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III.]   ORIGIN OF TASTE FOR SCIENCE.   177

consequence from an early intimacy with Professor . . . , whose pupil and assistant I was. I bad a fondness for science before, but the necessity for accurate and rigid observation then first dawned upon me. Subsequent events were going to . . . . [abroad], and appointments in

[a foreign country, where I was much detained indoors that] compelled me to take to the microscope and study of the lower orders of plants and animals, many of which I could grow in my own room." (a, c, g)


(5) " As a youth, I followed, of my own free will, mineralogy, chemistry, anatomy, and mechanics, but chiefly chemistry. My tastes were certainly not hereditary. They were directed to botany purely through accidental circumstances [which led to a prolonged residence in an imperfectly civilized country]. I examined its plants, then wholly unknown to Europeans, but was at that time wholly ignorant of the very elements of botany. Was subsequently encouraged by . . . [eminent botanists of the day] ; went to and from England and made extensive collections.