SKETCH OF INCREASE ALLEN LAP HAM, LL. D. 837 



" Transactions of the State Agricultural Society," was the forerunner 

 of a suggestion which he made to the Commissioner of Patents (the 

 Hon. Charles Mason), that the agricultural department of his office 

 might appropriately undertake a descriptive catalogue of all the native, 

 naturalized, and cultivated grasses of the United States. An appro- 

 priation was obtained from Congress for this object, and Mr. Lapham 

 was invited by the Commissioner of Patents to undertake the work. 

 It was to include the collection of specimens and their ai-rangement in 

 books for distribution among State societies and agricultural colleges ; 

 drawings and enlarged illustrations of the flowers of each species ; the 

 collection and distribution of seeds ; the preparation of an exhaustive 

 report on each species, and all facts relating to its economic value ; and 

 an expedition to the West Indies or South America for the collection 

 of improved varieties of sugar-cane. Several months were spent in 

 the preliminary arrangements for this work ; but when the first quar- 

 ter's account for salary was presented to the Secretary of the Interior, 

 whose indorsement of it was required by law, that officer, who had not 

 recognized Mr. Lapham's appointment, refused to allow it, saying that 

 so useful and responsible a trust should not be conferred upon one 

 whose political sentiments were not, in all respects, in accord with 

 those of the party in power. Mr. Lapham, though disappointed and 

 a thousand dollars poorer for what he had done, went on with his cata- 

 logue and completed it so as to include all the grasses of the United 

 States and Territories, so far as they had been previously described 

 and named, with their localities, geographical distribution, time of 

 flowering, etc., which still remains in manuscript. The subject of 

 authorizing this investigation was again favorably considered by Presi- 

 dent Lincoln's Administration, but any action upon it was prevented 

 by the war. 



In 1867 Mr. Lapham, as chairman of a committee appointed under 

 an act of the Legislature of Wisconsin " to ascertain and report upon 

 the injurious effect of clearing land of forests, and the duty of the 

 State in relation to the matter," made a report covering the whole 

 ground of the subject, which was published as a legislative docu- 

 ment. 



Though particularly interested in botany, Mr. Lapham was active 

 in many other departments of scientific work. In 1847, writing in 

 one of the city papers on the fluctuations in the level of Lake Michi- 

 gan, he suggested a method for determining whether it had a tide. 

 His observations on the phenomena of the level, begun as early as 

 1836, were found to be of great practical value in the preparation of 

 plans for river and harbor improvements, and for all works of the cities 

 of Milwaukee and Chicago in any way connected with the lake and 

 rivers emptying into it, and their importance was recognized in Cap- 

 tain (afterward General) Meade's " Report on the Lake Survey " for 

 1861. On the 3d of September, 1849, he announced, in a paper of the 



