A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION IN TEXAS PART 1: 1820-1880 s. W. Geiser Science evolves and is perfected by the patient and criti­ cal labors of generations of investigators; and scientific progress is marked by an unending series of publications. To this fact, indeed, is due the perennial interest of the History of Science. School succeeds school in the evolution of opinion, and generalizations current in one decade are almost outmoded in the next-a result inevitable as long as our "truths" are relative. The history of scientific progress offers a confusing, kaleidoscopic succession of viewpoints associated with personalities. Some of these protagonists of outworn points of view are, like Paracelsus, of heroic proportions, and will be remembered as long as men shall study Science; others are so lacking in the qualities that grip the human imagination that they are forgotten even during their utterance. Perhaps it is true, as Edith Wharton says in her Vesalius in Z ante, that men should be content simply to know that, by their labors, they although unknown hold up the temple of Truth, Though men, agape at dome and pinnacles, Guess not, the whole must crumble like a dream But for that buried labor underneath. Yet I must confess that, for my part, this forgetfulness of early workers seems ingratitude; and the greatest joy is to unearth these men of early science, trace the sources of their inspiration, and learn the full extent of their labors, in order to assess aright our obligation to them. For many of these early workers in the field of Science lived lives of full devotion to the truth as they knew it; and to a genera­ tion sorely in need of moral inspiration, their deeds for Science bear a brave message. America in her pioneer period has produced her full quota of naturalists: picturesque and ardent, luxuriant and 41 42 F1IELD AND LABORATORY genuine-the Audubons, the Bartons, the Bartrams, the de Schweinitzes, the LeContes, the Haydens, the Ravenels, the Shumards, and the Winchells, to name but a few. In frontier "colleges" barely emerged from the logs that formed their first homes, worked and taught such men as Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, Gerard Troost, Charles Wright, Alex­ ander Winchell, and Robert Kennicott. Anyone who glances over Meisel'~ fine work on American natural history before the Civil War (or, better still, George Brown Goode's ad­ mirable essays on the Beginnings of Natural History in America), will be amazed at the scientific activity of naturalists on our Frontier, north and south. Beginning with the earliest settlement of America, and continuing with accelerated momentum up to the passing of the Fron­ tier, we find this frontie'l" the meeting-point of ardent naturalists; intent on wresting from Nature the secrets of animal- and plant-distribution. No naturalist of the present day can gain an adequate idea of the data of his own field without insi~ht into the history of scientific exploration of the frontier and the progressive generalizations arrived at by closet naturalists through study of materials got by such scientific explorers. Texas has an almost unique p.]ace in the history of scientific exploration. This is probably owing to a number of singular coincidences. First, the opening of the country to unrestricted immigration and colonization nearly coin­ cided with two waves of forced emigration from European countries after unsuccessful social revolutions; and these revolutionnaires were frequently men of strong scientific bent and interest (like the Engelmanns, Hilgards, Lind­ heimer, Friedrichs, and Bunsens, who came to Belleville, Illinois, after the Hamburger Putsch of 1833), and brought with them the viewpoints of a thousand-year-old European culture. Then, secondly, these men came into Texas in a period that was pregnant with all sorts of possibilities of advance in scientific fields. Merz, in his monumenta.l four-volume work, The History of European Thought in the iNineteenth Century, has shown brilliantly how ready the century was for scientific progress. It was in 1844 SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION IN TEXAS 43 that Darwin made his first long formulation of the theory of the Origin of Species; and while his classic pronounce­ ment did not appear until 1859, his activity from 1844 to 1859 was indicative of the working ferment in men's minds. The necessity of a Boundary Survey at the end of the Mexi­ can War, and after the conclusion of the Gadsden Purchase, also made it possible to explore the country under govern­ ment auspices during the 'fifties; and the various Pacific Railroad Surveys, conducted during the same decade by the War Department of the United States, also included in their personnel men of science and scientific collectors who have added to the sum-total of our knowledge of the fauna and flora of Texas.' The personal ambitions and animosities