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Clark, into the far Northwest—the precursor of all like enter- 
prises carried on by the general government, culminating in the 
_ present magnificent Geological Survey, 
A little incident illustrating Jefferson’s scientific enthusiasm is 
thus related. On going to Philadelphia to be inaugurated Vice- 
President, he carried with him a collection of fossil bones which 
he had obtained in Green Brier county, Virginia, together with a 
paper in which were formulated the results of his studies upon 
them. This was published in the Transactions of the American 
Philosophical Society, and the animal which the bones illustrated 
is still known as Megalonyx Jeffersoni. The spectacle of an 
American statesman coming to take part as a central figure in the 
greatest political ceremony of our country, bringing with him a 
lot of bones and an original contribution to science is one long to 
be remembered, and is not likely soon to be repeated. Botanists 
have done well to preserve in their special field the memory Of 
this man, remarkable as he was great. 
A tropical American genus of woody climbers, Banisteria of 
Linnzus, was dedicated to John Bannister, who settled in Virginia 
some time prior to 1668, and who published in 1686 a “Catalogus 
Plantarum in Virginia Observatarum,” which was the first system: 
atic paper upon natural history emanating from America. l¢ 
was an artist, for with his notes and dried specimens transmitted 
to Bishop Compton and John Ray, of England, he sent drawings 
of the rare species which he found... Ray says of Bannister in his 
« Historia’ Plantarum,” “erudissimus vir et consummatissimus 
Botanicus.” 
The memory of John Bannister is still cherished in Virginia 
where his descendants are numerous. 
That attractive little spring flower Claytonia Virginiana, which 
enjoys the honor of having been the first to fall into the hands of 
Dr. Gray, when a student, to be analyzed by him, and which with 
one or two others disputes the right to be recognized as the “ May 
Flower” of our ancestors, keeps fresh in our memories one of the 
earliest devotees of botanical science in America, John Clayton, of 
Virginia. For fifty years Clayton was clerk of Gloucester county ee 
and during all this period he spent a great deal of time in exploring oe 
the region about him and in describing the plants which he found. a 
