322 LEO LESQUEREUX. 



Boreali-Americani." A second edition appeared in 1865. Lesque- 

 reux himself published comparatively little relating to mosses, al- 

 though his first scientific paper was a " Catalogue of Mosses of 

 Switzerland," published at Neuchatel in 1840. H. N. Bolander, a 

 resident of Columbus, had removed to California, and thi'ough this 

 indefatigable collector Lesquereux received a large amount of new 

 material from the West Coast, which he described in a paper " On 

 California Mosses," in the Transactions of the American Philosophical 

 Society, in 1863, and in a " Catalogue of the Pacific Coast Mosses," 

 which formed the first Memoir of the California Academy of Sciences, 

 In connection with Sullivant, he contributed to the Proceedings of 

 our Academy in 1859 an account of mosses collected by Charles 

 Wright during the North Pacific expedition under Commodore John 

 Rodgers. 



An account of the Musci and HepaticEe of the United States east 

 of the Mississippi River had been prepared by Sullivant in 1856, for 

 the second edition of Gray's Manual, and at the time of his death 

 he was engaged with Lesquereux in preparing a INIanual of the 

 Mosses of North America. Excessive use of the microscope having 

 impaired Lesqiiereux's sight, after Sullivant's death he called Mr. 

 T. P. James of Cambridge to bis assistance in completing the Manual. 

 The work was advancing slowly when James died suddenly in 1882, 

 and Sei'eno Watson then undertook the difficult task of putting the 

 whole material into proper shape, and it was finally given to the public 

 in 1884. 



Although, by a fortunate chance, Lesquereux was able almost im- 

 mediately on his arrival in America to turn to good account the 

 knowledge of mosses acquired while he was in Europe, and although 

 he was recognized in later years as, after Sullivant, the leading bry- 

 ologist of America, it is chiefly to his knowledge of fossil plants that 

 his high position among American scientific men is due. In the field 

 of vegetable palteoutology he unquestionably stood at the head in 

 America. Ilis early studies on the origin of peat first introduced him 

 to the scientific circles of Europe, and were the means of securing for 

 him the friendship of Louis Agassiz, a friendship which strengthened 

 as years passed on. The vast unexplored treasures of plants buried 

 in the coal measures were very imperfectly known when Lesquereux 

 arrived in America. He gradually began the study of those forms 

 which were at hand, and as the different States developed their geo- 

 logical surveys material acoumuhited in vast quantities, and Lesquereux 

 waa soon recognized as the cue best fitted to prepare reports on the 



