Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/137

Rh accepted a position in the U. S. Coast Survey as observer in the magnetic survey then being made on the basis of the "Bache Fund." In this he continued until 1873, when he found it necessary to settle to a quiet life. The last year of his life was passed at New York City, where in March, 1875, he died of an abscess of the lungs.

The Hilgard collection of plants, embracing about 12,000 species, was taken by his brother Eugene to the University of California, where it was destroyed by fire in 1897.

Shumard in his presidential address before the St. Louis Academy of Sciences in 1869 spoke as follows concerning a collection of plants given by Hilgard to the Academy:

Our botanical collection embraces an extensive series of lichens and mosses amounting to several hundred species, chiefly from western states and territories. These were collected by Dr. T. C. Hilgard, of this city, and by him presented and arranged in our museum. "

In the fire which destroyed part of the academy museum a few years later, this collection was also destroyed.