PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

Biological Society of Washington.

PUBLISHED WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.

Volume IV.
February 20, 1886, to January 28, 1888.

WASHINGTON :

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY.

1888.

PUBLICATION COMMITTEE.

C. HART MERRIAM, Chairman.

FREDERIC A. LUCAS, R. E. C. STEARNS,

RICHARD RATHBUN, FRANK H. KNOWLTON.

II

CONTENTS.

PAGB.

Officers and Committees for 1887 iv

Officers and Committees for 188S v

Joint Commission ^ vi

Proceedings, February 20, 1886, to January 20, 1888 vii-xxii

Saturday Lectures, 1886 xxii

" " 1887 xxiii

Baird Memorial Meeting xxiii

Notice of Botanical Section xxiv

Addresses and Coinmunications :

Description of a new species of Bat from the Western United
States ' Vespertilio ciliolabrnm, sp. nov.), by C. Hart Mer-
riam (December 17, 1886*) 1-4

Description of a new Mouse irom New Mexico ( Hesperomys

anthonyi, sp. nov.), by C. Hart Merriam (April 15, 18S7*) . 5-8
'ie Beginnings of Natural History in America — The Third
entury— Annual Address of the President, G. Brown Goode,
January 22, 18S7 9-94

Some American Conchologists. Annual Address of the Presi-
dent, William H. Dall, January 28, 1888 95-134

Description of a new Fox from Southern California { V'ulpes

macrotis, sp. nov. ), by C. Hart Merriam (Februai-y 18, 1888.*) 135-138

* Author's separates of the special papers here enumerated were published on the dates given
in the parentheses following the author's name.

i'^ J / S'

LIST OF THE OFFICERS AND COUNCIL

OF THE

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Elected January S, 1887.

OFFICERS

PRESIDENT.

WILLIAM H. DALL.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

LESTER F. WARD, CHAS. D. WALCOTT,

FRANK BAKER, C. HART MERRIAM.

SECRETARIES.

RICHARD RATHBUN, FREDERIC A. LUCAS.

TREASURER.

FRANK H. KNOWLTON,

COUNCIL.

WILLIAM H. DALL, President.
FRANK BAKER, OTIS T. MASON,

TARLETON H. BEAN, C. HART MERRIAM,

H. G. BEYER, RICHARD RATHBUN,

THEODORE GILL,* R. E. C. STEARNS,

G. BROWN GOODE,* CHAS. D. WALCOTT,

F. H. KNOWLTON, LESTER F. WALiD,

FREDERIC A. LUCAS, CHARLES A. WHITE,*

GEORGE VASEY.

STANDING COMMITTEES — 1887.

Comniiitee on Communications.
G. BROWN GOODE, Chairman.
C. HART MERRIAM, FRANK BAKER.

Committee on Publications.

C. HART MERRIAM, Chairman.

FREDERIC A. LUCAS, R. E. C. STEARNS,

RICHARD RATHBUN, FRANK H. KNOWLTON.

Committee on Lectures .

G. BROWN GOODE, Chairman.
FRANK BAKER, G. K. GILBERT,

C. HART MERRIAM, CHAULES V. RILEY.

Committee on the Trees and Shrubs of Washington .

LESTER F. WARD, Chairman.
WILLIAM SMITH, FRANK H. KNOWLTON,

GEORGE VASEY, E. LAMSON SCRIBNER.

* Ex-Presidents of the Society.
IV

LIST OF THE OFFICERS AND COUNCIL

OF THE

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Elected January 14, iSSS.

OFFICERS.

PRESIDENT.

WILLIAM H. DALL.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

LESTER F. WARD, CHARLES V. RILEY,

C. HART MERRIAM, RICHARD RATHBUN.

SECRETARIES.

JOHN B. SMITH, FREDERIC A. LUCAS.

TREASURER.

F. H. KNOWLTON.

COUNCI L.

WILLIAM H. DALL, Presidetit.

TARLETON H. BEAN, RICHARD RATHBUN,

THEODORE GILL,* CHARLES V. RILEY,

G. BROWN GOODE,* JOHN B. SMITH,

JEROME H. KIDDER, R. E. C. STEARNS,

F. H. KNOWLTON, FREDERICK W. TRUE,

FREDERIC A. LUCAS, LESTER F. WARD,

C. HART MERRIAM, CxHARLES A. WHITE,*

GEORGE VASEY.

STANDING COMMITTEES— 1888.

Cotmtiittee on Conitnunications.

G. BROWN GOODE, Chairman.
C. HART MERRIAM, FREDERIC A. LUCAS,

Commitiee on Publications.

C. HART MERRIAM, Chairman.
FREDERIC A. LUCAS, R. E. C. STEARNS,

RICHARD RATHBUN, FRANK H. KNOWLTON.

Coinmiitee on Lectures.

G. BROWN GOODE, Chairman.
FRANK BAKER, G. K. GILBERT,

C. HART MERRIAM, CHARLES V. RILEY.

Committee on the Trees and Shrubs o/ Washington.

LESTER F. WARD, Chairman.
WILLIAM SMITH, FRANK H. KNOWLTON,

GEORGE VASEY, F. LAMSON SCRIBNER.

* Ex-Presidents of the Society.
V

JOINT COMMISSION.

A temporary joint committee, appointed for the purpose of
considering the advisability of forming a permanent joint com-
mittee, submitted the following report to each of the five societies
concerned : —

Whereas, There now exist in Washington several scientific
.societies, organized with similar aims, working by similar meth-
ods, composed largely of the same members, and meeting in the
same place ; and

Whereas, Matters of common interest are numerous and con-
stantly increasing : therefore it is

Resolved, That it is the sense of this committee, that it is advis-
able to form a Joint Commission of the Anthropological, Biolog-
ical. Chemical, Geographic and Philosophical Societies of Wash-
ington to consider questions of common interest;

That such Joint Commission shall consist of three representa-
tives from each of the five Societies ;

That its functions shall be advisory, except that it may execute
instructions on general subjects, and in special cases, from two or
more of the Societies participating;

Provided, That no vSociety shall be bound by the Commission
to an act as to which it has not given instruction.

The above resolution resulted in the establishment of a perma-
nent Joint Commission, composed of the following delegates :

Anthropological Society.
ROBERT FLETCHER,
WASHINGTON MATTHEWS,
F. A. SEELY.

Chemical Society.
J. H. KIDDER,
F. W. CLARK,
H. W. WILEY.

Biological Society.

WILLIAM H. DALL,
C. HART MERRIAM,
RICHARD RATHBUN.

National Geograph'ic Society.
GARDNER HUBBARD,
HENRY GANNETT,
JOHN R. BARTLETT.

Philosophical Society.'

GARRICK MALLERY,
J. W. POWELL,
MARCUS BAKER.

VI

PROOEEDTT^GS.

Ninetieth Meeting, February 30, i8S6.

The President in the chair, and thirty-seven persons present.

Dr. D. E. Sahnon and Dr. Theoliald Smith presented a pa-
per, which was read by the latter, entitled, On a New Method
OF Producing Immunity From Coxtagious Diseases.

A paper by Prof. C. V. Riley, describing A Carnivorous
Butterfly Larva, Fenesica targjuinius,! was read by Mr.
J. B. Smith. Specimens of both the larva and imago were ex-
hibited.

Prof. L. F. Ward spoke upon The Plane Tree and its An-
cestors,! and exhibited specimens and figures of both the recent
and fossil species.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam described A New Species of Aplodox-
TiA FROM California, § and exhibited skms and skulls of the
only two species of the genus at jDresent known.

NiNETY-FiRST Meeting, March 6, i8S6.

The President in the chair, and thirty-six persons present.

Dr. Geoi-ge Vasey spoke upon New and Recent Species of
North American Grasses.

Mr. Charles Hallock read a paper entitled Hyper-Instinct
IN Animals.

* Until March 19, 18S7, the meetings wei-e held either in the Lecture
Room or in the office of the National Museum, and subsequentlv in the
Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, on Lafayette Square.

tiSS6. Amer. Nat., June; and Proc. Ent. Soc , Washington, i. No. 2,

P- 37-

J The Paleontological History of the Genus Platanus. <Proc. U. S.
Nat. Mus., xi. (In cource of publication.)

§ 1886. Merriam, C. Hart. Description of a New Species of Aplo-
dontia from Cnlifornia. < Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., iii. No. 10, pp. 312-328,
plates 19, 20, and two tables.

VII

Vin BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHHSTGTOlSr.

Ninety-Second Meeting, March 20, 18S6.

The President in the chair, and twenty-one persons present.
The following communications were presented : •

Dr. D. E. .Sahnon and Dr. Theobald Smith, Notes on Some
Biological Analyses of Potomac Drinking Water.
Dr. H. G. Beyer, Remarks on Anti-Pyretics.
Dr. W. S. Barnard, The Effects of Kerosene on Animal
and Vegetable Life, with exhibition of a fungus that had de-
veloped in an emulsion of kerosene and milk.

Mr. F. H. Knowlton, Additions to, and Changes in, the
Flora Columbiana for 18S5.*

Ninety-Third Meeting, April 3, 1SS6.

The President in the chair, and twenty-two members present.

Mr. J. B. Smith read a paper entitled Some Peculiar Sec-
ondary Sexual Characters in the Deltoids, and Their
Supposed Functions.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam described a New Subspecies of Gray
Squirrel from Central Minnesota.!

A paper by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, on Some Early, and as
YET Unpublished, Drawings of Audubon, was read by Mr.
F. W. True. Photographs of the drawings were exhibited.

Dr. Frank Baker and Mr. J. L. Wortman spoke upon Recent
Investigations into the Mechanism of the Elbow Joint. J

Ninety-Fourth Meeting, April 17, 1886.

Prof. Ward, Vice-President, in the chair, and seventeen per-
sons present.

Prof. Theodore Gill described The Characteristics and
Families of Iniomous Fishes.

* 1SS6. These Proceedings, iii, pp. 106-132.
t Science, April 16, 1SS6, 351.

J Embodied in the article, " Elbow-ioint," Wood's Reference Hand-book
of Medical Sciences, vol. ii.

PROCEEDINGS, IX

Mr. F. A. Lucas read a paper entitled Notes ox the Verte-

BR.E OF AmpHIUMA, SiREN, AND MenOPOMA.*

Mr. F. \V. True g^ave an account of Some Distinctive Cra-
NiAL Characters of the Canadian Lynx,! with exhibition
of specimens, and also exhibited a specimen of a wood hare,
showing an abnormal growth of fur.

Ninety-Fifth Meeting, May i, iS86.

The President in the chair, and twenty-six persons present.

Prof. R. E. C. Stearns read a paper entitled Instances of
the Effect of Musical Sounds on Animals.

Mr. John A. Ryder spoke upon The Evolution of the
Mammalian Placenta, | which, he contended, had passed in its
evolution from a diffuse, through a zonary, to a discoidal condi-
tion.

Mr. W. H. Dall exhibited specimens of Lingula (Glottidia)
PYRAMiDATA. Stimpson, attached to sand and bits of shell by
the tip of the peduncle. He also described The Superficial
Anatomy of Different Species of the Genus Pecten.§

Ninety-Sixth Meeting, May 39, 1S86.

The President in the chair, and twenty-two persons present.
Mr. J. B. Smith read a paper on Ants' Nests and Their
Inhabitants. II

Dr. T. H. Bean presented a communication on The Trout

* 1886. Lucas, F. A. The Sacrum of Me7iopoma. <Amer. Nat., xx,
pp. 561, 562, June.

t 18S7. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus.. x, pp. 8, 9.

X A Theory of the Origin of Placental Types, and on certain vestigiary
structures on the placent8e of the mouse, rat, and field-mouse. American
Naturalist, August, 1S87, pp. 770-784 (with two figs.)

See also (the placentation of the two-toed ant-eater, Cycloturus didac-
tylus), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1S87, p. .

§ 1886. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., xii. No. 6.

II 1886. Amer. Nat., xx, pp. 679-687, August.

X BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

OF North America, with exhibition of specimens, which was
followed by a long discussion, in which many members partici-
pated.

Prof. L. F. Ward exhibited a Specimen of the Palo La
Cruz, or Wood of the Cross, obtained in Northern Brazil.

Ninety-Seventh Meeting, October i6, iSS6.

The President in the chair, and twelve members present.

The Secretary read a letter from Dr. Basil Norris, U. S. A.,
Spokane Falls, W. T., descriptive of the larval form of a species
oi Atnbly stoma ^ probably A. tigrina^ a specimen of which was
exhibited.

Mr. F. H. Knowlton read a paper on Fasciation in Ra-
nunculus AND RuDBECKiA, exhibiting specimens of each of the
genera, and reviewing the different theories held by authors as to
the cause of this structure. Remarks upon the same subject
were made by Dr. Fernow, Prof. Ward, and Mr. Mann.

Mr. J. B. Smith gave an account of an abnormal abundance
of Dynastes tityus, one of the largest of the American beetles,
and having an intensely disagreeeble odor. It occasionally oc-
curs in the District of Columbia, and ranges south and west from
there into Texas and Mexico.*

Mr. F. W. True presented A Revision of the Genus La-
GENORHYNCHUS. He also exhibited an abnormally developed
hoof of a mule, which was curved and twisted like a ram's horn,
and a living specimen of the Alniiqui {Solenodon cubanus)
from Cuba, the largest known American Insectivore.

