406 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



proficient. After the death of Mr. SuUivant in 1873, Mr. James and 

 our Associate, Lesquereux, were looked to as the principal authorities 

 upon Mosses in this country ; aud the duty appropriately devolved upon 

 them of preparing the systematic work upon North American Bry- 

 ology which Mr. Sullivant had planned. Owing to the pre-occupation 

 of Mr. Lesquereux in vegetable palaeontolo2;y, the laboring oar fell to 

 Mr. James. He had already publislied some papers upon the subject 

 in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, of which 

 he had long been an active member, and he had contributed to Mr. 

 Watson's Botany of Clarence King's Exploration on the Fortieth 

 Parallel a notable article on the Musci of that Survey. Our own 

 Academy has also published some of the results of the joint study of 

 these two veteran bryologists. The characters of Mosses in these 

 days are mostly drawn from their minute structure. Hundreds of 

 species and varieties in numerous specimens had to be patiently scruti- 

 nized under the compound microscope, the details sketched, and col- 

 lated, and the differences weighed. To this task Mr. James gave 

 himself with single and untiring devotion. He had nearly brought 

 this protracted labor of microscopical analysis to a conclusion, and 

 was actually engaged in this work, when the eye suddenly was 

 dimmed and the pencil dropped from his hand. Partial paralysis 

 was soon followed by coma, and he died within a few hours. So very 

 much has been done, that it is confidently hoped that his coadjutor 

 may soon bring the work to a completion, and give to bryological 

 students the Manual of North American Mosses which is greatly 

 needed, and to which a vast amount of faithful research has been 

 devoted. The name of Mr. James will thereby be inseparably asso- 

 ciated with the advancement of an interesting branch of botany. He 

 was not often seen at our meetings, but he is greatly missed by his 

 associates in study, and his memory is cherished by all who in tlie 

 various relations of life came to know this diligent and conscientious 

 student of nature, and most estimable, simple-hearted, kindly, aud 

 devout man. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, 

 on the 27th of February, 1807. He died in Cambridge, IMass., on the 

 24th of INIarch, 1882. At the age of fourteen he entered Bowdoin 

 College (founded by the first President of the Academy), in a class 

 which his own name and that of Nathaniel Hawthorne have made 



