JOURNAL OF MYCOLOGY. 
[VOL. II, 
82 
speak or read French. He said he was of a German family and raised in 
that state. He spoke and read German with ease and fluency. Ilis edu¬ 
cation was fair. He was a fair mathematician, read Latin well, had 
picked up a little Greek so as to comprehend the Greek nomenclature in 
science. He was intelligently instructed in the scientific curriculum of 
the time. He discussed, understandingly, most scientific subjects, and 
was a most earnest enthusiast in botany, in all its branches. I first met 
him about 1852 in the family of the late Judge D. Ligon, at Mountain 
Home, in Lawrence county, Ala. He was residing there as a private 
teacher in Judge Ligon’s family, who had been my partner in the prac¬ 
tice of law, in Moulton, Ala. The Judge told me I would like him, as 
his tastes were very much like my own. I became acquainted with liim, 
and found him intelligent and an invaluable assistant in the whole field 
of natural science. I invited him to my office. I told him I had Fries’ 
works on Funguses and Lichens, and Prayer’s Botanical Mycology., 
which I had imported. He was very much surprised that we could get 
such books from France and Sweden, away here in the middle of the for¬ 
est. I told him we did not live in the forest: we lived with Hature, and. 
God regulated it. and where intelligence existed, there was no forest 1 
Ignorance made forests and the devil ruled them. In nature, the heav¬ 
ens were stretched out over us for a temple, and if we had pure hearts 
and enlightened minds, we would sit in it, always near the Father, and 
pray to him betvyeen the Cherubim in the Holy of Holies, besides 
a great deal more of the same sort. Next Sunday, he walked seven miles 
to visit me at my office and examine my books and specimens. I gave 
him Prof. Edw. Tucker man’s elegant description of lichens, and he was 
ready to fall down and worship him. I also permitted him to examine 
some of his preparations. After that he called Tuckerman “ The Mas¬ 
ter.” I had the photographs of Prof. Tuckerman, of Rev. Dr. M. A. 
Curtis and Mr. Ravenel. I introduced him to them. He said they were 
all Masters,” and he would straitway fall in love with them. I told 
him to them love was help, and what they needed was his assistance. I 
showed what I was doing and had been doing. That was what these 
distinguished scientists most needed. Henceforth he became their cor¬ 
respondent and so continued up to his death, as will be seen in their va¬ 
rious publications. . 
I did not then know a mycological botanist in all the South outside 
this little circle. To-day they may be gathered in hosts. And now all 
are gone, save Prof. Tuckerman, Mr. Ravenel and myself, and we have, 
all of us, about passed over tlie Biblical limitation, and must soon follow 
the rest, for — 
“There is no discharg’e in that war.” 
Prof. Beaumont, in the early part of 1855, joined Dr. Bowen, as a 
missionary of the Baptist church, in Africa, and remained there some 
time, and then returned to this state, where he resided at or near Troy, 
Henry county. He taught school in South Alabama. Mrs. Jas. 
Thorngton, daughter of Chief Justice Chilton and wife of Col. Thorng- 
