JACOB BIGELOW 123 



exchange specimens Genera of plants 



were named for me by Sir J. E. Smith in the sup- 

 plement of Rees' Cyclopaedia, by Schrader in 

 Germany, and by De Candolle in Paris. Of 

 these the last only stands, the two others having 

 been previously appropriated to other botanists." 



Gray says, in his tribute to Bigelow in the 

 American Journal of Science and Arts (1879 ?) 

 that more than thirty species of Bigelovia, besides 

 one from Mexico and two from the Andes of 

 South America, now commemorate him. Most 

 of them were described by Gray himself. 



Bigelow was awakening an interest in a science 

 for which the literature was scanty; some old 

 works were in the libraries, but, with their Latin 

 and unnecessarily complicated nomenclature, 

 they were not adapted to students. 



In 1817, Bigelow, with two others, sat very 

 seriously as a committee to receive the depositions 

 of eight persons who had seen a sea-serpent off 

 the coast. A time-stained pamphlet of fifty-two 

 pages, with engravings, contains the Report of 

 a Committee of the Linnaean Society of New 

 England, relative to a large Marine Animal, 

 Supposed to be a Serpent, seen near Cape Ann, 

 Massachusetts, in August, 1817, and a copy was 

 sent to Sir Joseph Banks in London, who ven- 

 tures, though courteously, to express a little incre- 

 dulity " which future observation will no doubt 

 clear up." 



