PAEEY BOTANICAL COLLECTION. 281 



late in the winter season through Arizona, crossing the Sierra Nevada at 

 Tehachapi Pass, and through the Tulare and San Joaquin valleys to 

 San Francisco. A list of the plants comprised in this collection was 

 subsequently published in Dr. W. A. Bell's work entitled " Xew Tracks 

 in North America," but without an opportunity for personal revision by 

 the collector. 



An interval of several years subsequent to the latter trip was occupied 

 in filling the position of Botanist to the Agricultural Department at 

 Washington. The principal work there devolving upon me was that of 

 arranging the extensive botanical collections, which, as the result of 

 various government explorations, had accumulated at the Smithsonian 

 Institution. The bulk of these had previously passed through the hands 

 of Dr. Torrey, whose gratuitous labors in reducing this mass oftaw 

 botanical material to systematic shape have never yet been properly 

 acknowledged. 



On being relieved from this position in the fall of 1871, the season 

 following I again revisited the Rocky Mountain alpine district, being 

 then accompanied for the first time by our associate, J. Duncan Putnam. 



In 1873 I was attached to the North- Western Wyoming Expedition, 

 under Capt. W. A. Jones, extending through the Wind River District to 

 the Yellowstone National Park, Mr. Putnam being assigned as ray 

 meteorological assistant. 



In 18T4 I made a private collecting tour to South Utah, securing a val- 

 uable collection of the flora of the singular desert district in the valley 

 of the Virgen, near St. George. 



In 1875, again accompanied by Mr. Putnam, I spent the summer in 

 Central Utah, in the vicinity of Mt. Nebo. In the fall of that year I 

 continued my collecting trip to Southern California, and in the season of 

 1876, in connection with Prof. J. G. Lenimon. the enthusiastic California 

 botanist made a very full collection of the plants in the vicinity of San 

 Bernardino, including the high mountain district adjoining, and the 

 desert stretches lying east of the Sierra' Nevada. 



My last and closing labors as botanical collector were made during the 

 present season, mainly in the vicinity of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, ex- 

 tending on my return trip by way of Saltillo and Monterey to the more 

 familiar botanical district of Western Texas, which I had partly explored 

 twenty-six years previous. 



From all these various sources collections, more or less complete, have 

 accumulated on my hands, the great bulk being fortunately distributed 

 far and wide to the different herberia of America and Europe. An 

 active correspondence with the principal American botanists during the 

 past thirty years has added largely, in the way of exchanges, to the 

 material for illustrating Western American Botany. Hoping only for an 

 opportunity to reduce this scattered material to systematic order, and to 

 see it safely deposited in some scientific institution in the West, where it 

 properly belongs, I gladly avail myself of the invitation extended to me 

 by the Trustees of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. 



