EWAN: SAN FRANCISCO AS A MECCA FOR NINETEENTH CENTURY NATURALISTS 13 



makiiio; an herbarium on one occasion but whetluM' tliis fell to the Academy and 

 in 1906 to destruction I do not know. Prom 186)} until his death at the age of 

 eighty-five Gibbons was a resident of Alameda. We will quote from his writings 

 later in our chronicle when he considers the State Geological Survey. 



Hiram G. Bloomer first set out for California in 1849 but had to turn back 

 on reaching Panama because of sickness; he tried again, successfully, in 1850. 

 I have no information on his principal occupation but he was devoted to botany 

 from the first of his California residence, and participated in the life of San 

 Francisco, serving as a member of the Committee of Vigilance and of the Fire 

 Department. He was active, too, in the Lincoln presidential campaign. He was 

 generous in presenting books to the Academy's library in its early years. It is 

 important to recognize that Bloomer introduced James Lick, the philanthropist, 

 to the needs of the Academy. It will be remembered that the Academy built new 

 quarters on Market between Fourth and Fifth streets in 1891 upon property 

 deeded to it by James Lick. Lick also made the Academy one of two residuary 

 legatees, to receive one half of his estate after all other bequests had been paid. 

 Bloomer's botanical interests centered around the Liliaceae, and he grew many of 

 the native species in his garden. Kellogg named a flower found by Dr. Veatch 

 at New Idria Bloomeria. in Bloomer's honor. Bloomer's herbarium of several 

 thousand sheets was evidently lost soon after its presentation to the Academy 

 but duplicates had been sent to Asa Gray and others during the State Survey 

 period. 



William G. W. Harford was one of those Academy members who could be 

 expected at every meeting. "Six feet in height, of a Lincolnian gauntness, with a 

 pioneer style of luxuriant beard and bushy eyebrows," he was even more shy 

 and retiring than his friend, Kellogg. Like Kellogg, he was of a simple manner, 

 of a deeply religious nature, and devoted to the beautiful. Concliology was per- 

 haps Harford's special interest, and he served as the Academy's curator in that 

 field in 1867, 1868, 1874, and 1875. He was Director of the Academy from 1876 

 to 1886. Spiders and beetles also interested Harford, along with botany. He 

 and Kellogg made up sets of Oregon and California plant collections in 1868 

 and 1869 and these reached the herbaria of Europe, as well as the herbaria of 

 Englemann, Torrey, and Gray. Greene and Parry dedicated the polygonaceous 

 genus. HorforcUa, to his memory in 1886. He was a close associate of George 

 Davidson, with whom he traveled to Alaska in 1867 as naturalist on the United 

 States Coast Survey. Like so many of his cronies at the Academy, Harford 

 lived to be an octogenarian. 



Colonel Leander Ransom was an engineer before he came to California by 

 sea in 1852. He was then fifty-three years of age, and had served the previous 

 thirteen years as President of the Public Works of Ohio. He was sent to Cali- 

 fornia by the Federal Government to establish a United States Surveyor Gen- 

 eral's office in San Francisco and, finding the city to his liking, he became a per- 

 manent resident. Always interested in geography and land forms, he is remem- 

 bered for establishing two of the most important meridian lines on the North 

 American continent, the Mount Diablo base and meridian lines, on July 17, 1851. 

 For many years Colonel Ransom served as the Academy's president, and Dr. 

 Kellogg remembered him in the name of a native oak, but Quercus Ransomi is 

 hard to find todav even in the svnonjnnies of the oaks! 



