12 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



collections were by far the most extensive yet made on the island, though often 

 scrappy specimens by our standards, and Dr. Kellogg published his discoveries 

 in the San Francisco weekly The Hesperian, illustrating many of his novelties 

 with drawings. Kellogg's poetic soul is laid bare in the vernacular names that 

 he gave the new species. One of Veatch's plants appeared, for example, as the 

 "hummingbird's dinner horn." Kellogg's scientific names were not infrequently 

 hyphenated words of curious construction that some botanists felt obliged later 

 to edit or disregard altogether. 



Though not a "founder" in the strict sense of being present at the meeting 

 of April 4, Dr. H. H. Behr joined the Academy on February 4, 1854, to launch 

 a lifetime of service to the young organization. Dr. Behr was thirty-six when 

 he joined the Academy; he was born at Colthen, Duchy of Anhalt, Germany, 

 and took his medical degree in Berlin in 1843. His coming to the feverish San 

 Francisco of 1850 was the outcome of his participation in the Revolution of 1848. 

 In temperament, then, Behr easily adjusted to the rough manners of the frontier 

 city, and took up practice at once. But he allowed plenty of time to collect plants 

 and these he sent to Hamburg, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere. Fortunately Dr. 

 Behr has narrated his experiences of these early years in an article entitled 

 "Botanical Reminiscences of San Francisco" {Erythea, 4:168-173, 1896). Behr's 

 copy of Endlicher's Genera plantarum was the chief resource for the study of the 

 troublesome specimens that were brought to the Academy at this time. He taught 

 classes at the California College of Pharmacy and prepared his Flora of San 

 Francisco, a rare book today, for the use of the pupils. But Behr's interests were 

 much broader than botany alone. He wrote poetry, humor, and travelogues — ^his 

 account of two years spent in the Philippine Islands appeared in the Atlantic 

 Monthly. His writings were warmly acclaimed in Germany. It is natural that 

 his spiritual link was with Alexander von Humboldt, Schlechtendahl, Ferdinand 

 von Mueller, Hillebrand, Louis Agassiz, and Max Miiller. Those who came to 

 San Francisco from afar were sure to find Dr. Behr a hearty host, and it would 

 be difficult to know how important was his influence in the lives of the many 

 scientists and others that he chanced to meet. A man of good will and generous 

 spirit, he died at the age of eighty-six at his home at 1215 Bush Street, in the 

 city with which he had been identified for fifty-four years. 



Dr. William Peters Gibbons had taken his ^I.D. degree in 1846 and sailed 

 from New York in 1852 for California via Panama. While crossing the Isthmus 

 he fell a victim to cholera and would likely have perished there, had not W. C. 

 Ralston carried him in his arms aboard the vessel bound for San Francisco. This 

 is the Ralston who later directed the Bank of California, was a steamship owner, 

 and enterprising capitalist. Dr. Gibbons arrived in San Francisco in January, 

 1853, and at once began to practice medicine in the city. Quite certainly he met 

 Dr. Behr early that year, as well as Dr. Kellogg. He became active, not only in 

 the Academy, but in the California State Medical Society as well, serving as 

 chairman of the committee on medical botany and as a contributor to its Trans- 

 actions. He was particularly interested in fishes and J. G. Cooper named the 

 genus Gihhonsia in his honor. Dr. Gibbons was the son of William Gibbons 

 (1781-1845), Quaker physician and friend of the Pennsylvania botanist. Dr. 

 William Darlington. W. P. Gibbons collected plants in California at least as 

 late as 1874, as represented by sheets in the Torrey Herbarium. He mentions 



