2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 56 



stand by the Union in that struggle was due in no small degree. 

 Through the influence of Justice Field, Stearns was appointed 

 deputy clerk of the supreme court of California in 1862, a post 

 which he resigned in the following year to accept the secretaryship 

 of the State Board of Harbor Commissioners, which he was obliged 

 to resign som.e years later on account of ill health. Coming to the 

 east, he made one of a party, comprising besides himself the late Dr. 

 William Stimpson and Col. Ezekiel Jewett, for the exploration of 

 the invertebrate fauna of southwestern Florida, during which large 

 collections were made for the Smithsonian Institution. He returned 

 to California, and in 1874 was elected secretary of the University 

 of California, being the business executive of that institution under 

 the presidency of the late Dr. Daniel C. Oilman. He served in this 

 capacity for eight years with great approval, and, when ill health 

 again obHged him to retire from service, the university as expressive 

 of their sense of his services to the cause of education in California, 

 and in recognition of his scientific attainments, conferred upon him 

 the degree of doctor of philosophy. Returning to the east after the 

 death of Mrs. Stearns, he was engaged in researches for the U. S. 

 Fish Commission in 1882, was appointed paleontologist to the U. S. 

 Geological Survey by Major Powell in 1884, and assistant curator 

 of mollusks in the National Museum by Professor Baird. His col- 

 lection of mollusca was acquired by the museum. Age and infirmity 

 obliged him to return to the more genial climate of California in 

 1892, where he settled in Uos Angeles, continuing, as his strength 

 permitted, his researches into the malacology of the Pacific coast. 

 He married March 28, 1850, Mary Anne Libby, daughter of 

 Oliver Libby, of Boston, and is survived by a daughter. 



Dr. Stearns was an earnest student of mollusks from boyhood ; 

 his early experience led him to interest himself in horticulture and 

 landscape gardening, and his ability in this line is attested by the 

 beauty of the university grounds at Berkeley, which were developed 

 under his superintendence. His knowledge of the Pacific coast 

 mollusca was profound, and a long list of papers on this topic and on 

 the shells of Florida was the result. He also contributed many 

 papers on various branches of horticulture and gardening to the 

 California periodicals devoted to this subject. He was an enthusi- 

 astic supporter of the California Academy of Sciences in its early 

 days, and, after the earthquake of 1868, when disaster threatened 

 the society, he, with Professor J. D. Whitney and a few other 

 friends, stood between it and dissolution. He was a member of 