NiNETY-EiGHTH MEETING, October 30, 18S6.

The President in the chair, and ten members present.
Prof. Theodore Gill presented a communication on T^nioso-
Mous Fishes. t

* 1887. Popular Science Monthly, xxx, pp. 409, 410, January.
tThe Characteristics and Relations of the Ribbon-fishes. <Ain. Nat.,
V. 21, p. 86, Jan., '87.

PROCEEDINGS. XI

Dr. H. G. Beyer, U. S. N., called attention to an alleged method
of instructing the memory, which is being widely advertised.

NiNETY-NiNTPi Meeting, November 13, 1886.

The President in the chair, and twenty-two persons present.

The following amendment to the Constitution, on motion of
Mr. Dall, was unanimously adopted : " No person shall be con-
sidered a member of the Society vmtil he shall have signified to
the Secretary, in writing, his acceptance of election, and shall have
paid his entrance fee and annual dues for the year in which he
shall have been elected."

Dr. Filip Tiybom, Inspector of Fisheries, of Sweden, read a
paper On the Recent Progress of Zoology in Sweden.*

Prof. J. W. Chickering, Jr., under the title, Travels in
Alaska, gave a graphic description of the coast sceneiy of British
Cohmibia and southeastern Alaska, as seen from the deck of a
passenger steamer.

Mr. William H. Dall presented some Historical Notes on
THE Department of Mollusks of the National Museum. f

Oxe Hundredth Meeting, November 27, 1886.

The President in the chair, and twenty-five persons present.

Prof. W. H. Seaman presented a communication entitled
Notes on Marsilia quadrifolia, illustrating his remarks
with stereopticon views, and herbarium and microscopical speci-
mens. Prof. Ward referred to tlie paleontological history of the
order containing the Marsilia.

Prof. L. F. Ward spoke upon The Autumnal Hues of the
Columbian Flora, which he thought were much brighter and
finer than farther north. This paper gave rise to a long discus-
sion, in which Prof. Riley, Dr. Merriam, Mr. Mann, and Mr.
Goode participated.

* 1887. Trybom, Filip. The Present Coridition of the Natural Sciences
in Siveden. < Amer. Nat., xxi, pp. 409-415, May.
t Annual Rept. U. S. Nat. Mus. for 18S6.

XII BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam described A New Species of Bat,
Vespertilio ciliolabrum, from the Western States.*

One Hundred and First Meeting, December ii, iSS6.

The President in the chair, and twenty-three persons present.

The following papers were read :

Dr. Theobald Smith, Parasitic Bacteria and Their Re-
lation TO Saprophytes.

Mr. F. A. Lucas, On the Osteology of the Spotted Tin-
amou, Nothura maculosa.!

Mr. C. D. VValcott, Crustacean Tracks Found on Strata
of Upper Cambrian (Potsdam) Age.

Dr. Frank Baker, The Foramen of Magendie.J

Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Description of a New Sub-species
of Pocket Gopher, from the Colorado Desert of South-
ern California. §

One Hundred and Second Meeting, January 8, 1SS7.
(Seventh Annual Meeting.)

The President in the chair, and twenty-one members present.

The annual reports of the Secretary and Treasurer were read
and accepted.

The following board of officers was elected for the ensuing
year :

President— ^x. William H. Dall.

Vice-Presidents — Prof. Lester F. Ward, Dr. Frank Baker,
Mr. C. D. Walcott, Dr. C. Hart Merriam.

Secretaries— yix. Richard Rathbun, Mr. Frederic, A. Lucas.
Treasurer — Mr. F. H. Knowlton.

* 1886. These Proceedings, iv, pp. 1-4 (Extras issued Dec. 17, 1886).
ti886. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., p. 157.

X Embodied in the article, "Meninges," Wood's Reference Hand-book of
Medical Sciences, vol. viii.
§ Science, Dec. 24, 1886, 588.

PKOCEEDINGS. XHI

Additional Members of the Council — Dr. T. H. Bean, Dr.
George Vasey, Prof. O. T. Mason. Dr. H. G. Beyer, Prof. R. E.
C. Stearns.

One Hundred and Third Meeting, January 22, 1887.
(Seventh Anniversary Meeting.)

The President, Mr. Dall, occupied the chair, and about seventy-
five persons were present, inchiding invited guests.

The retirino- President, Mr. G. Brown Goode. delivered an ad-
dress, entitled. The Beginnings of Natural History in
America — The Third Century.*

One Hundred and Fourth Meeting, February 5, 18S7.

The President occupied the chair, and thirty-five persons were
present, including Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, of England.

Mr. William T. Hornaday read a paper entitled The Last of
THE Buffalo, in which he described the rapid destruction of this
species, and narrated his recent experiences in obtaining speci-
mens for the National Museum.

Prof. Cope, Dr Merriam, and Mr. Fernow made remarks upon
the same subject.

Mr. Richard Rathbun exhibited a series of temperature charts
prepared by the U. S. Fish Commission to illustrate the surface
water temperatures of the Atlantic sea coast of the United States,
in connection with the migrations of fishes. f

Mr. Dall spoke upon the value of temperature observations in
studying the distribution of marine animals.

* These Proceedings, pp. 9-94. Extras printed with cover and title page.

t 1887. Rathbun, Richard. Orean Temperatures of the Eastern Coast
of the United States, from observations tnade at txvcnty-four light-houses
and light-ships. <U. S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. * * *
The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States. * * * By
George Brown Goode * * * and a Staff of Associates, Section iii, pp.
155-176, 32 folding plates, quarto.

XIV BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON,

Dr. C. Hart Merriam described A New Species of Wood
Rat, Neotoma Bryanti, from Cerros Island, off Lower Cal-
ifornia.*

Mr. Leouliard Stejneger exhibited specimens of several New
.Species of Birds from the Sandwich Islands, f and made
remarks upon the avifauna of that region.

Mr. Eaduard Muybridge, of Philadelphia, by invitation, ex-
hibited a series of his photographic views of animals in motion,
and explained the process of taking them. The assistance of these
views in explaining some obscure points in the evolution of ver-
tebrates was pointed out by Prof. Cope.

One Hundred and Fifth Meeting, February 19, 1SS7.

Prof. Ward, Vice-President, in the chair, and twenty-two per-
sons present.

The presiding ofHcer announced that an invitation had been re-
ceived from the Cosmos Club to use its new hall for the future
meetings of the Society. It was accepted.

Prof. E. D. Cope described A New Species of Snake, from
the District of Columbia, closely related to the common Water
Snake, Tropidonotiis sipedon^ which he proposes to call T. bl-
sectus.\ He also spoke upon The Hyoid Apparatus in the
Urodele Batrachians.

Dr. George Vasey made some remarks upon A Recent Col-
lection OF Mexican Grasses, obtained by Dr. E. Palmer,
and exhibited specimens of the rarer species.

Prof. R. E. C. Stearns read a paper on The Asclepiad
Plant, Araujia albans,§ and explained the mechanism of its
blossoms in capturing Lepidoptera. Tliis subject was further
discussed by Prof. Riley, Mr. Smith, Prof. Ward, Dr. Baker,
and Prof. Cope.

* 1887. Amer. Nat., xxi, No. 2, pp. igi-193.

t 18S7. Stejneger, Leonhard. Birds of Kauai Island. Hawaiian Ar-
chipelago, collected by Mr. Valdemar Knudsen, zvifli descriptions of neiv
species. <Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., x, pp. 75-102.

X 1887. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., x, p. 146.

§1887. Stearns, R. E. C. Araujia albcns as a moth trap. <Ani.
Nat., xxi, pp. 501-507.

PROCEEDINGS. XV

One Hundred and Sixth JNIeeting, March 5, 1S87.

Prof. Ward, Vice-President, in the chair, and twenty-eight
persons present.

Mr. P. L. Jouy presented a communication entitled Corea ;
The Country and the People, and exhibited a large series
of native implements and utensils, and also many photographs.

Dr. Frank Baker described Some Unusual Mitscular Vari-
ations IN the Human Body,* which had recently come under
his notice, illustrating his remarks with the aid of diagrams and
prepared specimens.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam exhibited and described A New Species
OF Wood Mouse, Evotomys canadensis, recently received
from the mountains of North Carolina.

Dr. H. G. Beyer made some remarks upon The Preserva-
tion OF Bottled Museum Specimens, especially in the line of
Materia Medica.

One Hundred and Seventh Meeting, March 19, 1887.

Prof. Ward, Vice-President, in the chair, and twenty-two per-
sons present.

Mr. L. O. Howard read a paper entitled A Rock Creek Phi-
lanthropist,! the philanthropist being the larva of a species of
Hydropsyche^ which preys upon the abundant larva of the black
fly {Simzditcm ve?iiistujti) .

Mr. Charles Hallock described The Trans-Continental
Range of the Moose, xA-Lces machlis, in North America. J

Dr. T. H. Bean compared American and European work
in deep sea Ichthyology, much to the credit of the former
country.

Mr. F. A. Lucas noted The Occurrence of Nocturnal
Lepidoptera at Sea. mentioning some twelve or thirteen spe-
cies which had been found distant from land.§

♦Published in the New York Medical Record, December 31, 1S87, vol.
xxxii, No. 27, under the title, '" Some Unusual Muscular Anomalies."

t 1886. Published in part in Annual Rept., Dept. of Agriculture, 1886,
p. 510.

X 18S7. American Field, xxvii, 15, 344, April 9.

§ Science, April 8, 1887.

XVI BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Capt. J. W. Collins, under the title Some Novel Facts in
THE Natural History of the Codfish, described certain curi-
ous variations in the species, and exhibited several articles found
in the stomachs or imbedded in the flesh. The most peculiar of
these was a small hand-made knife of curious v\^orkmanship.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam described A new' Species of Mouse
from New Mexico (Hesperomys anthonyi).*

One Hundred and Eighth Meeting, April 3, 1SS7.

The Society met for the first time in the Assembly Hall of the
Cosmos Club. The President occupied the chair, and thirty per-
sons were present.

Dr. Theobald vSmith described the Qltantitative Variations
IN the Germ Life of Potomac Water during 18S6.

Dr. Edward Eggleston made an interesting communication, in
the form of queries, addressed to the members of the Society, re-
specting Certain Plants and Animals Known to the First
Colonists of North America. Many replies were obtained.

Prof. O. T. Mason exhibited and described a large series of
Representations of Animal Life in Eskimo Art.

Mr. F. W. True gave an account of The Blackfish of our
Southern Waters.

One Hundred and Ninth Meeting, April 16, 1SS7.

0. The President in the chair, and forty-one persons present.

Mr. W. H. Dall described some R?:cent Geological Ex-
plorations IN Southwestern Florida, f made by himself.
The observations were discussed by Mr. G. K. Gilbert and Dr. T.
Sterry Hunt.

Dr. H. G. Beyer spoke upon The Action of Caffeine upon
the Kidneys.

* 1SS7. These Proceedings, iv, pp. 5-8. (Extras issued April 15, 1887.)
+ 1887. Dall, William H. Notea on the Geology of Florida. <Ainer.
Tour. Sci., xxxiv, pp. 162-170.

PROCEEDINGS. XVII

Dr. C. Hart Merriam read a paper detailing the Ravages of
THE Bobolink in the Rice Fields of the South.*

One Hundred and Tenth Meeting, April 30, 1SS7.

The President in the chair, and thirty-eight persons present.

Dr. J. H. Kidder exhibited a rounded concretion-like mass
taken from the stomach of a codfish ; and also several rounded
grass balls from a small salt pond near Pyramid Lake. Nevada,
and explained their composition. These gave rise to much dis-
cussion, and Mr. McGee. who had collected the grass balls, de-
scribed the manner of their formation.

Mr. F. A. Lucas spoke upoufTnE Os Prominens in Birds.

Air. W. T. Hornaday read a paper entitled Cu'ilization as
an Exterminator of Savage Races, which led to some re-
marks by Prof. Ward and Mr. Dall.

Mr. VV. H. Dall called attention to A Genus of Bivalve Mol-
LUSKS New to North America. The genus is Cyre7iella.-\

One Hundred and Eleventh Meeting, May 14, 18S7.

The President in the chair, and forty-two persons present.

Prof. C. V. Riley presented some Biological Notes on
Southern California, suggested by a recent trip to that re-
gion. Remarks were made by Dr. Vasey, Dr. Merriam, Prof.
Stearns, and Mr. Dall.

Mr. P. L. Jouy exhibited specimens of A Bird New to Japan,
Pitta oreas of Swinhoe, from the island of Tsushima.

Mr. F. H. Knowlton made a communication on The Recent
Shower of Pollen in Washington, the so-called *' sulphur
shower." The distance which pollen may be carried by the
winds gave rise to remarks by Dr. Vasey, Prof. Riley, and Prof.
Ward.

♦1887. Published in part in Annual Rept. Dept. of Agriculture for 1886,
pp. 246-250.

t 1887. Amer. Jour. Sci., xxxiv, p. 170.

XVIII BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

The question, '•' Does the Flying Fish Fly?" was discussed
by Mr. W. B. Barrows, Engineer G. W. Baird, U. S. N., Mr.
Lucas. Mr. Goode, Mr. Hallocl^, Mr. Dall, and Prof. Riley.

One Hundred and Twelfth Meeting, May 2S, 1SS7.

