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mate success. His inquiries, in the Cumberland, for guides for the Missouri expedition, prove that he had by no means abandoned his purpose of undertaking that hazardous project.

But these long Western journeys had exhausted his resources; for seven years he had had no remittance from the French government, and was now under the necessity of returning to Europe to attend to his affairs. Accordingly in 1796 he embarked for France, and was shipwrecked on the coast of Holland, losing part of his collections; but his herbarium was preserved, and is now in the Musée de Paris. He ardently desired to be sent back to America; but his government offered him no encouragement, and finally he accepted a post upon an expedition to New Holland, and in November, 1802, died of fever upon the island of Madagascar.

His son, François André, entered into his father's pursuits and greatly assisted him. While yet a lad, he accompanied him on several arduous journeys in America; at other times remaining upon the plantation, engaged in the care of the transplanted trees. He returned to France some years before his father, in order to study medicine, and in the year of the latter's death was commissioned by the French minister of the interior to proceed to the United States to study forests and agriculture in general.

The journal of his travels was not originally intended for print; but the interest aroused in the Western region of the United States by the sale of Louisiana, induced its publication. The first French edition appeared in 1804, under the title, Voyage à l'ouest des Monts Alleghanys, dans les États de l'Ohio, et du Kentucky, et du Tennessée, et retour a Charleston par les Hautes-Carolines. Another

edition appeared in 1808. The first was soon Englished by B. Lambert, and two editions with different publishers issued from London presses in 1805. The same year another translation, somewhat abridged, appeared in volume i of Phillip's Collection of Voyages. Neither of these translations is well executed. The same year, a German translation issued from the Weimar press.

The younger Michaux continued to be interested in the study of trees, and spent several years in preparing the three volumes of Histoire des Arbres forestiers de l'Amérique Septentrionale, which appeared in 1810-13. This was translated, and passed through several English editions, with an additional volume added by Thomas Nuttall under the title of The North American Sylva.

Michaux's report on the naturalization of American forest trees, made to the Société d'Agriculture du département de la Seine, was printed in 1809. His "Notice sur les Isles Bermudas, et particulièrement sur l'Isle St. George" was published in Annales des Sciences naturelles (1806), volume viii. He also assisted in editing his father's work, Histoire des Chênes de l'Amérique; and his final publication on American observations was Mémoire sur les causes de la fièvre jaune, published at Paris in 1852. Dr. Michaux died at Vauréal, near Pontoise, in 1855.

In 1824 the younger Michaux presented to the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia the notebooks containing the diary of his father's travels in America - all save those covering the first two years (1785-87), which were lost in the shipwreck on the coast of Holland. The value of these journals has long been known to scientists; their larger interest, as revealing both political and social conditions in the new West, will * See review in Monthly Anthology (Boston, 1810), viii, p. 280.

perhaps be first recognized upon this presentation of them in English form. Written "by the light of his lonely campfires, during brief moments snatched from short hours of repose, in the midst of hardships and often surrounded by dangers," their literary form is deficient, and frequent gaps occur, which doubtless were intended to be filled in at some future moments of leisure. This was prevented by the author's untimely death in the midst of his labors. For nearly a century the journals existed only in manuscript. In 1884 Charles S. Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, prepared the manuscript for the press, with explanatory notes chiefly on botanical matters. It was published in the original French, in the American Philosophical Society Proceedings, 1889, pp. 1-145.

From this journal of nearly eleven years' travel in America - from Florida on the south, to the wilds of the Hudson Bay country on the north, from Philadelphia and Charleston on the Atlantic coast to the most remote Western settlements, and the Indian lands of the Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee - we have selected for translation and inclusion within our series, the portions that concern particularly the trans-Allegheny region. These relate to the expedition made to Kentucky by way of the Ohio (1793), with the return over the Wilderness Road and through the Valley of Virginia; and the longer journey (1795-96) from Charleston to Tennessee, thence through Kentucky to the Illinois, and back by a similar route with side excursions on the great Western rivers.

The notes in the journals of the elder Michaux signed C. S. S., are those of Sargent, found in the French edition and designed chiefly to elucidate botanical references.

The journals of the elder Michaux "record the impressions of a man of unusual intelligence — a traveller in many lands, who had learned by long practice to use his eyes to good advantage and to write down only what they saw." A part of the value of these documents to a student of Western history consists in their accurate and succinct outline of the areas of colonization. The extent and boundaries of Michaux's travels enable us to map with considerable accuracy the limits of the settled regions - first, that from Pittsburg down the Ohio to just below Marietta; then, after passing a region without a town, between Gallipolis and Limestone (Maysville, Kentucky), the traveller enters the thickly occupied area of Kentucky, bounded on the south and west by the "barrens," into which emigration was beginning to creep. In the Illinois, Michaux's unfavorable comment upon the French habitants is in accord with that of other visitors of the same nationality; his travels therein show that the small French group were the only settlers, save a few venturesome Americans at Bellefontaine, and "Corne de Cerf." In East Tennessee, the outpost was Fort Southwest Point, where the Clinch and Holston meet; thence, a journey of a hundred and twenty miles through "the Wilderness" brought one to the frontier post of the Cumberland settlements, at Bledsoe's Lick. Upon Michaux's return, nearly a year later, the Cumberland frontier had extended, and Fort Blount had been built forty miles to the eastward as a protection for the ever-increasing number of travellers and pioneers. The western borders of Cumberland were also rapidly enlarging. Clarksville, on the Cumberland River at the mouth of the Red, had long been on the extreme border in this direction; but Michaux found daring settlements stretching

out beyond, seizing the rich river bottoms and organizing a town as a nucleus for scattered planters.

Michaux faithfully presents the conditions that confronted travellers in his day- the lack of inns, the straying of horses with the consequent annoyance and delay, the inadequate means for crossing rivers, the frequent necessity for waiting until a sufficient body of travellers had collected to act as a guard through the uninhabited regions. He also traversed nearly all the routes by which emigration was pouring into the Western country the Wilderness Road to Kentucky, the routes from North Carolina over the mountains to East Tennessee, the Wilderness Road of Tennessee (this last a narrow and dangerous link with the Cumberland settlements), the paths thither to Louisville, and the Indian trails thence to the Illinois; as well as the river routes—the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Cumberland.

Glimpses of the chief founders of the Western country are tantalizing by their meagreness. We should have valued more detailed accounts of conversations with Clark, Logan, and Shelby, concerning Nicholas's plan for securing the navigation of the Mississippi; of the attitude of Robertson, Blount, and Daniel Smith toward the French enterprise; and of the impression made at this early day by "a resident near the Cumberland River, Mr. Jackson." Particularly interesting is the record of the number of Frenchmen who became prominent and useful citizens of the West - Lucas at Pittsburg, Lacassagne at Louisville, Tardiveau, Honoré, and Depauw at Danville and vicinity; apart from the settlers at Gallipolis, whose misfortunes our author deplores. It is hoped that this English version of the elder Michaux's journals may prove a contribution of importance to