fWAN: SAN FRANC/SCO AS A MECCA FOR NINETEENTH CENTURY NATURALISTS 37 



on the charter roll, from Carl Purdy on the north to Cleveland, Parish, and 

 Hasse, from southern California, to mention only a few well kno^vn figures. 

 C. F. Sonne, G. P. Rixford, (Mary) Elizabeth Parsons, and Alice Eastwood were 

 among the charter members resident in San Francisco. Miss Eastwood was 

 leader of the Club after Mrs. Brandegee moved to San Diego, the meetings being 

 held nearly every week "to study living plants, both native and exotic." From 

 this more or less informal study group have come valuable collections for the 

 Academy's herbarium. In this connection the collections of Evelina Cannon, 

 Caroline L. Hunt, Mary C. Bowman, Mrs. E. C. Sutliffe, Ella Dales Cantelow, 

 and others across the years, are notable. 



In the fall of 1895 David Starr Jordan was elected President of the Academy 

 and in his autobiography. Days of a Man, he inventories his impressions : 



This useful institution struggled on for years with inadequate support until en- 

 dowed by James Lick in 1876. Its funds were then mainly invested in a large office 

 building in San Francisco, the museum occupying cramped quarters at the rear. For 

 some time previous to my election [Jordan continues] the Academy membership had 

 been divided into two warring factions — one led by Dr. Davidson, the other by Dr. 

 Harkness, a physician of prominence and an expert in the study of fungi, especially 

 of the group known as truffles. Both men were vigorous and rather intolerant, a com- 

 bination of qualities which was not rare in pioneer days, and disrupted more than 

 one California organization even as it affected the famous "society on the Stanislow." 

 Indeed, it is reputed that the discords in the institution furnished the motive for Bret 

 Harte's satirical verse.6 



Harkness expressed a desire to retire in Jordan's favor, and Jordan says, "I 

 then endeavored, with fair success, to put an end to the old feud." Between 

 1898 and 1911, during Jordan's intermittent presidency, he remarks: 



[The] Academy publications were raised to a very high standard as to number, 

 scientific value, and typographical appearance. For this, special credit was due Dr. 

 Ritter, the editor; and it should be added that the same level of excellence has been 

 continuously maintained by our successors. 



During these years the Academy's library and collections were growing stead- 

 ily. To select one of many areas of activity for illustration, we note that the 

 botanical department acquired the George Thurber herbarium, rich in the Gov- 

 ernment Railroad Survey collections, and a good set of those of the Death Valley 

 Expedition. Fifty years after the Academy's founding. Professor T, D. A. 

 Cockerell wrote in the Popular Science Monthly for April, 1903 : 



The civilization of the West is so young that perhaps we ought not to expect much 

 of the native-born therein . . . indeed a very good crop of young men and women, 

 who will be prominent in the next twenty years. Everything shows that California, 

 in particular, will be the center of great biological activity. 



Coekerell's prophecy was amply borne out, though interjected in those years was 

 the destruction of the most valuable collection center in the "West by the fire of 

 1906 when "a single day saw the destruction of a museum and a librarj^ that had 

 been fifty years in building. Of thousands of books and specimens of almost 

 priceless value, nothing was saved except what could be loaded into one spring 

 wagon and carted to safety ahead of the fire." As Dr. Robert C. Miller, present 

 Director of the Academy, continues : 



5. The "warring factions" of the 1890's postdated the publication of Bret Harte's 

 verse, which perhaps rests on the altercations of the 1860s. 