The President in the chair, and twentj'-one persons present.

Prof. R. E. C. Stearns read a paper entitled The Protective
Devices in the '•'■ Carrier vShell," Xenophora, and exhibited
specimens of several species.

Mr. R. T. Hill explained The True Geological Horizon
OF SOME hitherto UNPLACED Faunas, with special reference to
the Cretaceous of Texas. Mr. McGee made some remarks on Mr.
Hill's paper.

Mr. G. Brown Goode exhibited a series of Japanese Chromo-
lithographs of Fishes, recently published. Mr. Baba. of
Japan, spoke upon Japanese methods of delineation, and the sub-
ject was further discussed by Prof. Gill, Prof. Riley, Mr. Dall,
Mr. vStejneger, and Prof. Seaman.

One Hundred and Thirteenth Meeting, October 32, 18S7.

The President in the chair, and forty persons present.

The President announced the death, during the summer recess,
of Prof. Spencer F. Baird, the only honorary member of the So-
ciety, and of Dr. Charles Rau, one of its most distinguished active
members.

Mr. L. O. Howard described An Ant-Decapitating Para-
site, the larva of a species of Diptera, probably belonging to the
family Conopidce^ from New Hampshire.

Dr. George Vasey presented some Notes on Western
Grasses.

Mr. F. A. Lucas read a paper entitled The Bird Rocks of"
THE Gulf of" Saint Lawrence in 1SS7.* These rocks are situ-
ated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and were visited, during the

* 18S8. The Auk, ApriL

PROCEEDINGS. XIX

summer of 1 887, by ]Mr. Lucas with the Fish Commission schooner
Grampus.

Air. A. A. Crozier, under the title. Some Botanical Terms,
referred to the ambiguity attending the use of the words " sinis-
trorse " and •' dextrorse." as applied to twining plants.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam gave an account of the Fauxa and Flora
OF THE Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and
Tennessee.

One Hundred and Fourteenth Meeting, November 5, 18S7.

The President in the chair, and thirty-six persons present.

Mr. John B. Smith read a paper on Some Geographical Va-
riations OF Insects, with special reference to local variations
in Lepidoptera and Coleoptera.

Dr. T. H. Bean presented a communication respecting The
Young Forms of Some of Our Food Fishes, and exhibited
.alcoholic specimens of the same.

Mr. N. P. Scudder explained The Period of Gestation in
the Common Caged Whitp: Mouse.

Mr. H. E. Van Diemen exhibited specimens of the fruit and
colored drawings of the foliage, flow^ers, and fruit of The Jap-
anese Persimmon, Diospyros kaki.

Prof. Theodore Gill described the characteristics of The Fish
Fauna of the South Temperate or Notalian Realm.

One Hundred and Fifteenth Meeting. Nov. 19, 1887.

Prof. Ward, Vice-President, in the chair, and thirty-two per-
sons present.

Col. Marshall McDonald joresented an Explanation of Past
Failures in the Culture of the Salmonid.^.

Mr. Walter B. Barrows read a paper entitled Freshet Notes
ON THE Rio Uruguay, South America.

Dr. T. H. Bean described A New Species of Thyrsitops

XX BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

PROM THE New England Fishing Banks,* with the aid of
photographs and a life-size crayon sketch.

Mr. F. W. True gave a review of some of the more important
works on Cetaceans published since iSS6.

Mr. F. A. Lucas read a paper entitled An Alcine Ceme-
tery, being the resting-place of the Great Auk on Funk Island,
oft" Newfoundland.

Mr. H. E. Van Diemen called attention to a cluster of the
fruit of the date palm, Phcenix dactylifera^ from New Orleans,
which he had placed upon the table for examination.

One Hundred and Sixteenth Meeting, December 3, 1SS7.

The President in the chair, and thirty-nine persons present.

Mr. Charles Hallock read a paper descriptive of The Great
Roseau Swamp of northwestern Minnesota.

A communication from Dr. C. A. White, on The Rapid Dis-
appearance OF the Shed Antlers of the Cervid^, was
read by the Secretary.

Dr. Theobald Smith made a few remarks upon Peptonizing
Ferments among Bacteria.

Mr. C. D. Walcott exhibited A Fossil Lingula Preserving
THE Cast of the Peduncle, from the Hudson Terrane, near
Rome, N. Y.

Prof. Theodore Gill discussed The Phylogeny of the Ce-
tacea.

One Hundred and Seventeenth Meeting, Dec. 17. 1887.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam. Vice-President, in the chair, and twenty-
three persons present.

Mr. C. L. Hopkins read a paper entitled Notes Relative to
THE Sense of Smell iv the Turkey Buzzard.

Dr. Cooper Curtice described some recent observations respect-
ing The Timber Line of Pike's Peak.

* Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., x (in course of publication).

PROCEEDINGS. XXI

Mr. C. D. Walcott exhibited a Section of a Fossil Endo-
CERAS OVER EiGHT Feet IN Length, and explained its structure
and relations to other shell-bearin<^ Cephalopoda, both fossil and
recent.

Mr. Leonhard Stejneger read a paper entitled How the Great
Northern Sea Cow, Rhytina, became Exterminated.*

One Hundred and Eighteenth Meeting, Dec. 31, 1887.

The President occupied the chair, and sixteen persons were
present.

Mr. W. J. McGee spoke upon The over-lapping Habitats
of Sturnella magna and Sturnella neglecta, in Iowa.

Dr. C. Hart Merriain exhibited and described A New Species
of Field Mouse, Arvicola (Chilotus) pallidus, from the
Bad- Lands of Northwestern Dakota.

Mr. W. B. Barrows described The Shape of the Bill in
Snail-Eating Birds, with special reference to the Kite, Ros-
trhamus soclabilis^ and the " crying" birds, Aramiis.

A paper by Mr. H. Justin Roddy, on the Feeding Habits of
Some Young Raptores, was read by Mr. Lucas.

One Hundred and Nineteenth Meeting, Jan. 14, 1S88.

(Eighth Annual Meeting).

The President occupied the chair, and twenty-seven members
were present.

The annual reports of the Secretary and Treasurer were read
and accepted.

The following board of officers was elected for the ensuing
year :

President — Mr. William H. Dall.

Vice-Presidents — Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Prof. L. F. Ward,
Prof. C. V. Riley. Mr. Richard Rathbun.

* 1887. American Naturalist, xj?i, pp. 1047-1054, December.

XXII BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Secretaries— "^x. J. B. Smith. Mr. F. A. Lucas.

Treasurer — Mr. F. H. Knowlton.

Additional Members of the Council — Dr. T. H. Bean, Dr.
J. H. Kidder, Prof. R. E. C. Stearns, Mr. F. W. True, Dr.
George Vasey.

The President announced the following Committee on Satur-
day Lectures : Prof. G. Brown Goode, Chairman ; Dr. Frank
Baker, Mr. G. K. Gilbert, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Prof. C. V.
Riley.

One Hundred and Twentieth Meeting, Jan. 28, 1S8S.
(Eighth Anniversary Meeting).

The eighth anniversary meeting of the Society was held in the
lecture hall of Columbian University, on the evening of January
28, about seventy-five persons being present.

The President, Mr. William H. Dall, delivered an address, en-
titled, Some American Conchologists.*

SATURDAY LECTURES, 1886.

The fifth course of Saturday Lectiu'es under the auspices of the
Biological Society and the Anthropological Society was begun
March 6, iSS6. The lectures were delivered in the lecture room
of the National Museum, and the following programme was carried
out :

March 6 : Mr. William Hallock. The Geysers of the Yellowstone.

March 12: Prof. William Harkness. How the Solar System is
measured.

March 20 : Prof. T. C. Mendenhall. The Nature of Sound.

March 27: Prof. F. W. Clarke. The Chemistry of Coal.

April 3 : Dr. C. Hart Merriam. The Migration of Birds.

April 10 : Dr. Washington Matthews. The Gods of the Navajos.

April lb : Dr. D. B. Simmons. Social Status of the Women of Japan.

April 24 : Prof. W. K. Brookes. Life.

May I : Prof. Lester F. Ward. Heredity and Opportunity.

Alay S : Dr. John S. Billings. Animal Heat.

* These Proceedings, pp. 95-134. Extras printed with title page and
cover.

PEOCEEDINGS. XXIII

SATURDAY LECTURES, 1887.

The sixth course of Saturday Lectures was begun March 12,
1SS7, under the auspices of the Biological, Philosophical, and
Anthropological Societies. The lectures were delivered in the
lecture hall of the National Museum, eight being given on Sat-
urday afternoons, and four on Wednesday evenings with the aid
of the stereopticon. The programme was as follows :

March 12: Gen. A. W. Greely, U. S. A. Animals of the' Arctic Region.

March ig : Capt. C. E. Dutton, U. S. A. Earthquakes.

March 2j : Mr. W. J. McGee. The Charleston Earthquake. (Evening
lecture.)

March 26: Prof. Otis T. Mason. The Natural Historv of Human Arts.

April 2 : Dr. B. E. Fernow. Our Forestry Problem.

April 6: Mr. Thomas Wilson. Pre-historic Man in Europe. (Even-
ing lecture.)

April lb: Dr. Edward M. Hartwell. The Aims and Eftects of
Physical Training.

April 20: Dr. Frank Baker. Facial Expression. (Evening lecture.)

April 2j: Miss H. C. DeS. Abbott. The Chemistry of the Higher
and Lower Plants.

April jo: Prof. Harrison Allen. Rights and Lefts.

May 4: Prof S. P. Langley. Sunlight and the Earth's Atmosphere.
(Evening lecture.)

May 7 : Dr. J. H. Bryan. The Mechanism of the Human Voice.

BAIRD MEMORIAL MEETING.

January 11, 18S8, a meeting commemorative of the life and
scientific work of Prof. Spencer Fullerton Baird was held in the,
lectui'e hall of the Columbian University, under the joint auspices
of the Anthropological, Biological, and Philosophical Societies of
XVashington. A very large number of persons was in attendance.
Mr. Garrick Mallery, President of the Philosophical Society, pre-
sided, and the following addresses were delivered :

Relations between Professor Baird and the Partici-
pating Societies, by Mr. Garrick Mallery.

Professor Baird as Administrator, by Mr. William B.
Taylor, of the Smithsonian Institution.

XXIV BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Professor Baird in Science, by Mr. William H. Dall, Pres-
ident of the Biological Society.

The Personal Characteristics of Professor Baird, by
Mr. J. W. Powell, President of the Anthropological Society.*

BOTANICAL SECTION.

A preliminary meeting of persons interested in Botany took
place November 21, 1SS7, in the office of the Botanist of the De-
partment of Agriculture. A second meeting was held December
5, at which a Botanical Section of the Biological Society was for-
mally organized. Dr. George Vasey was elected President, and
Mr. A. A. Crozier, Secretary. The first regular meeting was
held January 4, 18S8, when the following papers were read :

1 . Recent Progress in the Study of Fresh-Water Alg^,
Prof. E. A. Burgess.

2. A Case of Sewer Obstruction by Tree Roots, Prof.
F. H. Knowlton.

3. Fungi of the Arid Regions, Prof. S. M. Tracy.

4. Glceosporium of the Wax Bean, Miss E. A. Southworth.

The Section is to meet monthlv.

* These addresses, together with a portrait of Professor Baird, have been
printed in the Bulletin of the Philosophical Society, vol. x, pp. 41-77, 1SS8.
Also separately issued with independent pagination.

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF BAT

FROM THE WESTERN UNITED STATES.

( Vespertilio ciliolabriivi sp. nov.)

By Dr. C. Hart Merriam.
(Read November 27, 18S6.)

Specimens of a small and apparently hitherto undescribed
species of bat have reached me from two widely separated
localities in the Western United States. The first were col-
lected by Mr. A. B. Baker in Trego County, Kansas ; the
second by Mr. A. W. Anthony in Grant County, in the ex-
treme southwestern corner of New Mexico.

Mr. Baker writes me that •• the first two of these bats were
found in blufts or cafions near the town of Banner, and were
hidden away in clefts in the chalk rock. The others were
captured at a bluft' several miles distant. They had secreted
themselves in abandoned swallows' nests which were inacces-
sible ; but the bats were easily dislodged by means of stones.
They were followed to their various places of refuge, and seven
were secured."

These bats belong to the group of American Vespertiltos, of
which V. nitidus may be considered fairly typical. They differ
from V. nitidus^ however, in size, proportions, and color, as
well as in the much larger size of the ear.

The Kansas specimens varv in color from nearly pure white to
pale yellowish-brown, or even isabella-brown, while those from
New Mexico are tawny-isabella above and much paler under-
neath.

2 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

The following characters will serve to distinguish the species-
from its allies :

VESPERTILIO CILIOLABRUM* sp. nov.
(Type No. 2797 female ad., Merriam Collection).

: 2-2, ^ i-i, 3-3, ^^^ 3-3, ^^S

3-3 ■ 3-3 20

Dental fortmila: i. — ,— c. ' pm. ^-•^~ m.-^-^' ;= — ==38.

-^ 6 i-i ^ x-x -x-x 20 ^

The outer upper incisor of each side slopes forward and
inward parallel to the inner, contrary to the rule in the genus
Vespcrtllio, in which these teeth usually are divergent ; cusp
of inner upper incisor bifid, the anterior point being larger.
First upper premolar small and crowded against (and usually
somewhat internal to) the canine ; second upper premolar
minute and wholly internal to the tooth-row so that it is not
visible from the outside except in immature individuals ; third
premolar very large, nearly or quite equal to canine. Middle
lower premolar smallest ; posterior largest.

