Journal of Travel and Natural History 173 



THE PRESENT ST A TE OE SCIENCE ON THE NORTH- 

 WESTERN SLOPES OE THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 

 By Robert Brown. 



"I 1 riTH most people the region in question is less associated 

 * • with scientific workers than with bowie knives, " difficulties," 

 gold-mining, and fiir-trading ; and although we are fain to confess 

 that the majority of the sojourners in that wild region are still not 

 a little addicted to these more or less harmless popular pursuits ; 

 yet, as I propose to shortly indicate, in a review of the present 

 state of science in these countries, there are some who are 

 labouring even there to add to the common fund of knowledge. 



First in geographical position and importance comes California 

 and the state recently constituted of the region in the vicinity of 

 the Sierra-Nevada mountains— TV^a^i^. 



First in that section comes San Francisco, a city which in 

 eighteen years has risen from a collection of cotton tents on some 

 sand-hills to a substantial city of 150,000 inhabitants. In San 

 Francisco the California Academy of Natural Sciences is the prin- 

 cipal object of attraction to naturalists. It meets monthly at its 

 rooms at 622 Clay Street, and is now in a tolerably prosperous 

 condition. The Society lingered from its organization in 1853 

 until recently with a membership never exceeding forty, contri- 

 buting many interesting facts to the general sum of scientific and 

 practical knowledge, but unable to attain that broader field of 

 usefulness which numbers and money can alone secure. It is now, 

 however, likely to be more prosperous. The liberality of members 

 has enabled it to obtain somewhat better rooms, which are fitted 

 up to preserve and display its many thousand specimens of 

 minerals, its 4000 conchological specimens, its 1500 specimens of 

 palaeontology, and its large herbarium, valuable library, and 

 miscellaneous collection, historical and ethnological. They are 

 now prepared to exchange with individuals and societies in other 

 parts of the world, and thereby to extend much their scope of 

 operations. Their " Proceedings " are published yearly in 8vo, 

 with woodcuts, and though the execution, typographic and zylo- 

 graphic, is not superb, yet it perfectly answers every purpose, and 

 suits the Society's limited funds. We believe that the woodcuts 



