35o TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



they were given serious consideration by many archeologists of good 

 standing. Dr. Palmer's researches, however, proved that the remains 

 of ancient occupation of the region were in no way distinguishable from 

 those of similar character in Arizona and New Mexico. The plates 

 were undoubted forgeries. 



In addition to his archeological explorations he assisted Dr. Parry, 

 who accompanied him, in completing a collection of the spring-flower- 

 ing plants of the region. 



It was now decided to invade Mexico in prosecution of botanical 

 and ethnological work, and plans were formulated by which Dr. Palmer 

 and Dr. Parry were to go together. The expenses were to be borne by 

 several institutions as well as by individual botanists, who were to re- 

 ceive sets of plants. The two collectors accordingly proceeded to the 

 city of San Luis Potosi, going by sea to "Veracruz, and thence by rail 

 to the City of Mexico. After visiting the National Museum in that 

 city they turned northward, Dr. Palmer stopping on the way at the city 

 of Zacatecas and at Aguascalientes. 



After making extensive collections in the mountains of San Luis 

 Potoso, Dr. Parry fell ill and was obliged to return home. Dr. Palmer 

 continued the work, and after collecting on the tableland and moun- 

 tains, returned by way of Tampico, descending into the more tropical 

 lowlands near the gulf coast, and greatly supplementing the collections 

 made in the higher altitudes. 



Sets of plants were sent to the various subscribers to the expedition, 

 but the most complete set was sent by Dr. Parry to the Kew Herbarium, 

 which caused not a little dissatisfaction among some of the American 

 subscribers. The results of the expedition were for the most part em- 

 bodied in the great work by Hemsley, the " Botany of the Biologia 

 Centrali- Americana." 



The latter part of the following year, 1879, Dr. Palmer made ex- 

 tensive collections in western Texas, and in 1880 he returned to Mexico 

 to supplement his previous collections, exploring chiefly certain locali- 

 ties in the states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and a part of San Luis 

 Potosi. He sent a nearly complete set of the plants collected at this 

 time to Kew, and they too were included by Hemsley in the " Biologia." 

 A more complete set went to the herbarium at Cambridge, Mass., and 

 were the basis of two papers published by Sereno "Watson, in Volumes 

 17 and 18 of the Proceedings of the American Academy, in which a 

 complete list of the plants collected by Parry and Palmer in 1878 and 

 by Palmer in 1879 and 1880 was given. 



The archeologists at Cambridge and in the Bureau of Ethnology 

 becoming interested in the relationship between the aboriginal inhabi- 

 tants of the tablelands of Mexico and of the great region of the Missis- 

 sippi Valley, Dr. Palmer was engaged to make researches. Accordingly 