Sides of upper lip fimbriate. Glandular prominences be-
tween eyes and nostrils moderately developed. Tip of ear
laid forward extends to end of muzzle.

The calcaneum reaches about half-way from the foot to the
tip of the tail ; the postcalcaneal lobule is large for a Ves-
pertilio ; the calcaneum ends in a projecting tooth or lobule.

The form of the ear is somewhat intermediate between that
of V. nitidus and that of V. fzigricaiis : Internal basal lobe
slightly rounded ; middle three-fourths of anterior margin
strongly convex ; tip shortly rounded oft', forming a small, pro-
jecting lobe posteriorly, beneath which the outer, border is
sharply emarginated for about one-third of its entire length ;
bottom of emargination straight or slightly convex ; below this

*The specific name ciliolabrum refers to the fringe of hairs along the
sides of the upper lip.

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW BAT. 6

the outer margin becomes abruptly convex and then nearly-
straight, with a distinct reflexed lobe near its base. Tragus at-
tenuated above ; inner margin straight or slightl\ convex ; outer
margin slightly concave in upper half, then slightly convex,
with a distinct lobule at the base, which is separated by a
notch from the convexity above.

Thumb very small, considerably shorter than the foot. Foot
small. Wings from base of toes. Upper surface of wing-
membranes haired from about the middle of the humerus to
the knee ; basal third of upper surface of interfemoral mem-
brane covered with hair ; on under sin-face of interfemoral the
hair is arranged in little tufts along transverse lines, about
thirteen in number. Half of last vertebra of tail free.

Fur long and soft ; basal portion dusky ; apical portion vary-
ing from whitish or yellowish-white to isabella-brown (tawny-
isabella in the New Mexico specimens), which in sohie indi-
viduals is nearly as dark as in I '. subulatus : the colored apical
portion varies in extent from less than one-third to more than
one-half the length of the hairs.

Oleaster ements front alcoholic specimens. — Male adult (No.
2794 Merriam Collection) : Head and body. 42 mm. ; head,
16.25 i^i^"'- ' tail, 37 mm. ; ear, trom inner basal angle, 15
mm. ; tragus, 6.7^ mm. ; humerus, 22 mm. ; forearm, 32.50
mm. ; thumb, 3.75 mm. ; third finger, ^6 mm. ; fifth finger,
44 mm.; tibia, 11.25 nim. ; hind foot, 7 nim.

Female adult (type, No. 2797 Merriam Collection) : Head
and body, 43 mm. ; head, 16.25 mm. ; tail. 40 mm. ; ear.
from inner basal angle, 15 mm. ; tragus, 6.75 mm. ; humerus,
22 mm. ; forearm, 33 mm. ; thumb, 3.50 mm. ; third finger,
^6 mm.; fifth finger, 45.50 mm.; tibia, 11.50 mm.; hind
foot, 7.50 mm.

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

<a

to"

to ig

•V.

t->

u

c

V

o

f^

.^

^

o

cS

-4^

2

«...

: : r <^ :

o

pq

,

O

t^

•looj pniH

"BiqiX

•jaSng qijg

•jaSng pg

■qranqx

•nuBajoj;

■snjainnH

■asBq jaa
-nt moaj stiSBJX

•puaH

"irax

•^poci puB p^aH

•xas

o

"K'H '0 -stiH'-OK

3 . — .

3 3 D<

<3 < <

_^ <

^ o o o

rs to to ^o

t'- \0 t>- t>. t>. j>. vC ^ i>»

O to to o 0 O O O

to r| rq to to to to to

O b O ^0 O

to to to to to

Tt-M Th-4-TJ-ioN rorq

p O

to to

tototoLotototototo

to O Lo to b O to O

t-»tol>.M loiON »0

p O

to to

ron D rororoiN rorJ

_rO rp fO CO ro CO fO ro ro

0 0 O" 0 o

to to to to to

D M n r) cJ D M w b

<N n D r< M M n rq M

to to O 1^ to to O

t^ t^ to J>. t^ ci to

o o vo vQ vo vd vd \6 \d

o ^' ^o o~

to to to

to to to to to lo »o -^ -^

o to b b io

to M to to M

\dv6vd\d^£5>ovdvd to
iod\i>-b oJ b d\oc5 w

CO PQ ro -^ -j- Tt- CO fo -^

o o

to to ;

n r) n ro <r) ro ri " •

a rt .S

° : - : . ^ : 6 .

^ O

o -"

be c

0) C3

_H O

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW MOUSE FROM NEW

MEXICO.

Hesperomys ( Vesperimus) Antho7iyi sp. nov.

By Dr. C. Hart Merriam.

(Read March 19, 18S7).

During the spring and summer of 1SS6, Mr. A. W. Anthony,
of Denver, Colorado, made his headquarters at Camp Apache,
Grant county, New Mexico (about hit. 31'' 20'). Camp Apache
is in a hot desert region in the extreme southwestern corner of
the Territory, and only about four miles from the Mexican
boundary.

The following extract from one of Mr. Anthony's letters
sufficiently describes the region. He writes : " You can form
some idea of my location when I tell you that our nearest
water is a very small spring nine miles across the valley,
from which all our water is carried in wagons. The only
trees within forty miles are a few very small stunted cedars
and oaks. The only other vegetation consists of cacti and
other plants characteristic of these hot dry desei'ts."

While in this region Mr. Anthony made a valuable collec-
tion of mammals, which he has very kindly presented to me.
Among other things of interest it contains five specimens of a
pretty little mouse, hitherto unknown in the United States,
which I believe to be undescribed, and which, therefore, I
take pleasure in dedicating to its discoverer. In coloration,
proportions, and cranial characters this mouse differs so rad-

6 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

ically from all previously known species ^ that comparison
with others is unnecessary. Unfortunately, nothing is known
of its habits. It may be distinguished from its congeners by
the following diagnosis :

HESPEROMYS (VESPERIMUS) ANTHONYI sp. nov.
Type No -„ -• male ad., Merriam Collection.

Size, small ; tail considerably longer than head and body ;
ears large and scant haired ; whiskers long, reaching past
shoulders. Soles naked, 6 tuberculate ; palms 5 tuberculate ;
thumb armed with a blunt nail.

Color. — Upper parts from nose to tail, uniform clear ash-
gray, more or less darkened by black-tipped hairs ; sides
bright buffy-fulvous ; under parts white, the plumbeous basal
portion of the hairs showing through on the chin and throat,
which are thinly clothed with rather short hairs ; belly
strongly washed with salmon, which may be due to earth-
staining. Pelage soft. The fur covering the breast, abdo-
men, and tlanks is very much more dense than that of the
rest of the body, from which it mav be distinguished at a
glance. In fact, on the sides it forms well-marked flank
patches or tufts. Possibly this character may be seasonal ;
if not, it is very remarkable. In the young the belly is pure
white, and the bufiy-fulvous flank patches are not apparent.

The material at hand consists of five skins and skulls, col-
lected in April and May. All are males. Nos. 2332 and
2335 are immature, though the latter is full grown. The
skins were prepared with unusual care, and consequently
afford measurements of approximate accuracy. Moreover, Mr.
Anthony recorded the total length of each before skinning.

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW MOUSE. 7

Table of Measure7ne7it$ of five S/ec /mens of Hespevomys Anthonyi roller fed
at Camp Apache, Grant County, Nevj JSIcxico, by A. W. Anthony.

{Measurements in 7iiillimeters).

SkuU
No.

Sex
and

Age.

Measured in
THE Flesh.*

Total length.

Measuked from the dry skin.

Skin
No.

Total
length.

Head

and

body.

TaU, to end of

Verte- Hairs,
brae.

Hind

foot.

Height

of Ear

from

crown.

Date.

2149
2332
2333
2334
2335

2675
2840
2841
2842
2843

^ad
d^ad.
d'im.

165
162
168
165
162

144
145
145
l.iO
139

63
62
63
66
64

80
82
81
83
74

81.5

83.5

82.5

85.

75.

18.5
18.5
19.5
19.5
19.

12.
11.
12.
12.

10. ;

Apr. 12, 1886.
May 10, '^

(& ik u

Cranial Characters. — The skull, compared with that of
H. leucoptis. is short, broad, and flat. The incisor foramina
reach past the anterior plane of the first molar. The nasals are
short and do not extend so far posteriorly as the premaxillaries.

Excluding skull Xo. 2S40. which is not full grown, the close
agreement in cranial measurements is remarkable.

Cranial JMcasurements.

Basilar length ffrom one of the occipital condyles to posterior
edge of alveola of incisor of same side)

Basilar length of Hensel (from inferior lip of foramen magnum
to posterior edge of alveola of incisor)

Greatest zygomatic breadth

Interorbital constriction

Greatest length of nasal bones

Length of upper molar series

Incisor to molar

" " post-palatal notch

Distance between alveolse of upper molar series anteriorly

" " " " " " " posteriorly

Foramen magnum to post-palatal notch

Height of cranium from inferior lip of foramen magnum

Fronto-palatal depth (taken at middle of molar series)

Length of mandible

Length of under molariform series

No. ; No. ' No.
2840 I 2841 I 2842

cfim.|c?ad.;c?ad.
20.3

I

18.9 20.

16.5
12.4
3.8
7.4
3.6
5.4
8.8
2.5
2.5
7.4
6.8
5.8
12.6
3.7

18.
12.1

3.!

7.)

3.

5.

9.

2.

2.

8.

7.

6.
12.

3.

No.
2843

18.

12.7
3.7
8.5
3.8
5.6
9.5
2. 5
2.5

3 7.

2 6.

9 12.9

8 3.8

20.4

18.

12.1
3.7
8.3
3.8
5.7
9.5
2.5
2.5
8.2
7. ,
5.8

13.2
4.

*The apparent discrepancy between the total length as recorded by Mr.
Anthony and that taken from the dry skin is due to the necessary stretching
of the fresh specimens for measurement.

THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE.*
THE THIRD CENTURY.

By G. Brown Goode.

VIII.

In the address which it was my privilege, one year ago, to read
in the presence of this Society, I attempted to trace the progress
of scientific activity in America from the time of the first settle-
ment by the English in 1 5S5 to the end of the Revolution — a
pei-iod of nearly two hundred years.

Resuming the subject, I shall now take up the consideration
of the third century — from 17S2 to the present time. For con-
venience of discussion the time is divided, approximately, into
decades, while the decades naturally fall into groups of three.
From 1780 to 1810, from 1810 to 1840, from 1840 to 1S70, and
from 1870 to the close of the century, are periods in the liistory
of American thought, each of which seems to be marked by
characteristics of its own. These must have names, and it may
not be inappropriate to call the first the period of Jefterson. the
second that of Silliman, and the third that of Agassiz.

The first was, of course, an extension of the period of Linn^us,
the second and third were during the mental supremacy of Cuvier
and Von Baer and their schools, and the fourth or present, begin-
ing in 1870, belongs to that of Darwin, the extension of whose
influence to America was delayed by the tumults of the civil con-
vulsion which began in 1S61 and ended in 1S65.

The " beginnings of American science" do not belong entirely

* Annual Presidential Address delivered at the Seventh Anniversary
Meeting of the Biological Society of Washington. January 22, 1887, in
the Lecture Room of the U. S. National Museum.

10 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHITSTGTOlSr.

to the past. Oui* science is still in its youth, and in the discus-
sion of its history I shall not hesitate to refer to institutions and
to tendencies which are of very recent origin.

It is somewhat unfortunate that the account book of national
progress was so thoroughly balanced in the Centennial year. It
is true that the movement which resulted in the birth of our Re-
public first took tangible form in 1776, but the infant nation was
not born until 17S3, when tlie treaty of Paris was signed, and
lay in swaddling clothes until 1789, when the Constitution was
adopted by the thirteen States.

In those days our forefathers had quite enough to do in adapt-
ino- their lives to the changed conditions of existence. The
masses were struggling for securer positions near home, or were
pushing out beyond the frontiers to find dwelling-places for them-
selves and their descendants. The men of education were in-
volved in political discussions as fierce, uncandid, and unphilo-
sophical in spirit as those which preceded the French revolution
of the same period.

The master minds were absoi-bed in political and administra-
tive problems, and had little time for the peaceful pursuits of
science, and many of the men who were prominent in science —
Franklin, Jefferson, Rush, Mitchill, Seybert, Williamson, Mor-
gan, Clinton, Rittenhouse, Patterson, Williams, Cutler, Ma-
clure, and others — were elected to Congress or called to other
positions of official responsibility.

IX.

The literary and scientific activities of the infant nation were
for many years chiefly concentrated in Philadelphia, until 1800
the federal capital and largest of American cities. Here, after
the return of Franklin from France in 1785, the meetings of the
American Philosophical Society were resumed. Franklin con-
tinued to be its president until his death in 1790, at the same

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 11

time holding the presidency of the commonwealth of Pennsyl-
vania, and a seat in the Constitutional Convention. The pres-
tige of its leader doubtless gave to the Society greater promi-
nence than its scientific objects alone would have secured.

