Thomas Condon. Among the others who made studies in Oregon in the early days were Archibald Menzies, naturalist and botanist with the Vancouver expedition in 1792; David Thompson, astronomer and surveyor to the Northwest Company, who in 1811 spent a week at Astoria and the winter in the Inland Empire; James Dwight Dana, geologist, and Horatio Hale, ethnologist and philologist, with the Wilkes expedition in Oregon in 1841; and George Gibbs, geologist and a student of Chinook jargon.
All but two of these came and did their field work and left. George Gibbs, after his survey was finished, built a log cabin near Fort Steilacoom "and lived rather the life of a hermit." Dr. Thomas Condon remained permanently and hunted fossils in Oregon, during half a century, making discoveries that brought him worldwide recognition as a paleontologist.
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A Botanist in Fort George in 1825
By Dr. John Scouler
In his Journal of Voyage to Northwest America, from which these selections are taken, he describes his general and scientific observations during a trip made in 1824, 1825 and 1826. His name lives in the common "Saint John's wort"—Hypericum scouleri—and in a mountain harebell—Campanula scouleri.
April 15, 1825.
Today I collected a considerable number of cryptogamous plants, and none of the plants I ever met with on the N.W. coast gave me greater pleasure than Hookeria lanus." I found beautiful specimens of the charming little plant with its constant attendant, "Hypnum Splendens," growing by the margins of a shady rivulet among a brushwood composed of "Menziesia ferruginea." This pleasing occurrence
