406 SERENO WATSON. 



late of Northampton, then in Greensboro, Alabama, president of an 

 insurance and banking company, offered him a position as clerk 

 or cashier, and he left Quincy in 1856, which was the end of his 

 doctoring." 



His brother Louis answers also a question which may be noted at 

 this point : " As to his botanical studies I know but little. I suppose 

 they were taken up among his studies for the medical profession. 

 When he was at Quincy I occasionally picked up plants in the Missis- 

 sippi bottoms, taking them to my office for examination. If I could 

 not readily determine them by the only Botany I then had (Beck's), I 

 referred them to him. He had more patience than I had, and deter- 

 mined them. When in the United States service in the Civil War, in 

 the Southern Mississippi, Tennessee, and Missouri, I picked up plants 

 unknown to me, and, having no books, I sent them to him to learn what 

 they were, and received replies naming them." 



He remained in the South engaged in insurance and banking until 

 the breaking out of the Civil War. During this time he must have 

 devoted a good share of his leisure to the examination of the plants 

 around him, for he later manifested a great degree of interest in any 

 rarities coming from that region. 



Dr. Henry Barnard, then editor of the "Journal of Education," 

 gave him on his arrival at the North, in 1861, some work connected 

 with the Journal, all of which was satisfactorily done. Of this stage 

 in Watson's life, the venerable Dr. Barnard speaks most affectionately. 

 He recalls with vividness Watson's interest in plants, and his eager 

 desire to aid beginners in their work of determining species. But he 

 did not think of him at all as a botanist at this time ; he seemed just 

 as likely to turn his hand to one pursuit as to another. 



In 1866, Watson entered the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale, at 

 the age of forty, as a student, but not to pursue botanical investiga- 

 tions. He went there to carry on studies in chemistry and mineral- 

 ogy. He impressed his teachers in these departments as being capable 

 and diligent. The possible, or rather probable design for which these 

 special studies were undertaken must have been to fit him for a resi- 

 dence in California, which he had now in mind. The studies had a 

 practical turn. His nephew remembers distinctly that during this 

 time they made a journey together to Loudville, Conn., to examine an 

 abandoned lead and silver mine, and still another visit to an aban- 

 doned iron mine. 



These facts are here mentioned not so much to indicate the range of 

 his studies as to point out the thoroughness with which he endeavored 



