CONTINUATION OF BOTANICAL STUDIES 39 



After getting a home of my own in 1862 I at once commenced a 

 more permanent herbarium. 



I was married on January 1, 1862, and felt the value of a 

 home of my own. I now had more duties, my mind was maturing 

 and I had made more progress in my collecting and general study. 

 I obtained a text book on geology that, after describing the 

 various rocks of a great period, gave a chapter on the animal life 

 of that age and another on the plant life, also. This book opened 

 my eyes and I immediately saw the connection between the "Six 

 Days' Creation" that we all believed in at that time. I saw at 

 once that whoever wrote the Pentateuch saw pictures of the earth 

 in the making just as geology and astronomy teach now, but 

 these were not believed then. Since then I never doubted the 

 authenticity of the Bible. I still doubt many of the expounders 

 of it. After this time I could never see how a naturalist could 

 doubt the existence of a God. By this I don't mean one who 

 created things en bloc, i.e., in six days. 



I had started on a new life and I put my powers at work and 

 I now became a real collector and thinker, but far from being a 

 botanist, though called that by my friends. This year (1862) I 

 did so well in collecting Hepaticas that I sent a series of collections 

 to Sir. Wm. Hooker, who was then Director of Kew Gardens. 

 He was so well pleased with what I sent that he presented me with 

 his great work on the British Jungermannia a quarto volume con- 

 taining 91 plates. This work is in my library at Ottawa. In 

 collecting mosses and liverworts I was also alert and had my first 

 new moss named and figured in 1861, by Professor Sullivant, the 

 father of American Bryology. I kept adding to my flowering 

 plants, but could make nothing of grasses at that time. Two 

 causes prevented this knowledge of fundamentals. I was self- 

 taught and had no microscope. In 1863 Mr. C. F. Austin was 

 working on the Hepaticae and mosses of the United States, espe- 

 cially the former, and I sent my material to him and for over ten 

 years I supplied him with my specimens and he determined them. 

 This year I had a visit from Mr. George Barnston of Montreal, 

 an old Hudson Bay Chief Factor. He was an excellent botanist 

 and a special lover of mosses. He made me many visits after 



