40 CONTINUATION OF BOTANICAL STUDIES 



this and was a very esteemed friend until his death. This year, also, 

 Professor George Lawson of Queen's College, Kingston, who formed 

 the Botanical Society, came to visit me and asked me to join. 



That summer we had a great meeting in Queen's College and 

 I met for the first time young men who were botanical students. 

 The leaders among them were Dr. Robert Bell and his brother 

 John; A. T. Drummond, of Montreal and J. K. McMorine, 

 of Kingston and others whom I have forgotten. These young 

 men were a part of the class which Professor Lawson was teaching 

 and I called him "the father of Canadian Botany." All the other 

 botanists whom I heard of or knew were taught outside of Canada. 

 These young men were a great inspiration to me when I saw their 

 enthusiasm, and a spur to keep ahead of them. I was older than 

 they were, but they had been taught and I was an outsider. The 

 older men and the professors seemed to take pleasure in some 

 remarks I made and I lost my diffidence and we all became very 

 sociable. Of course I was only a schoolmaster to the young men 

 at first but very soon we were all young botanists together. Dr. 

 John Bell had made a collection of plants on the Gaspe Peninsula 

 and these were discussed, and it was decided that I was best able 

 to decipher them. I took them to Belleville and named them and 

 my part of them is now in the Herbarium at Ottawa. My visit 

 to Kingston opened my eyes and I saw better than I had in To- 

 ronto in 1859 that independent thought was the power that al- 

 ways won. At one of our meetings in Kingston I read a short 

 paper on bog plants. In this paper I stated that the bog produced 

 Arctic conditions and plants from a bog should not be included in 

 speaking of the flora in Canada when climate was under discussion. 

 Shortly after, the editor of the "Whig" said, in speaking of our 

 meeting that in my paper I applied some of Professor Tyndall's 

 statements in his new book on "Heat as a Mode of Motion." 

 I had not seen the book, but I was always looking for causes, and 

 by this time I was ready with an answer for almost any natural 

 cause, right or wrong. 



The years 1863-64 passed and I was adding to my herbarium 

 by exchanges with botanists in the United States. Doctor Vasey 

 and many others exchanged with me, and I began to have quite 



