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8 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Proc. 4TH SER. 
INTRODUCTION 
In the spring of 1905 I received the appointment of botanist 
of the scientific expedition sent to the Galapagos Islands by 
the California Academy of Sciences. In preparing for this 
expedition the California Academy purchased the U. S. 
Ship “Ernest,” a two masted schooner of eighty-seven tons 
burden, and after refitting, rechristened her the “Academy.” 
Our party consisted of eleven members, as follows: R. H. 
Beck, chief; F. X. Williams, entomologist; W. H. Ochsner, 
geologist and conchologist; J. R. Slevin, herpetologist; J. S. 
Hunter and E. W. Gifford, ornithologists; E. S. King, 
assistant herpetologist; Frederick T. Nelson, mate; J. J. 
Parker, navigator; James W. White, cook; and myself, 
botanist. All of the scientific members of the expedition 
shipped as seamen, so that the expedition was made up mostly 
of sailor-scientists. 
The expedition left San Francisco on the morning of June 
28, 1905, and arrived at Hood Island, the most southern 
member of the Galapagos group, on September 24, nearly 
three months having been consumed on the trip, during which 
short stops were made at Ensenada, Lower California, and 
on San Martin, San Benito, San Geronimo, Cerros, Natividad, 
San Benedicto, Socorro, and Clipperton islands, Mexico, and 
Cocos Island, Costa Rica, on the most of which small collec- 
tions of plants were made. The expedition left the Galapagos 
Islands on the 25th of the following September, so that a year 
and one day was spent in the archipelago, during which time 
all of the islands were visited at least once, and the larger 
and more important ones two or more times at different 
seasons of the year. 
Up to the present time our knowledge of the flora of the 
Galapagos Islands has been due mainly to the collections of 
Darwin, Andersson, Baur, and Snodgrass and Heller, and to 
the writings of Hooker, Andersson, and Robinson.? 
1 For a table of the botanical collections made on the Galapagos Islands, see Robin- 
son, Flora of the Galapagos Islands, Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences, v. 38, no. 4, pp. 221-223. 
