also by growing experience of the fact that the needful work which I could
formerly do with ease can now be done only by effort, followed by
exhaustion and other unpleasant effects, which may be expected to increase;
and it is clear that I have left to me, at best, barely time enough, when
rigorously economized, to complete the works for which I have long been
pledged, and without the accomplishment of which my life will have been
largely a failure. The corporation will perceive that I do not intend to be
idle, but to concentrate what energies remain to me upon the kind of work
for which I am best—and indeed peculiarly—fitted, both by disposition and
by more than forty years of preparation. As this work proceeds, the
herbarium of the university, always requiring attention during its continued
increase, will be put into the condition in which I should leave it, with its
value greatly enhanced. In view of this, and of the fact that the herbarium
forms an important part of the apparatus of instruction here, I trust the
corporation will think it reasonable to allow me the possession of the house
I live in, in recompense of my services as curator of the herbarium.
I offer my resignation unconditionally, that the corporation may have, as
it should, the whole matter in its hands without embarrassment. If it be
desired to keep my name for the present upon the catalogue, and especially
if the corporation should prefer not to place a permanent incumbent just yet
in the Fisher professorship, I would in that case take the liberty to suggest
that the present very capable and efficient assistant, Dr. Goodale, be made
adjunct professor of vegetable physiology, with salary assigned from the
Fisher professorship. I remain, dear Mr. President,