In the reminiscences of Dr. Manasseh Cutler there is to be
found an admirable picture of Franklin in 17S7. As we read it
we arc taken back into the very presence of the philosopher and
statesman, and can form a very clear appreciation of the scien-
tific atmosphere which surrounded the scientific leaders of the
post-Revolutionary period.

Dr. Cutler wrote :

'• Dr. Franklin lives on Market street. His house stands up a
court at some distance from the street. We found him in his
garden sitting upon a grass-plot, under a large mulberry tree,
with several gentlemen and two or three ladies. When Mr.
Gerrv introduced me he rose from his chair, took me bv the
hand, expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city,
and begged me to seat myself close by him. His voice was low,
his countenance open, frank, and pleasing. I delivered to him
mv letters. After he had read them he took me again by the
hand and. with the usual compliments, introduced me to the
other gentlemen, who are, most of them, members of the Con-
vention. Here we entered into a free conversation, and spent the
time most agreeably until it was quite dark. The tea-table was
spread under the tree, and Mrs. Bache, who is the only daughter
of the Doctor and lives with him, served it to the company.

•' The Doctor showed me a curiosity which he had just received
and with which he was much pleased. It was a snake with two
heads, preserved in a large vial. It was about ten inches long,
well proportioned, the heads perfect, and united to the body about
one-fourth of an inch below the extremities of the jaws. He
showed me a drawing of one entirely similar, found near Lake
Champlain. He spoke of the situation of this snake if it was
travellins; amons;^ bushes, arid one head should choose to so on one
side of the stem of a bush and the other head should prefer the
other side, and neither head would consent to come back or sfive
way to the other. He was then going to mention a humorous
matter that had that day occurred in the Convention in conse-
quence of his comparing the snake to America ; for he seemed
to forget that everything in the Convention was to be kept a pro-
found secret. But this was suggested to him, and I was deprived
of the story.

12 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

" After it was dark we went into the house, and he invited me to

his library, which is likewise his study. It is a very large cham-
ber and high-studded. The walls are covered with shelves filled
with books ; beside these, four large alcoves, extending two-thirds
the length of the chamber, filled in the same manner. I presume
this is the largest and by far the best private library in America.
He showed me a glass machine for exhibiting the circulation of
the blood in the arteries and veins of the human body. The cir-
culation is exhibited by the passing of a red fluid from a reservoir
into numerous capillary tubes of glass, ramified in every direction,
and then returning in similar tubes to the reservoir, which was
done with great velocity, and without any power acting visibly
upon the fluid, and had the appearance of perpetual motion.
Another great curiosity was a rolling press for taking copies of
letters or other writing. A sheet of paper is completely copied
in two minutes, the copy as foir as the original, and without de-
facing it in the smallest degree. It is an invention of his own,
extremely useful in many circumstances of life. He also showed
us his long artificial liand and arm for taking down and puttino-
up books on high shelves, out of reach, and his great arm-chair,
with rockers and a large tan placed over it, with which he fans
himself, while he sits i-eading, with only a slight motion of the
foot, and many other curiosities and inventions, all his own, but
of lesser note. Over his mantel he has a prodigious number of
medals, busts, and casts in wax or plaster of Paris, which are the
effigies of the most noted characters of Europe. But what the
Doctor wished especially to show me was a huge volume on bot-
any, which indeed aftbrded me the greatest pleasure of any one
thing in his library. It was a single volume, but so large that it
was with great difficulty that he was able to raise it from a low
shelf and lift it to the table ; but, with that senile ambition which
is common to old people (Dr. Franklin was eighty-one), he in-
sisted on doing it himself, and would permit no one to assist him,
merely to show how much strength he had remaining. It coti-
tained the whole of Linnaeus's Systema Vegetabilium,"vvith laroe
cuts colored from nature of every plant. It was a feast to me,
and the Doctor seemed to enjoy it as well as myself. We spent
a couple of hours examining this volume, while the other gentle-
men amused themselves with other matters. The Doctor is not
a botanist, but lamented he did not in early life attend to this
science. He delights in natural history, and expressed'an earnest
wish that I should pursue a plan I had begun, and hoped this
science, so much neglected in America, would be pursued with
as much ardor here as it is now in every part of Europe. I
wanted, for three months at least, to have devoted myself entirelv
to this one volume, but, fearing lest I should become tedious to
him, I shut the book, though he urged me to examine it longer.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 13

He seemed extremely fond, through the course of the visit, of
dwelling on philosophical subjects, and particularly that of natu-
ral history, while the other gentlemen were swallowed up in poli-
tics. This was a favorable circumstance to me, for almost all his
conversation v/as addressed to me, and I was highly delighted
with the extensive knowledge he appeared to possess of every
subject, the brightness of his faculties, the clearness and vivacity
of his mental powers, and the strength of his memory, notwith-
standing his age. His manners are perfectly easy, and everything
about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happi-
ness. He has an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an
uncommon vivacity that seems as natural and involuntary as his
breathing."

To Franklin, as President of the Philosophical Society, suc-
ceeded David Rittenhouse [b. 1732, d. 1796], a man of world-wide
reputation, known in his day as " the American Philosopher."*

He was an astronomer of repute, and his observatory built at
Norriton in preparation for the transit of Venus in 1769 seems to
have been the lirst in America. His orrery, constructed upon an
original plan, was one of the wonders of the land. His most
important contribution to astronomy was the introduction of the
use of spider lines in the focus of transit instruments.!

He was an amateur botanist, and in 177^ made interesting
physiological experiments upon the electric eel. J

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and the
first Director of the United States Mint.

Next in prominence to Franklin and Rittenhouse were doubt-
less the medical professors, Benjamin Rush, William Shippen,
John Morgan, Adam Kuhn, Samuel Powell Griffiths, and Cas-
par Wistar, all men of scientific tastes, but too busy in pub-
lic aflairs and in medical instruction to engage deeply in research,
for Philadelphia, in those days as at present, insisted that all

* See obituary in the European Magazi)ic, July, 1796; also Memoiis
of Rittenhouse, by William Barton, 1813, and Eulogium by Benjamin
Rush, 1796.

t Von Zach : Monatliche Correspondenz, ii, p. 215.

J Phila. Medical Repository, vol. i.

14 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOT*r.

lior naturalists should be medical professors, and the active inves-
tigators, outside of medical science, w^ere not numerous. Rush,
however, was one of the earliest American writers upon eth-
nology, and a pathologist of the highest rank. He is generally
referred to as the earliest professor of chemistry, having been
appointed to the chair of chemistry in the College of Philadel-
phia in 1769; it seems certain, however, that Dr. John Morgan
lectured on chemistry as early as 1765.*

Dr. Shippen [b. 1735^ cb 180S], the founder of the first
medical school [1765] ;md its professor of anatomy for forty-
three years, was still in his prime, and so ^vas Dr. Morgan
[b. 1735, d. 17S9], a Fellow of the Royal Society, a co-founder
of the medical school, and a frequent contributor to the Philo-
sophical Transactions. Morgan was an eminent pathologist,
and is said to have been the one to originate the theory of the
formation of pus by the secretory action of the vessels of the
part.f He appears to have been the first who attempted to
form a museum of anatomy, having learned the methods of
preparation from the Hunters and from Siie in Paris. The
beginning was still earlier known, for a collection of anatomical
models in wax, obtained by Dr. Abraham Chovet in Paris, was
in use by Philadelphia medical students before the Revolution. J

Anotlier of the physicians of colonial days who lived until
after the i-evolution was Dr. Thomas Cadwallader [b. 1707,
d. 1779], whose dissections are said to have been among the
earliest made in America, and whose " Essay on the West
India Dry Gripes," 1775, was one of the earliest medical trea-
tises in America.

Dr. Caspar Wistar [b. 1761, d. 1818] was also a leader,

* Barton's Memoirs of Rittenhouse, p. 614.
IThacher. American Medical Biography, i. p. 408.
X This eventually became the property of the University. See Barton's
Rittenhouse, p. 377. Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, ii, p. 36S.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 15

and was at various times professor of chemistry and anatomy.
His contributions to natural history were descriptions of bones of
Megalonyx and other mammals, a study of the human ethmoid,
and experiments on evaporation. He was long Vice-President of
the Philosophical Society, and in 1S15 succeeded Jefferson in its
presidency. The Wistar Anatomical Museum of the University
and the beautiful climbing shrub Wistaria are among: the me-
morials to his name.*

Still another memorial of the venerable naturalist mav per-
haps be worthy of mention as an illustration of the social condi-
tions of science in Philadelphia in early days. A traveller visit-
ing the city in 1S39 thus described this institution, which was
continued until the late war, and then discontinued, but has been
resumed within the last year :

" Dr. Wistar in his lifetime had a party of his literary and sci-
entific friends at his house, one evening in each week, and to this
party strangers visiting the city were also invited. When he died,
the same party was continued, and the members of the Wistar
party, in their turn, each have a meeting of the club at his house,
on some Saturday night in the year. This club consists of the
men most distinguished in science, art, literature, and wealth in
the c\\.y. It opens at early candle-light, when not only the mem-
bers themselves appear, but they bring with them all the strangers
of distinction in the city."|

The '•' Wistar parties " were continued up to the beginning of
the civil war in 1S61, and have been resumed since 1887. A
history of these gatherings would cover a period of three-quarters
of a century at the least, and could be made a most valuable and
entertaining contribution to scientific literature.

Packard, in his History of Zoology, J states that zoology, the
world over, has sprung from the study of human anatomy, and

* Hosack: Tribute to the Memory of Wistar, New York, 1818.
t Atwater : Remarks made on a tour to Prairie du Chien ; thence to
Washington City, in 1S29. Columbus, 1831, p. 238.
% Standard Natural History, pp. Ixii-lxxii.

16 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOX.

that American zoology took its rise, and was fostered chiefly,
in Philadelphia, by the professors in the medical schools.

It was fully demonstrated, I think, in my former address, that
there were good zoologists in America long before there were
medical schools, and that Philadelphia was not the cradle of
American natural history; although, during its period of polit-
ical pre-eminence, immediately after the Revolution, scientific
activities of all kinds centred in that city. As for the medical
schools it is at least probable that they have spoiled more nat-
uralists than they have fostered.

Dr. Adam Kuhn [b. 1741, d. 1817] was the professor of
botany in 1768* — the first in America — and was labeled by his
contemporaries " the favorite pupil of Linnseus." Professor
Gray, in a recent letter to the w^riter, refers to this saying as a
" myth ;" and it surely seems strange that a disciple be-
loved by the great vSwede could have done so little for botany.
Barton, in a letter, in 1792, to Thunberg, who then occupied
the seat of Linnaeus in the University of Upsala, said :

'' The electricity of your immortal Linne has hardly been felt
in this Ultima Thule of science. Had a number of the pupils of
that great man settled in North America its riches would have
been better known. But, alas ! the only one pupil of your prede-
cessor that has made choice of America as the place of his resi-
dence has added nothing to the stock of natural knowledge."!

The Rev. Nicholas Collin, Rector of the Swedisii Churches
in Pennsylvania, was a fellow-countryman and acquaintance of
Linnaeus \ and an accomplished botanist, having been one of the
editors of Muhlenberg's work upon the grasses and an early
writer on American linguistics. He read before the Philo-
sophical Society, in 1789, "An Essay on those inquiries in

* See p. 99, nutt.

fB. S. Barton, in Transactions American Philosophical Society, iii,

P- 339-

J " I often heard the great Linnaeus wish that he could have explored
the continent of North America." Collin: Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, iii,

p. XV.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 17

Natural Philosophy which at present are most beneficial to the
Uni'od States of North America." which was the first attempt
to lay out a systematic plan for the direction of scientific re-
search in America. One of the most interesting suggestions he
made was that the Mammoth was still in existence.

•' Tiie vast Mahmot," said he, " is perhaps yet stalking through
the western Vv^ilderness ; but if he is no more let us carefully
gather his remains, and even try to find a new skeleton of this
giant, to whom the elephant was but a calf." *

Gen. Jonathan Williams, U. S. A. [b. 1750, d. 1S15], was first
superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point and
" father of the corps of engineers." He was a nephew of
Franklin, and his secretary of legation in France, and, after
his return to Philadelphia, was for many years a judge of the
court of common pleas, his military career not beginning till
1 801. This versatile man was a leading member of the Phil-
osophical Society and one of its Vice-Presidents. His paper
'• On the Use of the Thermometer in Navigation" was one of the
first American contributions to scientific seamanship.

