Rothrock.] ^''"^ [May 19. 



Mr. James' love of botany appears to have been an early one. As stated 

 in the Potts' memorial by the authoress, his wife and congenial life com- 

 panion, — "From his youth he devoted his leisure to the study of botany, 

 and, having acquired a knowledge of phaenogamous plants, he turned his 

 attention to the cryptogamia, making the musci a specialty." " He re- 

 ceived his early education in Trenton, N. J., intending to enter Princeton 

 College, but was prevented by circumstances," etc. 



There are some men who acquire all the mental discipline that a college 

 course could confer without entering those halls of learning. Mr. James 

 was one of these. It may be doubted whether he would have earned any 

 more honored name, or placed the future bryologists of the land under 

 any greater obligations if he had taken an academic degree. 



For almost forty years he was engaged in the drug business in this city, 

 but never allowed the cares of trade to crowd science out of mind, and 

 though not at the time enabled to devote all, or even much of his atten- 

 tion to botauy, yet the years were far from being unproductive in the 

 science to which he was so deeply attached. In 1853 the third edition of 

 (that work, which will always be a classic book of science) Darlington's 

 Flora Cestrica appeared. To this Mr. James contributed the portion de- 

 scribing the class of Anophytes, i.e.. Mosses and Liverworts. Though 

 hardly thirty pages long it represents an amount of labor which is now 

 past belief. It may in part be regarded as a pioneer work. To say noth- 

 ing of the labor involved in collecting the material for that short paper, 

 there were the critical determinations of the species and the always per- 

 plexing questions of synonyms to settle. It is needless to say that these 

 duties were most conscientiously done, for Mr. James never worked in any 

 other manner. Every line which he ever wrote upon a scientific subject 

 was most carefully considered. In December, 1855, he published in the 

 Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, "An enu- 

 meration of Mosses detected in the Northern United States, which are not 

 comprised in the Manual of Asa Gray, M. D., some of which are new 

 species." 



Mr. Lesquereux informs me also that about this time he wrote another 

 paper of similar character to the above but where, or what its exact title is 

 neither of us can say. In the Smithsonian Report for 1867 there appeared 

 in "A Sketch of the Flora of Alaska," prepared by the present writer, a 

 list of the "Anophytes determined and compiled b}^ Thomas P. James." 

 Extending over but two pages, that list still represents a conscientious 

 search through all the botanical literature of the region in order to bring 

 together in a single view its entire moss flora ; then, too, there are his 

 original determinations of the specimens coming from that region which 

 were placed in his hands. 



In 1871 he published another catalogue with important notes in the now 

 ftimous Volume V (of the Clarence King Surveys) which represents Mr. 

 Watson's earliest labor in the science in which he has since become so dis- 

 tinguished. 



