Introducing Mrs . Walcott on tine occasion of her presentation 
with colored slides of her studies of the wild flowers of British 
Columbia at the home of Mrs. Frank B. Hoyes, 1239 Vermont Avenue, 
Washington, D. C., February 13, 1924. 
(wife of Secretary Walcott of the Smithsonian) 
Genius breaks through the boundaries of the unachieved and 
accomplishes the thing never before thought of, or regarded as 
beyond the limits of the possible. The explorer, gifted with 
strong will and tireless limbs, reaches the summits of mountains 
and penetrates the cheerless deserts and is rewarded by the thrill 
of discovery; but this is not all. He descends the. mountains 
and returns from the deserts burdened with a wealth of priceless 
observation which finds its way through varied channels to the 
home-staying people of the world. 
It Is an old saying that tT The rolling stone gathers no 
t 
moss, ,T but this applies only to the stone that does nothing but 
roll. Applied to the humankind, the figure is far from the 
truth. Columbus, urged by the lust of the wanderer, sailed the 
un sailed seas and brougnt oack a new world. Marco Polo penetrated 
for tne first time by a European, the then great unknown of China. 
Stanley and Ward ventured into the wilds of .Africa and brought back 
new knowledge of the black continent and of the black people. 
hr. Walcott, year after year, has explored the glorious 
Columbian ranges and has brought back chapter after chapter of the 
story of the geological ages, adding thus to the wo rid -bull ding 
cnapters tnat have gone before. Mrs. Walcott, ever by his side, 
has followed the obscure paths that lead ever upward toward the 