The Rev. Dr. John Ewing [b. 1732, d. 1802], also a Vice-
President, was Provost of the University. He had been one of
the observers of the transit in 1769, of which he published an
account in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society. He
early printed a volume of lectures on Natural Philosophy, and
was the strongest champion of John Godfrey, the Philadelphian,
in his claim to the invention of the reflecting quadrant. f

* Id., p. xxiv.

t" Thomas Godfrey," says a recent authority, "was born in Bristol.
Pcnn., in 1704, and died in Philadelphia in December, 1749. He followed
the trade of a glazier in the metropolis, and, having a fondness for mathe-
matical studies, marked such books as he met with, subsequently acquir-
ing Latin, that he might become familiar with the mathematical work in
that language. Having obtained a copy of Newton's ' Principia,' he de-
scribed an improvement he had made in Davis' quadrant to James Logan,

18 BIOLOOTCAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Dr. James Woodhouse [b. 1770, d. 1809] was author and ed-
itor of several chemical text-books and Professor of Chemistry in
the University, a position which he took'after it had been refused
by Priestley. He made experiments and observations on the
vegetation of plants, and investigated the chemical and medical
properties of the persimmon tree. He it was who first demon-
strated the superiority of anthracite to bituminous coal by reason
of its intensity and regularity of heating power.*

The Rev. Ebenezer Kinnersley [b. in Gloucester, England,
Nov. 30, 171 1, d. in Philadelphia, July 4, 177S] survived the
Revolution, though, in his latter years, not a contributor to
science. The associate of Franklin in " the Philadelphia Ex-
periments " in electricity, his discoveries were famous in Europe
as well as in America. f It is claimed that he originated the
theory of the positive and negative in electricity ; that he first
demonstrated the passage of electricity through water ; and that
he first discovered that heat could be produced by electricity ;
besides inventing numerous mechanical devices of scientific
interest. From i753 to 177-^ '^^ ^^^ connected with the
University of Pennsylvania, where there may still be seen a
window dedicated to his memory.

Having already referred to the history of scientific instruction
in America, J and shown tliat Hunter lectured on comparative
anatomy in Newport in 1754; Kuhn on Botany, in Philadel-
phia, in 1768, Waterhouse on natural history and botany, at
Cambridge, in 1788 ; and some unidentified scholars upon chem-
istry and natural history, in Philadelphia, in 1785, it would
seem unjust not to speak of Kinnersley's career- as a lecturer.

who was so impressed that he at once addressed a letter to Edmund Hallej
in England, giving a full description of the construction and uses of God-
frey's instrument."

* SiLLiMAN : American Contributions to Chemistry, p. 13.

t See Priestley's History of Electricity.

f P. 99, attte.

PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 19

He seems to have been the first to deliver public scientific lec-
tures in America, occupying the platform in Philadelphia, New-
port, New York, and Boston, from 1751 to the beginning of
the Revolution. The following advertisement was printed in
the "Pennsylvania Gazette" for April 11, 175*1:

Notice is hereby given to the Curious that Wednesday next
Mr. Kinnersley proposes to begin a Course of Experiments on the
newly-discovered Electrical Fire, containing not only the most
curious of those that have been made and published in Europe,
but a considerable Number of New Ones lately made in this Citv,
to be accompanied with methodical Lectures on the Nature and
Properties of that Wonderful Element.

Fi-ancis Hopkinson [b. 1737, d. 1791], signer of the Declar-
ation of Independence, was treasurer of the Philosophical
Society, and among other papers communicated by him was
one in 17S3, calling attention to the peculiar worm parasitic in
the eve of a horse. The "■ horse with a snake in its eve " was
on public exhibition in Philadelphia in 1782, and was the
object of much attention, for the nature and habits of this peculiar
Filaria wei"e not so well understood then as now.

The father of Francis, Thomas Hopkinson [b. in London,
1709, d. in Philadelphia, 1751], who was overlooked in mv
previous address, deserves, at least, a passing mention. Coming
to Philadelphia in 1731 he became lawyer, prothonotary, Judge'
of the Admiralty, and member of the Provincial Council. As
an incorporator of the Philadelphia Library Company, and origi-
nal trustee of the College of Philadelphia, and first President
of the American Philosophical Society in 1743, his public spirit
is worthy of our admiration. He was associated with Kin-
nersley and Franklin in the •' Philadelphia Experiments;" and
Franklin said of him :

" The power of points to tlyow off the electrical fire was first
communicated to me by my ingenious friend, Mr. Thomas Hop-
kinson."*

* Wilson & Fiske : Cyclopaedia of American Biography, iii, 260.

20 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOlSr.

The name of Philip Syng is also mentioned in connection
with the Philadelphia experiments, and it would be well if some
memorials of his work could be placed upon record.

William Bartram [b. i739i d. 1833] was living in the famous
botanical garden at Kingsessing, which his father, the old King's
botanist, had bequeathed him in 1777. He was for some years
professor of botany in the Philadelphia college, and in 1791
printed his charming volume descriptive of his travels in Flor-
ida, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The latter years of his life
appear to have been devoted to quiet observation. William
Bartram has been, perhaps, as much underrated as John Bar-
tram has been unduly exalted. He was one of the best observ-
ers America has ever produced, and his book, which rapidly
passed through several editions in English and French, is a
classic and should stand beside White's " Selborne " in every
naturalist's library. Bartram was doubtless discouraged early
in his career by the failure of his patrons in Loudon to make any
scientific use of the immense botanical collections made by him in
the South before the Revolution, which, many years later, was
lying unutilized in the Banksian herbarium. Cones has called
attention very emphatically to the merits of his bird work, which
he pronounces " the starting-point of a distinctly American
school of ornithology." Two of the most eminent of our early
zoologists, Wilson and Say, were his pupils ; the latter his kins-
man, and the former his neighbor, were constantly with him at
Kingsessing and drew much of their inspiration from his conver-
sation. " Many birds which Wilson first fully described and
figured were really named and figured by Bartram in his
Travels, and several of his designations were simply adopted
by Wilson."*

Bartram's " Obsei'vations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians "f

* CouES : Key to North American Birds, p. xvi
t Trans. Am. Ethnological Society, iii, 1851.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 21

was an admirable contribution to ethnography, and his general
observations were of the highest value.

In the introduction to his •' Travels," and interspersed through
this volume, are reflections which show him to have been the
possessor of a very philosophic and original mind.

His "Anecdotes of an American Crow " and his " Memoirs
of John Bartram "* were worthy products of his pen, while his
illustrations to Barton's " Elements of Botany " show how
facile and truthful was his pencil.

His love for botany was such, we are told, that he wrote a
description of a plant only a few minutes before his death, a
statement which will be readily believed by all who know the
nature of his enthusiasm. Thus, for instance, he wrote of the
Venus's Fly Trap :

"Admirable are the properties of the extraordinary Dioncea mus-
cipula ! See the incarnate lobes expanding ; hov\^ gay and sportive
they appear ! read}' on the spring to entrap incautious, delude J in-
sects ! What artifice ! There I behold one of the leaves just closed
upon a struggling fly ; another has gotten a worm ; its hold is sure ;
its prey can never escape — carnivorous vegetable ! Can we, after
viewing this object, hesitate for a moment to confess that vegeta-
ble beings are endowed with some sensible faculties or attributes
similar to those that dignify animal nature.? They are living, or-
ganical, and self-moving bodies ; for we see here in this plant
motion and volition. "|

Moses Bartram, a cousin of William, and also a botanist, was
also living near Philadelphia, and in 1S79 published "Observa^
tions on the Native Silk Worms of North America," and Hum-
phrey Marshall [1722-1S01], the farmer-botanist, had a botanical
garden of his own, and in 17S5 published " The American
Grove — Arbustrium Americanum " — -a treatise on the forest trees
and shrubs of the United States, which was the first strictly

* Nicholson's Journal, 1805.
t Travels, 1793, p. xiv.

22 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASnUSTOTON.

American botanical book, and which was republished in France
a few 3'ears later in 1789.

Gotthilf Muhlenberg [b. 1753, d. 1815], a Lutheran clergy-
man, living at Lancaster, was an eminent botanist, educated in
Germany, though a native of Pennsylvania. His " Flora of Lan-
caster" was a pioneer work In 1813 he published a full cata-
logue of the Plants of North America, in which about 2,800
species were mentioned. He supplied Hedwig with many of the
rare American mosses, which were published either in " Stirpes
Cryptogamicas " of that author or in the " Species Muscorum."
To Sir J. E. Smith and Mr. Dawson Turner he likewise sent
many plants. He made extensive preparations, writing a gen-
eral flora of North America, but death interfered with his pro-
ject. The American Philosophical Society preserves his her-
barium, and the moss Funeria Muhlenbergii^ the violet, Viola
Muhlcnbergii^ and the grass MuJilenbei'gia^ are among the
memorials to his name.*

To Pennsylvania, but not to Philadelphia, came, in i794'
Joseph Priestley (1733-1S04), the philosopher, theologian, and
chemist. Although his name is more famous in the history
of chemistry than that of any living contemporar3^ American
or European, his work was nearly finished before he left Eng-
land. He never entered into the scientific life of the country
which he sought as an exile, and of which he never became
a citizen, and he is not properly to be considei'ed an element
in the history of American science.

His coming, however, was an event of considerable political
importance ; and William Cobbett's " Observations on the Em-
igration of Doctor Joseph Priestley. By Peter Porcupine," was
followed by several other pamphlets equally vigorous in ex-
pression. McMaster is evidently unjust to some of the public

* Hooker: On the Botany of America. Edinburgh Journal of Science,
iii, p. 103, et seq.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 23

men who welcomed Priestley to America, though no one will
deny that there were unprincipled demagogues in America in
the year of grace 1794. Jefferson was undoubtedly sincere when
he wrote to him the words quoted elsewhere in this address.

Another eminent exile,- welcomed by Jefferson, and the writer,
at the President's request, of a work on national education in the
United States, was M. Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours [b. in
Paris, 1799, d. 1S17]. He was a member of the Institute of
France, a statesman, diplomatist, and political economist, and
author of many important works. He lived in the United States
at various times, from i799 to iSi7', wlien he died near
Wilmington, Delaware. Like Priestley, he wafe a member of the
American Pliilosophical Society, and affiliated with its leading
members.

The gunpowder works near Wilmington, Delaware, founded
by his son in 1798, are still of great importance, and the statue
of one of his grandsons, an Admiral in the U. S. Navy, adorns
one of the principal squares in the National Capital.

Among other notable names on the roll of the society, in the
last century, were those of Gen. Anthony Wayne and Thomas
Payne. His Excellency General Washington was also an active
member, and seems to have taken sufficient interest in the society
to nominate for foreign membership the Earl of Buchan, Presi-
dent of the Society of Scottish Antiquarians, and Dr. James An-
derson, of Scotland.

The following note written by Washington is published in the
Memoirs of Rittenhouse :

" The President presents his compliments to Mr. Rittenhouse,
and thanks him for the attention he has given to the case of Mr.
Anderson and the Earl of Buchan.

" Sunday Afternoon, loth Aprils i794-"

Of all the Philadelphia naturalists of those early days, the one
who had the most salutary influence upon the progress of science

24 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHHSTGTOlSr.

was, perhaps, Benjamin Smith Barton [b. 1766, d. 1815.]
Barton was the nephew of Rittenhouse, and the son of the Rev.
Thomas Barton, a learned Episcopal Clergyman of Lancaster,
who was one of the earliest members of the Philosophical Society,
and a man accomplished in science.

He studied at Edinburgh and Gottingen, and at the age of 19,
in 178^, he was the assistant of Rittenhouse and Ellicott, in
the work of establishing the western boundary of Pennsylvania,
and soon after was sent to Europe, whence, having pursued an
extended course of scientific and medical study, he returned in
17S9, and was elected professor of natural history and botany in
the University of Pennsylvania. He was a leader in the Philo-
sophical Society, and the founder of the Linnaean Society of
Philadelphia, before which, in 1S07, he delivered his famous
*•' Discourse on some of the Principal Desiderata in Natural His-
tory, " which did much to excite an intelligent popular interest
in the subject. His essays upon natural history topics were the
first of the kind to appear in this country. He belonged to the
school of Gilbert White and Benjamin Stillingfleet, and was
the first in America of a most useful and interesting group of
writers, among whom may be mentioned John D. Godman,
Samuel Lock wood, C. C. Abbott, Nicholas Pike, John Bur-
roughs, Wilson Flagg, Ernest Ingersoll. the Rev. Dr. McCook,
Hamilton Gibson, Maurice Thompson, and W. T. Hornaday, as
well as Matthew Jones, Campbell Hardy, Charles Waterton,
P. H. Gosse, and Grant Allen, to whom America and England
both have claims.

Barton published certain descriptive papers, as well as manuals
of botany and materia medica, but in latter life had become so
absorbed in medical affairs that he appears to have taken no
interest in the struggles of the infant Academy of Natural Sciences,
which was founded three years before his death, but of which he
never became a member.

PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 25

His nephew and successor in the Presidency o£ the Linnaean
Society and the University Professorship, William P. C. Barton
[b. 1786, d. i8^6], was a man of similar tendencies, who in
early life published papers on the flora of Philadelphia [Florae
Philadelphiae Prodromus, 1S15]. but later devoted himself chiefly
to professional affairs, writing copiously upon materia medica and
medical botany.

The admirers of Benjamin Smith Barton have called him "the
father of American Natural History," but I cannot see the pro-
priety of this designation, which is equally applicable to Mitchill
or Jefferson, and perhaps still more so to Peter Collinson, of
London. The praises of Barton have been so well and so often
sung that I do not feel guilty of injustice in passing him briefly by.*
The most remarkable naturalist of those days was Rafinesque,
[b. 17S4, d. 1872], a Sicilian by birth, who came to Philadel-
phia in 1802.

