--'!- THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



Philadelphia. The published account of his travels, entitled 

 " Description of Plants collected by William Gambel, M. D., 

 in the Rocky Mountains and Upper California," by Thomas 

 Nuttall, aj)]K-ared in the Journal of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, 2d ser., 1 : 149 (1847-50). In this paper Gambel's 

 name is perpetuated in a scrophulariaceous plant, Gambelia 

 speciosa* a figure of this plant with description being pub- 

 lished. Returning to Philadelphia the following year, he 

 entered the Medical School of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, from which he graduated in 184S. He was made 

 Recording Secretary of the Philadelphia Academy, but 

 ]( -signed from this position the following year to accompany a 

 party organized by I. J. AVistar to cross the continent to the 

 California gold fields. The leader, Isaac J. Wistar, became 

 afterward a distinguished officer in the Union army, a 

 philanthropist and President of the Academy of Natural 

 s-irnces. The party started from Independence, Missouri, 

 a 1 >t >ut the first of May, and traveled up the Platte River, where 

 (i.'ii ubel left to join a party of Missourians, led by Captain 

 Boone, of Kentucky. Gambel's fate is described in the 

 following extract of a letter from General \Yistar to Professor 

 Sargent: "In the year 1S50, I met two men of Boone's 

 train at Foster's Bar, who gave me the first information 

 I had received of the fate of the majority of the overland 

 party. Being well furnished and provisioned, and mostly 

 o'hier men than me, thev traveled leisurelv and reached 



/ ^ 



tiit Sierras only in October. After the loss of most of their 

 cattle and consequent abandonment of many wagons in the 

 Humboldt Desert, they were caught by snow in the moun- 

 tains, and instead of abandoning the remainder and pushing 



-i 1 1- MEEIIAN. Native ferns n/nl jlmn rx <>/ II, < I 'nitl Stoics . si-r. _. 11 : >'- 



