Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/219

Rh September 7. 1825. During this trip Scouler visited almost every accessible bay or inlet which he passed. Along the coast of Washington the lichens and mosses were so plentiful that he could ﬁnd forty different species in an hour. He also mentions the abundance of Saxifrage and mimulus on the rocky banks of the bays and rivers. Many of the Indian tribes were so treacherous that they did not dare to leave the vessel to make collections of furs or plants.

Returning to Fort George and ﬁnding it deserted. Dr. Scouler proceeded to Fort Vancouver, where he found Douglas. For ﬁfteen days Douglas and Scouler made excursions and examined specimens; but as the weather had been very dry, they found but few ﬂowers. Dr. Scouler left Douglas September 20, and on October 25 sailed out of the Columbia for the Sandwich Islands.

One of the ﬁrst generalizations that Dr. Scouler makes about "The Oregon Country" in his "Journal of a Voyage to Northwest America—Columbia. Vancouver, and Nootka Sound." is that the. damp climate favors an abundant growth of mosses and lichens. In this journal (still in manuscript, but soon to be published in the Quarterly) he does not attempt to give many names of the ﬂowers he found nor the species of those he does mention. As he was a physician. he seemed to be much more careful in his zoological notes. He gives a minute description of the external and .internal organs of almost every new species of ﬁsh or bird he found, while he describes in detail but few ﬂowers.

Thomas Nuttall, the botanist, who visited the Columbia valley in 1834-5, did, perhaps, the most work for the botanical knowledge of the ﬂora of the United States as a whole. He was born in England in 1786. A love of natural science, he says, and perhaps also a hope to improve his position in the world brought him to the United States when only 22 years old. In spite of poverty and consequent necessity of working for a living, he had at this age a good knowledge of the language and history of his country and was somewhat familiar with natural history and even with Latin and Greek.