Nearly fifty years ago this man died, friendless and impover-
ished, in Philadelphia. His last words were these : " Time ren-
ders justice to all at last." Perhaps the day has not yet come
when full justice can be done to the memory of Constantine
Rafinesque, but his name seems yearly to grow more prominent
in the history of American zoology. He was in many respects
the most gifted man who ever stood in our ranks. When in his
priuie he far surpassed his American contemporaries in versa-
tility and comprehensiveness of grasp. He lived a centur)' too
soon. His spirit was that of the present period. In the latter
years of his life, soured by disappointments, he seemed to become
unsettled in mind, but as I read the story of his life his eccen-
tricities seem to me the outcome of a boundless enthusiasm for
the study of nature. The picturesque events of his life have

* \V. P. C. Barton : Biography of Benjamin S. Barton, Philadelphia,
1815

26 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHI]SrGTOTir.

boon so well desci-ibcd by Jordan,* Chase, f and AudubonJ that
they need not be referred to here. The most satisfactory gauge
of his abilities is perhaps his masterly " Survey of the Progress
and Actual State of Natural Sciences in the United States of
America," printed in iSi7.§ His own sorrowful estimate of
the outcome of his mournful career is very touching :

"I have often been discouraged, but have never despaired
long. I have lived to sei've mankind, but have often met with
ungrateful returns. I have tried to enlarge the limits of knowl-
edge, but have often met with jealous rivals instead of friends.
With a greater fortune I might have imitated Humboldt or
Linnaeus."

Dr. Robert Hare [b. 1 781 , d. 1S58] began his long career of use-
fulness in 1801, at the age of twenty, by the invention of the 0x3^-
hydrogen blow-pipe. This was exhibited at a meeting of the
Chemical Society of Philadelphia in i8oi.||

This apparatus was perhaps the most remarkable of his orig-
inal contributions to science, which he continued without inter-
ruption for more than fifty years. It belongs to the end of the
post-revolutionary period, and is therefore noticed, although it is
not the purpose of this essay to consider in detail the work of
the specialists of the present century.

Dr. Hugh Williamson [b. Dec. 5, 1735, d., in New York, May
33, 1719] was a prominent hut not particularly useful promoter
of science, a writer rather than a thinker. His work has already
been referred to. The names of Maclure, who came to Phila-
delphia about 1797, the Rev. John Heckewelder, and Albert
Gallatin [b. 1761, d. in 1849], a native of Switzerland, a states-
man and financier, subsequently identified with the' scientific cir-

* Jordan : Bulletin xv, U. S. National Museum : Science Sketches, p. 143.

t Chase : Potter's American Monthly, vi, pp. 97-101.

J Audubon : The Eccentric Naturalist <C Ornithological Biography,

P- 455-
§ Amer. Monthly ISIagazine, ii, 81.
II Amer. Month. Mag., i, 80.

PEESIDEISTTIAL ADDRESS. 27

cles of New York, complete the list of the Philadelphia savans
of the last century.

There is not in all American literature a passage which illus-
trates the peculiar tendencies in the thought of this period so
thoroughly as Jefferson's defense of the country against the
charges of Buffbn and Raynal, which he published in 1783,
which is particularly entertaining because of its almost pettish
depreciation of our motherland.

" On doit etre etonne " (says Raynal) ''que I'Amerique n'ait
pas encore produit un bon poete, un habile mathematicien, un
homme de genie dans un seul art ou un seule science."

" When we shall have existed a people as long as the Greeks did
before they produced a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French
a Racine and Voltaire, the English a Shakespeare and ^lilton,
should this reproach still be true, we will inquire from what
unfriendly causes it has proceeded that the other countries of
Europe and quarters of the earth shall not have inscribed any
name on the role of poets.

" In war we have produced a Washington whose name will in
future ages assume its just station among the celebrated worthies
of the world, when that wretched philosophy shall be forgotten
which would have arranged him among the degeneracies of na-
ture.

" In physics we have produced a Fra7iklin, than whom no one
of the present age has made more important discoveries, nor has
enriched philosophy with more, or more ingenious, solutions of
the phenomena of nature.

" We have supposed Mr. RIttcnhouse second to no astronomer
living ; that in genius he must be the first because he is self-
taught. He has not indeed made a world ; but he has by imita-
tion approached nearer its Maker than anv man who has lived
from the creation to this day. There are various ways of keeping
the truth out of sight. Mr. Rittenhouse's model of the planetary
system has the plagiary appellation of an orrery ; and the quadrant
invented by Godfrey, an American also, and with the aid of which
the European nations traverse the globe, is called Hadley's quad-
rant.

'' We calculate thus : The United States contain three millions
of inhabitants ; France twenty millions ; and the British Islands
ten. We produce a Washington, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse.
France then should have half a dozen in each of these lines, and
Great Britain half that number, equally eminent. It may be true

28 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHmOTOlST.

that France has ; we are but just becoming acquainted with her,
and our acquaintance so far gives us high ideas of the genius
of her inhabitants.

•' Tlie present war having so long cut oft' all communications
witii Great Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate
of the state of science in that country. The spirit in which she
wages war is tlie only sample before our eyes, and that does not
seem the legitimate oflspring either of science or civilization.
The sun of her glorj- is fast descending to the horizon. Her phi-
losophy has crossed the channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and
herself seems bearing to that awful dissolution whose issue is not
given human forethought to scan."*

This was one phase of public sentiment. Another, no less
instructive, is that shown forth in the publications of Jefferson's
fierce political opponents in 1790, paraphrased, as follows, by
McMaster in his " History of the People of the United States :"

" Why, it was asked, should a philosopher be made President.?
Is not the active, anxious, and responsible station of Executive illy
suited to the calm, retired, and exploring tastes of a natural phi-
losopher.? Ability to impale liutterflies and contrive turn-about
chairs may entitle one to a college professorship, but it no more
constitutes a claim to the Presidency than the genius of Cox, the
great bridge-builder, or the feats of Ricketts, the equestrian. Do
not the pages of history teem with evidence of the ignorance and
mismanagement of philosophical politicians.? John Locke was a
philosopher, and framed a constitution for the colony of Georgia,
but so full was it of whimsies that it had to be thrown aside.
Condorcet, in 1793, made a constitution for France, but it con-
tained more absurdities than were ever before piled up in a system
of government, and was not even tried. Rittenhouse was another
philosopher; but the only proof he gave of political talents was
suffering himself to be wheedled into the presidency of the Demo-
cratic Society of Philadelplffa. But suppose that the title of phi-
losopher is a good claim to the Presidency, what claim has Thomas
JeiTcrson to the title of philosopher .? Why, forsooth !

"• He has refuted Moses, dishonored the story of the Deluge,
made a penal code, drawn up a report in weights' and measures,
and speculated profoundly on the primary causes of the difference
betv\^een the whites and blacks. Think of such a man as Presi-
dent! Think of a foreign minister surprising him in the act of
anatomizing the kidneys and glands of an African to find out why
the negro is black and odoriferous !

* Notes on Virginia, 1788, pp. 69-71.

PKESIDEXTIAL ADDRESS. 29

" He has denied that shells found on the mountain tops are parts
of the great flood. He has declared that if the contents of the
whole atmosphere were water, the land would only be overflowed
to the depth of fifty-two and a half feet. He does not believe
the Indians emigrated from Asia.

" Everv mail from the South brought accounts of rumblings and
quakes in the Alleghanies, and strange lights and blazing meteors
in the sky. These disturbances in the natural world might have
no connection with the troubles in the political world ; neverthe-
less it was impossible not to compare them with the prodigies all
writers of the day declare preceded the fatal Ides of March."

X.

In New York, although a flourishing medical school had been
in existence from 1769, there was an astonishing dearth of natu-
ralists until about 1790. Governor Golden, the botanist and
ethnologist, had died in 1776, and the principal medical men
of the city, the Bards, Glossy, Jones, Middleton. Dyckman,
and others, confined their attention entii'ely to professional
studies. A Philosophical Society was born in 17S7, but died
before it could speak. A .Society for the Promotion of Agri-
culture, Arts, and Manufactures, organized in 1791, was more
successful, but not in the least scientific. Up to the end of
the centur}' New York .State had but six men chosen to mem-
bership in the American Philosophical Society, and, up to 1S09,
but five in the American Academy. Leaders, however, soon
arose in Mitchill, Glinton, and Hosack.

Samuel Latham Mitchill, the son of a Quaker farmer [b. 1764,
d. 1S31], was educated in the medical schools of New York
and Edinburgh, and in 1792 was appointed Professor of Ghem-
istry. Natural History, and Philosophy in Golumbia GoUege.
Although during most of his long life a medical professor and
editor, and for many years representative and senator in Gongress,
he continued active in the interests of general science. He made
many contributions to systematic natural history, notably a His-
tory of the Fishes of New York, and his edition of Bewick's

30 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

" General Histoiy of Qiiadrupeds," published in New York in
1804, with notes and additions, and some figures of American
animals, was the earliest American work of the kind. He was the
first in America to lecture upon geology, and published several
papers upon this science. His " Mineralogical Exploration of
the banks of the Hudson River" in 1796, under the " Society
for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Useful
Ai'ts," founded by himself, was our earliest attempt at this
kind of research, and in 1794 be published an essay on the
"■ Nomenclature of the New Chemistry," the first American
paper on chemical philosophy, and engaged in a controversy
with Priestley, in defence of the nomenclature of Lavoisier,
which he was the first American to adopt.

His discourse on '' The Botanical History of North and South
America " was also a pioneer eftbrt. He was an early leader
in ethnological inquiries and a vigorous writer on political topics.
His "• Life of Tammany, the Indian Chief" (New Yoi^k, 1795),
is a classic, and he was well known to our grandfathers as the
author of '* An Address to the Fredes or People of the United
States," in which he proposed that '' Fredonia" should be adopted
as the name of the nation.

Dr. Mitchill was a poet,* and a humorist, and a member of the
literary circles of his day. In *•' The Croakers " Rodman Drake
thus addressed him as " The Surgeon General of New York :"

" It matters not how high or low it is
Thou knowest each hill and vale of knowledge,
Fellow of forty-nine societies
And lecturer in Hosack's College."

Fitz-Greene Halleck also paid his compliments tn the following

terms :

" Time was when Dr. Mitchill's word was law,
When Monkeys, Monsters, Whales and Esquimaux,
Asked but a letter from his ready hand.
To be the theme and wonder of the land."

'"Examples of his verses may be found in Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia of
American Literature.

PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 31

These and other pleasantries, of which many are quoted in
Fairchild's admirable •' History of the New York Academy of
Sciences," gives us an idea of the provinciality of New York
sixty years ago, when every citizen would seem to have known
the principal local representatives of science, and to have felt a
sense of personal proprietorship in him and in his projects.

Mitchill was a leader in the New York Historical Society ;
founder of the Literary and Philosophical Society, and of its
successor, the Lyceum of Natural History, of which he was long
president. He was also President of the New York Branch of
the Linnaean Society of Paris, and of the N. Y. State Medical
Society, and Surgeon-General of the State Militia ; a man of the
widest influence and universally beloved. He served four terms
in the House of Representatives, and was five years a member
of the U. S. Senate.*

DeWitt Clinton [b. 1769, d. 182S], statesman and philan-
thropist, U. S. Senator, and Governor of New York, was a
man of similar tastes and capacities. What Benjamin Frank-
lin was to Philadelphia in the middle of the eighteenth century
DeWitt Clinton was to New York in the beginning of the nine-
teenth. He was the author of the Hibernicus '' Letters on
the Natural History and Internal Resources of the State of New
York" (New York, 1823), a work of originality and merit. As
President of the Literary and Philosophical Society he delivered
in 1814 an '• Introductory Discourse," which, like Barton's in

* See Fraxcis, John W. Life of Dr. Mitchill, in Williams's American
Medical Biography, pp. 401-41 1, and eulogy in Discourse in Commemora-
tion of 53d Anniversary of N. Y. Hist. Soc, 1857, 56-60; and in his Old
New York; also —

Sketch by H. L. Fairchild in History of the New York Academy of Sci-
ences, 1887, pp. 57-67; also Dr. Mitchill's own pamphlet: Some of the
Memorable Events and Occurrences in the Life of Samuel S. Mitchill, of
New York, from the year 1786 to 1827.

A biography by Akerly was in existence, but has never been printed.

Numerous portraits are in existence, which are described by Fairchild.

32 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOIS".

Philadelphia, ten years before, was productive of great good. It
was, moreover, laden with the results of original and important
observations in all depailments of natural history. Another im-
portant paper was his "Memoirs on the Antiquities of Western
New York " printed in iSiS.

Clinton's attention was devoted chiefly to public affairs, and
especicllly to the organization of the admirable school system of
New York and other internal improvements. He did enough in
science, however, to place him in the highest ranks of our eaidy
naturalists.*

Hosack has been referred to elsewhere as a pioneer in miner-
alogy and the founder of the first botanic garden. He was long
president of the Historical Society, and exercised a commanding
influence in every direction. His researches were, however,
chiefly medical.

Samuel Akerly [b. 1785, d. 1845], the bi-other-in-law of
Mitchill, a graduate of Columbia College, 1S07, was an in-
dustrious worker in zoology and botany and the author of the
" Geology of the Hudson River." John Griscom [b. 1774, d.
1853], one of the earliest teachers of chemistry, began in 1806 a
career of great usefulness. " For thirty years," wrote Francis,
" he was the acknowledged head of all other teachers of chem-
istry among us (in New York), and he kept pace with the flood
of light which Davy, Murray, Gaylussac, and Thenard, and
others shed on the progress of chemical philosophy at that day."
About 1820 he went abroad to study scientific institutions, and his
charming book, 'A Year in Europe,' supplemented by his regu-
lar contributions to Sillimaii's Joiirua/., commenting on scientific
affairs in other countries, did much to stimulate the growth of
scientific and educational institutions in America.

