ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME XIII

"A Map of the Arkansas River, by H. S. Tanner Facsimile of title-page to Nuttall.

"Distant View of the Mamelle"

"Mamelle"

"Cadron Settlement"

"Magazin Mountain"

"Cavaniol Mountain"

PREFACE TO VOLUME XIII

The present volume of our series is devoted to a reprint of Thomas Nuttall's Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory, during the year 1819, with Occasional Observations on the Manners of the Aborigines, originally published at Philadelphia in 1821.

Nuttall was born in the market town of Settle, West Riding, Yorkshire, in 1786.1 His parents being in humble circumstances, at an early age he was apprenticed to a printer, probably an uncle who was a member of that craft, in Liverpool. After a few years, becoming dissatisfied with his employer, he journeyed to London, where his pecuniary condition approached so near to destitution that he emigrated to the United States, arriving at Philadelphia in 1808, aged twenty-two.

In spite of the disadvantages which had beset him in his early years, a natural love for books and a faculty for application had by this time given him some knowledge of history, Greek, and Latin, and much of natural science, already his favorite study. Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia, he was seeking information relative to a plant which interested him, when he met Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton; the interview stimulated him to the botanical studies on which his fame as a scientist chiefly rests, and he soon began to make excursions, especially along the

1 The chief source of information concerning Nuttall's life is a "Biographical Notice" prepared upon his death by Elias Durand, for the American Philosophical Society, and published in their Proceedings for 1859-60 (volume viii, p. 297). Other details are given in his writings, especially the Journal, and in Bradbury and Townsend, who were his associates on other expeditions (see volumes v and xxi of our series).

seacoast as far south as North Carolina. In 1810, he accompanied John Bradbury (whose Travels comprise volume v of our series), on the latter's scientific expedition into the Missouri country, described in volume v of our series.

Nuttall returned to Philadelphia early in 1811, and during the succeeding eight years spent his summers in excursions within the area east of the Mississippi, his winters being passed in studying the collections thus acquired. The fruits of these studies appeared in The Genera of North American Plants and a Catalogue of the Species to 1817 (Philadelphia, 2 vols., 1818), for which he personally set most of the type. Just before the appearance of this work, Nuttall, who was already a member of the Linnæan Society of London, was elected to membership both in the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia. To the journal published by the Academy he became a frequent contrib

utor.

Being well acquainted with the cis-Mississippi region, and having already visited the Northwest, he now turned his thoughts to the Southwest. He had long desired to visit the Arkansas country, which still offered a practically virgin field for the scientific investigator. Accordingly, assisted by a number of friends who were likewise interested in science, he prepared for the journey which is herein recorded, and set out from Philadelphia on the second of October, 1818. Crossing southern Penn

? The expeditions of William Dunbar and Dr. George Hunter, who explored the Ouachita as far as Hot Springs in 1804, under a commission from President Jefferson, and of Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, who descended the Arkansas River under General Z. M. Pike's orders in 1806, were primarily geographical and topographical reconnaissances.

* This fact, and the names of Nuttall's patrons, appear in the dedication.