194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



quereux had developed a taste for the study of flowers and 

 plants. His genius was beginning to assert itself and the time 

 was coming when he was to find his place in the world. Among 

 the forms of vegetation which had especially attracted his atten- 

 tion during his Saturday afternoon and Sunday excursions into 

 the open, were the peat bogs, in which the government was then 

 taking great interest as a source of fuel. 



A prize of a gold medal had been offered for the best re- 

 port of the "Formation and Preservation of Peat" and when the 

 competing manuscripts were examined it was* found that Les- 

 quereux knew far more of the subject than any one else and 

 the medal was easily his. This report, the triumph of which 

 was a great joy to his loyal wife, is even today, after three quar- 

 ters of a century regarded everywhere as a classic. To Lesque- 

 reux it was the beginning of a new and happier career. He was 

 granted five hundred dollars for writing a text book on peat to 

 be used in the public schools and later he was made Director of 

 Peat Bogs, a newly created office. He was commissioned by the 

 King of Prussia to examine and report upon the peat bogs of 

 Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and France, with which 

 appointment we may imagine the Queen, not forgetting her 

 bridesmaid, had something to do. In the meantime his work 

 had brought him into close association and intimate friendship 

 with Louis Agassiz. 



But soon came the political disturbances which affected all 

 Europe in 1847-48 and put an end to the operations in which 

 he was engaged. Lesquereux and Guyot were driven to Amer- 

 ica, the land of promise for the naturalist, whither Louis Agassiz 

 had preceded them. Received with generous hospitality in the 

 home of the latter at Cambridge, Lesquereux collaborated with 

 Agassiz in the preparation of a report on plants collected in the 

 Lake Superior region. Near the close of the year 1848 he was 

 invited by William Sullivant to come to Columbus and here he 

 spent the remainder of his life, a little more than forty years, 

 During these years his fame grew rapidly, especially in the field 

 of paleo-botany, in which he came to be ranked as perhaps 

 the first authority in the world. In addition to his collaboration 



