а2 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
through the full experience of the ‘‘ Prodigal Son," returning after 
a few months, if not a sadder, a wiser boy. He partook of the 
fatted calf with evident relish, and there was joy in the household 
again, there being no elder brother in evidence to mar the occasion. 
This experience wrought a wholesome change in his character; he 
cut off some of his old companions, and started life on a new track. 
Soon after this he took up teaching and lecturing in neighboring 
schools during the winter months. 
In the early 50’s he entered Rankin’s Classical School, at what 
is now Sussex, in Sussex County, New Jersey. Here he met a 
congenial spirit in the person of Mrs. Rankin, a botanist of some 
note, and to this chance meeting his choice of life work is un- 
doubtedly due. He came from this school a working botanist. 
At first he took up the subject in its broadest sense, but after a 
time realized that the field was too broad to accomplish much in a 
lifetime, and becoming infatuated with microscopic revelations, 
he dropped all except mosses and lichens. In his search for speci- 
mens of them he was most indefatigable, letting no obstacles, 
however formidable, deter him from their pursuit. No distance 
was too great, no jungle too dense, no mountain too high or steep, 
no toil too great, to turn him aside in his eager search for new forms. 
Accompanied by an Indian he would spend whole days in the 
forests and field, from early morning till night, with no other food 
than berries and roots, which his knowledge of botany disclosed as 
of food value. He was heard to say that the botanists have sources 
of food supply that the world knows not of. 
During the winter of 1856-57, in company with Edward Swift, 
of Marathon, N. Y., he toured New England, lecturing on elec- 
tricity and denne. with apparatus to illustrate, and it was said 
by those competent to judge that his brilliant experiments were 
the most striking of their kind, and rarely, if ever, surpassed by any 
one. He was heard to say that if man ever learned to control elec- 
tricity of sufficient power they would see horseless carriages and 
the steam engine would be succeeded by electric engines. 
Later, in 1857, he accepted a position as school teacher at 
Tappan, N. Y. There he met Hannah Campbell, daughter of 
David P. Campbell, a farmer, living on the Alpine Road, about 
one quarter mile from Closter, N. J., to whom he was married, 