of warring botanists and paleontologists also contributed to the activity of naturaEsts and scientific collectors on the Texan frontier. All of these factors contributed to make Texas a sort of Promised Land for the naturalist. Then, again, the contiguity of Texas to Mexico, land classically­ explored by Baron Alexander von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland (with great access of riches to the scientific museums of the world), gave point to further investigations in the former Mexican Provinces of the North. As a result of all these factors, in the period covered in this paper, one hundred twenty-two collectors, explorers, and men of science are known to have come into the state for the purpose of studying our fauna and flora. To this almost unbelievable number should be added a putative score of others who pre­ sumably have eluded even my most careful and unwearying researches of the past eight years. Nor have I included in this list a group of eight leading men of science (Lester F. Ward and E. D. Cope, among the number) who came to Texas in early September, 1877, on a short reconnaissance at the conclusion of the Nashville Meeting of the American Asso­ ciation for the Advancement of Science. In the list below are included brief indication of the labors in Texas of these naturalists; short references to biograph­ ical and other printed sources (many of them to my own papers) are also given. I have al8'o included the names of three naturalists who have been previously (but mis- 44 F'IELD AND LABORATORY takenly) described as having worked in Texas. I have indicated my own manuscript materials when these are still the chief sources of information. Thirty-two names are marked with an asterisk; it is my intention t'O publish ex­ tended biographical studies of all of these men, similar to those that appeared in "The Naturalists of the Frontier" (Southwest Review, 1929-33). I hope that this annotated list of naturalists may be of service to men of science, especially taxonomists, throughout the world, who may be interested in itineraries and type­ localities for species; and the fullest cooperation will be extended to all such students by the present writer. Finally, I hope that this compilation may be the means of interesting young students in these early frontier naturalists, so that they may be induced to delve into their lives and works, and come to sense something of the affection and even reverence felt for many of them by one naturalist on a modern frontier of another sort: an affection that has made eight years of c'Onstant search and study in following their footsteps in Texas and their deeds for science, a light and pleasant task. PARTIAL LIST OF COLLECTORS AND EXPLORERS *AUDUBON, John James (1780-1851) The great o<rnithologist came to Texas in the spring of 1837, exploring Galveston Bay and Buffalo Bayou as far as Houston. He was accompanied by his son and Ed­ ward Harri5. (Southwest Review 16: 108-35, 1930.) AUDUBON, John Woodhouse (1812-62) Besides the 1837 trip to Texas with his father, J. W. Audubon collected mammals, etc., exten­ sively in all of Texas during several months of 1845-46; and re­ turned finally to Texas, in March, 1849, for a brief transit of the "Valley" at 'Brownsville enroute California. BEHR, Ottomar von (1810-56) Member of a niedersaechsisches noble family dating from the twelfth century, von Behr came to Texas about 1846. later settling at Sisterdale. Kinsman of the disting­ uished California entomologist and physician, Dr. Hans Hermann Behr (1818-1904.) Worked in meteorology and natural history. (Bios 5 :148-50, 1934.) *BELFRAGE, Gustaf Wilhelm (1834-82) Swedish entomologist; came to Texas in 1867; worked chiefly in McLennan, Bosque (and per­ haps Williamson) Counties. E. T. Cresson's Hymenoptera Texana (1872) was based largely on his collections of Hymenoptera. (Southwest Review 14 :381-98; Entornol. News 44 :127-32, 1933; Field & Laboratory 1: 47-50, 1933.) SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION IN TEXAS 45 BENTON, Lieut. James Gilchrist (1820-81) Ordnance expert at San Antonio, U. S. Army, 1849-52. Sent collections of Texas fossils to the Smithsonian Institution, 1854. (ACAB). *BERLANDIER, Jean Louis (1805-51) Swiss naturalist; came to Mex­ ico in 1826; explored for plants and animals in Texas, 1828-34. (Southwest Review 18:431-59, 1933.) BIGELOW, Artemas (1818- ?88) Collected plants in Texas, 1839. *B1GELOW, Dr. John Milton (1804-78) In 1850-53, Botanist of the U. S. & Mexican Boundary Survey under (Bartlett; in the fall of 1853, Bigelow accompanied Captain Whipple along the Thirty­ fifth Parallel (Pacific Railroad Surveys), thus collecting along the Canadian River in Northwest Texas. His valuable reports appeared in the fourth volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports. *BLAKE, William Phipps (1828-1910) Geologist on one of the Pacific Railroad Surveys (Williamson's).