556 



to him ; he, however, soon acquired the necessary knowledge, and 

 under his management the concern became productive. This mea- 

 sure was fortunate for his employers, but not for himself. It dis- 

 tracted his attention from his primary object, detained him for more 

 than a year in a district barren and uninteresting to the botanist, 

 and, above all, mixed him up with the cabals and personal feelings 

 which seem inseparable from such corporate bodies, and in which the 

 high-minded and open-hearted always have the worst. At the close 

 of his engagement he passed to California, where, and in Sonora, he 

 spent four years, always actively employed on his primary objects,* 

 and involved in spirit-stirring adventure ; at times exposed to the 

 Indian arrows, or compelled to defend his countrymen from the at- 

 tacks of revolutionary patriots ; exploring a burning waste of sand, 

 when the thermometer reached 140, or nearly perishing by the bites 

 of poisonous but almost invisible insects. At one time his metal- 

 lurgic skill had acquired for him considerable wealth, which, during a 

 botanical excursion, was plundered in some political convulsion. 



" The industry and energy with which he carried on his botanical 

 inquiries, is abundantly shewn by the fact,that the herbarium which he 

 collected under such circumstances contains upwards of 50,000 speci- 

 mens of 10,000 to 1 1,000 species, the far greater proportion of which 

 was collected and preserved by himself; and that in connexion with 

 the herbarium he had gathered specimens about the size of a 16mo. 

 book of nearly 1,000 descriptions of woods, most, if not all of which 

 are accompanied by dried specimens of the foliage and inflorescence 



* " One of his most interesting discoveries in California is a tall-growing 

 pine, having cones a foot or more in length, and six inches in diameter. This 

 has been named by the late Professor Don, at the desire of Mr. Lambert, Finns 

 Coulteri. It is quite hardy, and plants of it may now be seen in various collec- 

 tions in England and Ireland. It was found in the mountains of Santa Lucia, 

 near the mission of San Antonio, in lat. 36°, within sight of the sea, and at an 

 elevation of 3,000 or 4,000 feet above its level, growing intermixed with 

 another fine species, Pinus Lambertiana, also introduced, and rising to the 

 height of from 80 to 100 feet, with large permanent spreading branches, and 

 a trunk three or four feet in diameter. There are two small plants of it 

 in the College Botanic Garden, and the cones may be seen in the College Her- 

 barium." 



