Hurlingham Fine Arts

Description

Clarence King's American exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, an extremely rare and important collection of five botanical ink drawings by the expedition botanist, Sereno Watson.

Clarence King's geological survey travelled through California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, between 1867-69. The completed survey was published in the 'Report of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, made by the Order of the Secretary of War According to Acts of Congress of March 2, 1867, and March 3, 1869, under the Direction of Brig. and Bvt.Major General A.A.Humphreys, Chief of Engineers, by Clarence King.'
Volume 5 of the report is entitled "Botany" is by Sereno Watson. The illustrations of the plants are not identical to our drawings which are likely to be Watson's fieldwork drawings of Western American plants being discovered and named for the first time.

Hailed as the first of the Great Surveys of the Fortieth Parallel,Clarence King's vision was to survey across the West from the crest of the Sierra Nevada to the western slopes of the Rockies. During five seasons between 1867-69 Watson collected over 19,000 plant specimens in Nevada and Utah. Many of these now form part of the Smithsonian's botanical collection at the National Museum of Natural History.

Biography: Library of the Gray Herbarium
'Sereno Watson was born on December 1, 1826, and was raised on a farm in Connecticut. He graduated from Yale in 1847 and pursued a variety of occupations, teaching school, studying medicine, working in his brother's insurance company, doing editorial work for Dr.Henry Barnard. He returned to Yale and studied chemistry and mineralogy at the Sheffield Scientific School from 1866 to 1867. He went to California and after a while joined Clarence King's Expedition which was carrying out a survey of the 40th parallel. Watson started working without salary and eventually came to be appointed the expedition botanist after William Whitman Bailey left due to illness. Although he had no prior training, Watson wrote the 'Botany' of the King Expedition ( Vol.5 for the Geological Survey, published 1871), working at New Haven under Daniel Cady Eaton and at Harvard under Asa Gray. Watson's botanical report is considered among the best of the survey expedition reports, owing in part to the careful notes on habitat made by Watson in the field. Asa Gray was much impressed with his work, and in 1873 appointed Watson an assistant in the Gray Herbarium. Watson's term as curator lasted until his death in 1892 he was also instructor in phytogeography from 1881 to 1884.'