38 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
ing on pony-back over the Rockies, alighting to take a rest, found 
a man gathering mosses. As he was in a measure interested in 
them Бе -орепед up a conversation with him in regard to what he 
was collecting, and much to his surprise he found him to be an 
amateur, who expected to send his unfamiliar varieties to Professor 
Austin of Closter, N. J., to be named. Our friend told him there 
was no Professor Austin in Closter, whereupon he insisted he had 
the name correct and that our friend was mistaken, until told that 
such was the fact, as our friend had officiated at the funeral. 
Mrs. Isabelle Hammond Demarest, of Closter, N. J., whose 
name has been mentioned before, a neighbor of Professor Austin's, 
who had known him since the early 60's, caught his spirit, and 
after reading this sketch insisted that the writer was not nearly 
enthusiastic enough in her portrayal of her father's life. While 
that may be true, the respect and veneration which the writer has 
for her father's memory will not permit her to record a single state- 
ment which she does not know to be based upon solid fact. His 
unostentatious character has been to a certain extent reproduced 
in his daughter, and so she has recorded merely the ground-work. 
Let the laudatory trimming be added by some other hand! 
