Biographical Memoirs of Asa Gray

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U.S. Government Printing Office, 1890 - 81 pages
 

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Page 781 - Natural selection is not the wind which propels the vessel, but the rudder, which, by friction, now on this side and now on that, shapes the course. The rudder acts while the vessel is in motion, effects nothing when it is at rest. Variation answers to the wind.
Page 759 - Within the ranks of the biologists, at that time, I met with nobody, except Dr. Grant, of University College, who had a word to say for Evolution — and his advocacy was not calculated to advance the cause. Outside these ranks, the only person known to me whose knowledge and capacity compelled respect, and who was, at the same time, a thorough-going evolutionist, was Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose acquaintance I made, I think, in...
Page 745 - This school, of high repute, was established at that place in 1812 as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of New York.
Page 759 - But even my friend's rare dialectic skill and copiousness of apt illustration could not drive me from my agnostic position.
Page 816 - The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms. With Observations on their Habits.
Page 764 - June 13, 1888. 763 strnction in the academy, and it was probably through his influence that Gray's attention was first strongly drawn towards natural science. Apparently, he was not at first so much interested in plants as in minerals...
Page 770 - Herbarium and the ordinary college lecture-rooms at first sufficed, but at last it became necessary to provide a special laboratory and lecture-room at the Garden. A liberal friend of Dr. Gray and the College presented a sum of money for this purpose, and in 1872 a wing was added to the Herbarium. About this time the demand for laboratory instruction and equipment increased rapidly, and the new lectureroom and laboratory were soon found to be inadequate to meet the needs of the increasing calls for...
Page 773 - Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States," of which the first edition appeared in 1847, needs no words of praise here. There are probably few members of the Academy who do not own, or have not at some time owned, a copy of this model work. Occasionally some over-wise person has discovered that certain plants grow a few inches taller or bloom a few days earlier than is stated in the '• Manual " ; but the botanist is yet to be born who could write a more clear, accurate, and compact account...
Page 756 - I declare that you know my book as well as I do myself; and bring to the question new lines of illustration and argument in a manner which excites my astonishment and almost my envy ! I admire these discussions, I think, almost more than your article in Silliman's Journal.
Page 772 - Plants. It is deeply to be regretted that he was never able to write this volume, for it would have enabled him to present the general views on classification derived from a long and exceptionally rich experience. No better text-book on the subject had ever been written in the English language than Gray's "Text-book...

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