32 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



of 1883, he spent that season on excursions both to the north and south of the 

 city. During those years he was able to secure a pass on the Southern Pacific 

 Railroad through the offices of his good friend Dr. Stillman, Leland Stanford's 

 personal physician. He stayed ten months during 1886-1887 investigating the 

 genera Ceanothus, Arctostaphylos, and Alnus. Though Parry did not write any 

 manuals or even extensive revisions of genera, aside from the synopses of the 

 ceanothi, ehorizanthes, and manzanitas, he wrote a fair stream of chatty articles 

 to the local newspapers, as well as to his home-town Davenport Gazette. Some 

 of these sketches demonstrate a fine command of English and a poetic quality 

 not often found in such ephemera. He was fond, too, of writing terse messages 

 to his botanical cronies, Englemann, Gray, and to Canby, Eedfield, ^nd just about 

 all the contemporary botanical figures of the day, for Parry was friendly and 

 communicative. Typical of these short letters is the following to Samuel Bonsall 

 Parish of San Bernardino, here quoted in part : 



Since leaving your dry region for pastures green, I have been able to see some 

 things that may be of interest to you — at least you deserve an attempt to make them 

 so. Among other things I made a short trip to lone in Amador Co to look up an 

 anomalous Arctostaphylos collected in leaf only by Mrs Curran last year — I found it 

 on her directions abundant and in full flower Feby 1st of which I secured plenty 

 of specimens — (one of course for you). On subsequent examination I conclude that 

 it is a good n sp — nearly allied to A. nummularia — but abundantly distinct. To which 

 I gave the provisional name A. myrtifolia n sp. I shall wait to get mature fruit be- 

 fore publishing, and will probably offer it for publication in Cal Acad Bull — when I 

 shall try & tell the whole story. 



Another thing that may interest you is an investigation I have been making of 

 our Pacific Coast Alnus. ... So you see there is plenty to be done in studying common 

 things — Greene is busy in his revisions is now at Boraginaceae Dr. Gray I hear has com- 

 menced printing Polypetalae. now in Papaveraceae. Will accept most of Greene's Escholt- 

 zias [sic.], quite a triumph for Greene. Acad [em] y affairs as you will infer are run a la 

 Curran and nobody else has anything to say in the matter — Greene draws off to Berkeley — 

 how long this state of things may last qiiien sabe. I enclose Harkness's inaugural 

 written as I understand by Curran. Let us hear from you. Mrs. P joins in regards 

 to yourself & Mrs. Parish. 



Dr. Parry's last visit to California was made in the spring of 1889. For forty 

 years he was a "familiar figure to hunters, prospectors, mountaineers, and all 

 sorts of outdoor people, from the Arizona deserts to the Siskiyou pine forests." 

 Sargent remarked that "no other botanist of his generation . . . revealed so many 

 undescribed North American plants." 



During the decade of 1875-1885, with its delays in the publication of the 

 Academy's Proceedings, internal dissensions raked the organization. Joseph 

 LeConte said: 



It might be supposed that the Academy of Sciences was an important element 

 in my career [in California] but not so. It had little effect in determining my scien- 

 tific activity. I read many papers there, to be sure, and several of them were pub- 

 lished in their Proceedings, but I always reserved the right to publish them elsewhere 

 also. 



He remarked further that 



. . . under the presidency of J. D. Whitney the Academy was prosperous and held 

 a high position among the scientific institutions of our country; but from that time, 

 "because of internal dissensions, it dropped lower and lower. 



