8 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



in 1835 and is best remembered for his pioneer explorations in Chihuahua. He 

 visited California in 1851, collecting some plants on the American River. Dr. 

 Samuel Washington AVoodhouse, surgeon-naturalist Avith Lieutenant Sitgreave's 

 Zuiii River Expedition of 1851, paused in San Francisco before returning home 

 via Nicaragua. Woodhouse's article on ornithology in Sitgreave's Report includes 

 field notes on 219 species of birds. The territory covered is actually greater than 

 the title of the expedition would suggest, since it covered Indian Territory and 

 Texas to California. 



The Swedish frigate Eugenie paused at San Francisco in 1852 on lier 

 voyage around the world. Aboard was the botanist, Nils Johan Andersson, then 

 thirty-one, who later became the most prominent contemporary authority on wil- 

 lows. Dr. Eric Hulten tells me that Andersson's narrative. En V erldsomsegling 

 (Stockliolm, 1854), which was based closely on his existing diary, contains a de- 

 scription of San Francisco (pp. 98-180), his journey to Sacramento, and the 

 goldfields. But Hulten says Andersson does not record having met any natural- 

 ists in California. 



The year 1852 saw California's maximum gold production: $81,294,700 that 

 year. San Francisco's part was integral in the State's prosperity and, in the 

 words of Robert Glass Cleland, the historian, "many cities in the United States 

 boast a more ancient lineage than that of San Francisco; but none can look back 

 to a more vigorous, boisterous or interesting youth." From a town of nine hun- 

 dred souls in the spring of 1848 San Francisco became a bustling market place 

 where "speculation, open-handedness, startling success or equally swift failure, 

 hurry, rush and disregard of caution" were characteristics. A decline in business 

 values set in in 1853, following the boom year in the Mother Lode, but shipping 

 was on the upswing and approximately five hundred vessels were employed in 

 the whaling industry by 1855. Ten years later San Francisco was the headquar- 

 ters for the whale-oil industry. Significant in the cultural sense was Edwin 

 Booth's playing at the San Francisco Theatre to an appreciative audience. 



In the national perspective 1853 saw the beginning of the Pacific Railroad 

 Surveys under Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. For two years these surveys 

 reconnoitered so thoroughly and efficiently that the railroad routes of today 

 were laid out along essentially their original markers. These surveys covered 

 the five transcontinental routes traversed today from the Northern Pacific Rail- 

 road to the Southern Pacific Railroad via the Gila Route. Each of the five field 

 parties included a surgeon-naturalist, who collected objects as opportunity 

 afforded. The published reports arising from these surveys served as reference 

 Avorks for the first residents of California, as many well-worn copies of the Pacific 

 Railway Reports to be seen in second-hand bookshops today will attest. W. P. 

 Blake was geologist and mineralogist to Williamson's Expedition. "The party 

 will rendezvous at Benicia" were Lieutenant Williamson's instructions. Blake's 

 own papers dealt among other topics with Tertiary Infusoria and "observations 

 on the extent of the gold region." Among other specialists who reported on the 

 results of the expedition were T. A. Conrad on the fossil shells; A. A. Gould on 

 recent shells; Louis Agassiz on fossil fishes; and S. F. Baird on mammals. Four 

 physicians attached to these various surveys, John ]\Iilton Bigelow, Thomas 

 Antisell, Adolphus L. Ileermann, and John Strong Newberry, all visited San 

 Francisco during this period and must have been welcome wayfarers for Dr. 



