EWAN: SAN FRANCISCO AS A MECCA FOR NINETEENTH CENTURY NATURALISTS 9 



Kellogg in the city. Dr. Bigelow's collections were the most extensive for central 

 California and more than 1,100 collections were enumerated in Volume Four 

 alone of the Beports. Though Dr. Heermann collected in nearly all fields, he 

 was particularly interested in birds and birds' eggs. He introduced, in fact, the 

 word "oology" into ornithological literature. Heermann came to California in 

 1849, but his activities prior to the Pacific Railway Surveys are unknown. The 

 beautiful Heermann gull places his name in California skies. 



AVhat appears to be wholly sound scientific progress was the subject of satire 

 by Lieutenant George Horatio Derby, graduate of West Point in the class of 

 1846, who wrote a book, Phoenixiana or Sketches and Burlesques, under the nom 

 de plume of John Phoenix (New York, 1903). Derby's burlesque on the surveys 

 is entitled "Official Report of Professor John Phoenix, A.M., of a Military Survey 

 and Reconnaissance of the Route from San Francisco to the Mission of Dolores, 

 made with a view to ascertaining the practicability of connecting these points 

 by a railroad." In the same volume appears "The San Francisco Antiquarian 

 Society and California Academy of Arts and Sciences." In this sketch Derby 

 patently parallels the founding of the Academy, beginning with a committee to 

 draw up the constitution consisting of "Dr. Keensarvey, A. Cove, and James 

 Calomel, M.D." Who these characters equate to in real life may test the historic 

 senses ! 



Founding of the Academy 



When the five doctors, a real estate man, and a school superintendent met 

 informally on April 4, 1853, to consider organizing an academy to bring together 

 persons with a collecting urge, or a curiosity to know the singular forms of life 

 that they noticed were different from those "back home," there could have been 

 little notion of the expeditions, comprehensive collections, and reference libraries 

 in the natural sciences that would follow. Though, to speak quite honestly, we 

 know little about some of the men who met that day, they must have had some- 

 thing of the spirit of the Salem merchants who, while they spent most of their 

 time vending staples and making money, always took time to remind their friends, 

 the sea captains, to watch for big conch shells on the next voyage, a nice perfect 

 shell of a Galapagos tortoise, or a better tail feather of the Australian lyre bird 

 than Nicholas Titcomb down the way had just acquired. 



Lewis W. Sloat, the real estate man in whose office the "founders" met on 

 old Montgomery Street, was an amateur conchologist and had a cabinet of shells 

 in his office. He does not, however, seem to have been in contact with Eastern 

 naturalists. 



Colonel Thomas J. Nevins must certainly have been an idealist, for it was 

 Nevins who, against considerable opposition, persuaded the Common Council of 

 San Francisco to establish a free public school system. This was in 1851. After 

 the first meeting the Academy repaired to Colonel Nevins' office on Clay Street, 

 and they continued to meet there for many years. It was not until 1874 that the 

 Academy moved to larger quarters in Dr. Stone's old brick church at California 

 and Dupont streets. Of two of the five physicians we have little knowledge. 

 Dr. Andrew Randall was selected chairman of the first meeting, and elected 

 president of the Academy three successive years. He was shot by a gambler 

 on .luly 24, 1856, and the murderer was hanged five days later by the Vigilance 



