Back in San Francisco , Beck met with Leverett Mills Loomis , Director of the California Academy of Sciences . Loomis was interested in seabirds , especially the Tubinares , now the Procellariiformes , and hired Beck to collect in Monterey Bay , the Channel Islands of California , and the Revillagigedo Islands of Mexico , while he waited for his Colombia permits . In 1905 – 1906 , Beck was hired by the California Academy of Sciences to organize and lead a large seagoing expedition to Cocos Island and the Galápagos Islands aboard the Schooner “ Academy . ” Loomis organized scientific specialists in botany , herpetology , entomology , and malacology , geology , paleontology , as well as ornithology . Besides Beck , the expedition 's scientists were : Alban Stewart , botanist ; W. H. Ochsner , geologist/paleontologist/malacologist ; F. X. Williams , entomologist/malacologist ; E. W. Gifford and J. S. Hunter , ornithologists ; J. R. Slevin and E. S. King , herpetologists . Together they assembled the largest scientific collection of specimens from the archipelago ever , leading to our great understanding of the biota of the islands . The great April 18 , 1906 San Francisco earthquake and three days of subsequent fire struck while Beck and the expedition were still in the Galápagos Islands . They would not return to San Francisco until Thanksgiving Day , November 29 , 1906 . Their extensive collections of some 78,000 specimens allowed the Academy as an institution to rise , literally and figuratively , from the ashes of " the great conflagration " that devastated San Francisco . The schooner “ Academy ” acted as the meeting place and storage place for the California Academy of Sciences for several months after their return . Some historians believe that had Beck and the expedition not been out to sea and collecting , the Academy would have suffered a lethal blow
1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Rollo Beck