♦Hosack: Memoirs of DeWitt Clinton. New York, 1829. Renwick :
Life of DeWitt Clinton. New York, 1S40. Campbell : Life and Writings
of DeWitt Clinton. New York, 1849.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 33

Francis tells us that he was for thirty years the acknowledged
head of the teachers of chemistry in New York.*

A zealous promoter of zodlogy in those days was F. Adrian
Vanderkemp, of Oldenbarnavelt, New York, who in 1795, we
are told, delivered an address before an Agricultural vSociety in
Whitesburg, N. Y., in which he offered premiums for essays
upon certain subjects, among which was one " for the best ana-
tomical and historical account of the moose, fifty dollars, or for
bringing one in alive, sixty dollars."!

Having mentioned sevei^al American naturalists of foreign
birth, it may not be out of place to refer to the American origin
of an English zoologist of high repute, Dr. Thomas Horsfield,
born in Philadelphia in 1773, and after many years in the East
became, in 1S20, a resident of London, where he died in 1S59.
His name is prominent among those of the entomologists, bota-
nists, and ornithologists of this century, especially in connection
with Java.

XI.

In New England, science was more highly appreciated than in
New York. Massachusetts had in John Adams a man who, like
Franklin and Jefferson, realized that scientific institutions were
the best protection for a democratic government, and to his efforts
America owes its second scientific society — the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1780. When Mr. Adams
travelled from Boston to Philadelphia, in the days just before
the Revolution, he several times visited at Norwalk, we are told,
a curious collection of American birds and insects made by Mr.
Arnold. '"This was afterwards sold to Sir Ashton Lever, in
whose apartments in London Mr. Adams saw it again, and felt
a new regret at our imperfect knowledge of the productions of

* Griscom, John H.: Memoir of John Griscom. New York, 1859.
t De\Mtt Clinton, in Trans. Lt. Pliil. Soc. N. Y., p. 59.

34 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON".

the three kingdoms of nature in our land. In France his visits
to the museums and other establishments, with the inquiries of
Academicians and other men of science and letters respecting
this country, and their encomiums on the Philosophical Society
of Philadelphia, suggested to him the idea of engaging his native
State to do something in the same good but neglected cause."*

The Academy, from the first, w^as devoted chiefly to the physi-
cal sciences, and the papers in its memoirs for the most part
relate to astronomy and meteorology.

Among its early members I find the names of but two natural-
ists : The Rev. Manasseh Cutler, pastor of Ipswich Hamlet, one
of the earliest botanists of New England,! and William Dan-
dridge Peck [b. 1763, d. 1882], the author of the first paper on
systematic zoology ever published in America, a " Description
of four remarkable fislies, taken near the Piscataqua in New
Hampshire," published in 1794.I Peck, after graduating at
Harvard, lived at Kittery, N. H., and first became interested in
natural history by reading a wave-worn copy of Linn^'s " vSys-
tem of Nature," which he obtained from the ship which was
wrecked near his house. He became a good entomologist, and
communicated much valuable material to Kirby in England, and
was also one of our first writers on the fungi. He was the first
to occupy the chair of natural history in Harvard University, to
which he was appointed in rSoo.

The Rev. Dr. Jedediah Morse [b. 1761, gi-ad. Yale, 1783,
d. 1826] was the earliest of American geographers, and appears,
especially in the later gazetteers published by him, to have printed
important facts concerning the number and geographical distribu-
tion of the various Indian tribes.

The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded

*Kirtland: Mem. Amer. Acad. New Series, vol. i, p. xxii.

t See previous address, p. 95.

J Mem. Amer. Acad. Sci., ii, Part ii, p. 46. 1797.

PKESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 35

in 1799, one of the chief promoters being President D wight
[b. 1753. tl. 1S17], whose "'Travels in New England and
New York," printed in 1S21 , abounds with scientific observations.

Another was E. C. Herrick [b. 181 1, d. 1862], for many
years librarian and subsequently treasurer of Yale College,
whose observations upon the aurora, made in the latter years of
the last century, are still frequently quoted ; and later an active
investigator of volcanic phenomena, and the author of a treatise
on the Hessian fly and its parasites, the results of nine years'
study ; and of another on tlie existence of a planet between
ISIercury and the sun.

Benjamin Silliman [b. in Trumbull, Conn., Aug. 8, i779' ^'
in New Haven, Nov. 37, 1S69], who, in 1802, became Professor
of Chemistry at Yale, began there his career of usefulness as
an organizer, teacher, and critic. One of his introductions to
popular favor was the paper which he. in conjunction with
Prof. Kingsley, published, '"An account of the meteor which
burst over Weston, in Connecticut, in December, 1807." This
paper attracted attention evervwhere, for the nature of meteors
was not well understood in those days. Jefferson was reputed to
have said in reference to it, " that it was easier to believe that
two Yankee professors could lie than to admit that stones could
fall from heaven ;" but I think this must be pigeon-holed with
the millions of other slanders to which Jefferson was subjected
in those days. I find in the papers by Rittenhouse and Madison,
published twenty years before, by the Philosophical Society,
matter-of-fact allusions to the falling of meteors to the earth.

Silliman was the earliest of American scientific lecturers who
appeared before popular audiences, and, as founder and editor of
the Journal of Science, did a service to science, the value of
which is beyond estimate or computation.

Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor of tlie Theory and Practice
of Medicine in Harvard, 1783-1812, was one of the earliest

36 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON,

teachers of natural botany in America, and the author of a poem
entitled " The Botanist." * The Rev. Jeremy Belknap [b. 1744,
d. 1798], in his "History of New Hampshire," and the Rev.
Samuel Williams [b. 1743, d. 1S17], in his "Natural and Civil
History of Vermont,"! made contributions to local natural his-
tory, and Capt. Jonathan Carver [b. 1732, d. 1780], in his
" Travels through the Interior Parts of America," J gave some
meagre information as to the zoology and botany of regions
previously unknow^n.

In the South the prestige of colonial days seemed to have de-
parted. Except Jeflerson, the only naturalist in Virginia was
Dr. James Greeriway, of Dinwiddie Co., a botanist of some
merit. Mitchell returned to England before the Revolution, and
Garden followed in 17S4. H. B. Latrobe, of Baltimore, was
an amateur ichthyologist, and Dr. James MacBride, of Pine-
ville, S. C. [b. 1784, d. 1817], was an active botanist. Dr.
Lionel Chalmers [b. 1715, d. 1777], who was for many years
the leader of scientific activity in South Carolina, was omitted
in the previous address. A graduate of Edinburgh, he was for
forty years a physician in Charleston. He recorded observations
on meteorology from 1750 to 1760, the foundation of his " Trea-
tise on the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina " [London,
1776], and published also valuable papers on pathology. He
was the host and patron of many naturalists, such as the Bar-
trams.

There was no lack of men in the South who were capable of
appreciating scientific work. Virginia had fourteen members
in the American Philosophical Society from 1780 to 1800, while
Massachusetts and New York had only six each, the Carolinas
had eight, and Maryland six. The population of the South
was, however, widely dispersed and no concentration of effort

♦Biography in Polyanthus, vol. ii.
t Walpole, N. H., 1794, 8vo, p. 416.

X 1778.

PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 37

was possible. To this was due, no doubt, the speedy dissohi-
tion of the Academy of Arts and Sciences founded in Richmond
in 17S8.*

A name which should, perhaps, be mentioned in connection
with this is that of Dr. William Charles Wells, whom it has
been the fashion of late to claim as an American. It would
be sfratifvinsr to be able to vindicate this claim, for Wells was
a man of whom any nation might be proud. He was the orig-
inator of the generally-accepted theory of the origin of dew, and
was also, as Darwin has shown, the first to recognize and an-
nounce the theory of evolution by natural selection. f Unfor-
tunately Wells's science was not American scifence. We might
with equal propriety claim as American the art of James
Whistler, the politics of Parncll. the fiction of Alexandre
Dumas, the essays of Grant Allen, or the science of Rumford
and Le Vaillant.

Wells was the son of an English painter, who emigrated, in
^753' to South Carolina, where he remained until the time of
the Revolution, when, with other loyalists, he returned to
Ensfland. He was born during his father's residence in Charles-
ton, but left the country in his minority ; was educated at Edin-
burgh, and though he, as a young physician, spent four years in
the United States, he was permanently established in London
practice fully twenty-eight years before he read his famous letter
before the Royal Society.

The first American naturalist who held definite views as to
evolution was, undoubtedly, Rafinesque. In a letter to Dr.
Torrey, Dec. i, 1S33, he wrote:

" The truth is that species, and perhaps genera also, are form-
ing in organized beings bv gradual deviations of shapes, forms,
and organs taking place in the hqDse of time. There is a tendency

* See previous discourse, p. 98.

t Darwin: Origin of species, 6th Amer. Ed., p xv. Morse: Proc.
Amer. Assoc. Adv. Science, xxv, p. 141..

38 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHLNGTON.

to deviation and mutation in plants and animals by gradual steps,
at remote, irregular periods. This is a part of the great universal
law oi perpetual mutability in everything."

It is pleasant to remember that both Darwin and Wallace
owed much of their insight into the processes of nature to their
American explorations. It is also interesting to recall the clos-
ing lines, almost prophetic as they seem to-day, of the "Epistle
to the Author of the Botanic Garden,"* written in 179S by
Elihu Hubbard Smith, of New York, and prefixed to the Amer-
ican editions of " The Botanic Garden :"

" Where Mississippi's turbid waters glide
And white Missouri pours its rapid tide;
Where vast Superior spreads its inland sea
And the pale tribes near icy empires sway;
Where now Alaska lifts its forests rude
And Nootka rolls her solitary flood.
Hence keen incitement prompt the prying mind
By treacherous fears, nor palsied nor confined;
Its curious search embrace the sea and shore
And mine and ocean, earth and air explore.

" Thus shall the years proceed, — till growing time
Unfold the treasures of each different clime;
Till one vast brotherhood mankind unite
In equal bonds of knowledge and of right;
Thus the proud column, to the smiling skies
In simple majesty sublime shall rise.
O'er ignorance foiled, their triumph loud proclaim,
And bear inscribed, immortal, Darwin's name."

XII.

During the three decades which made up the post-revolution-
arv period there were several "beginnings" which may not
well be referred to in connection with individuals or localities.

The first book upon American insects was published in 1797,
a sumptuously-illustrated work, in two volimnes, with 104 col-
ored plates, entitled " The Natural History of the rarer Lepi-
dopterous Insects of Georgia." This was compiled by Sir
James E. Smith from the notes and drawings of John Abbot

♦Erasmus, grandfather of Charles Darwin.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 39

[b. about 1760], living in England in 1840, an accomplished
collector and artist, who had been for several years a resident
of Georgia, gathering insects for sale in Europe. Mr. vScudder
characterizes him as " the most prominent student of the life his-
tories of insects we have ever had."*

There had, however, been creditable work previously done in
what our entomologists are pleased to call the biological side of
the science. As early as 176S, Col. Landon Carter, of " Sabine
Hall,'' Virginia, prepared an elaborate paper '• On the Habits of
the Fly-Weevil that destroys the Wheat." which was printed by
the American Philosophical Society,! accompanied by an ex-
tended report by " The Committee of Husbandry." In the same
year Moses Bartram presented his •• Observations on the native
Silk-Worms of North America. "|

Organized effort in economic entomology appears to date from
the year 1792, when the American Philosophical Society ap-
pointed a committee to collect materials for a natural history of
the Hessian Fly, at that time making frightful ravages in the
wheat-fields, and so much dreaded in Great Britain that the
import of wheat from the United States was forbidden by law.
The Philosophical Society's committee was composed of Thomas
Jefl^erson, at that time Secretary of State in President Washing-
ton's cabinet, Benjamin Smith Barton, James Hutchinson, and
Caspar Wistar. In their report, which was accompanied by
large drawings, the history of the little marauder was given in
considerable detail.

The publication of Wilson's American Ornithology, begin-
ning in 180S, was an event of great importance. It was in 1804

♦There is a whole series of quarto or folio volumes in the British Mu-
seum done bv him, and a few volumes are extant in this country. Be-
sides, all the biological material in Smith-Abbot's Insects of Georgia is
his." — Letter of S. H. Scudder.

t Transactions of the American Philosophical Soc, i, 274.

X Ibid., p. 294.

40 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHTT^GTOX.

that the author, a schoolmaster near Philadelphia, decided upon
his plan. In a letter to Lawson he wrote :

" I am most earnestly bent on pursuing my plan of making a
Collection of all the Birds of North America. Now, I don't
want vou to throw cold water on this notice, Qiiixotic as it may
appear. I have been so long accustomed to the building of Airy
Castles and brain Windmills that it has become one of my com-
forts of life, a sort of rough Bone, that amuses me when sated
w'ith the dull drudgery of Life."

I need not eulogize Wilson. Every one knows how well he
succeeded. He has had learned commentators and elo-
quent biographers. Our children pore over the narrative of
the adventurous life of the weaver naturalist, and we all are
sensible of the charms which his graceful pen has given to the
life-histories of the birds.

His poetical productions are immortal, and his lines to the
Blue Bird and the Fisherman's Hymn are worthy to stand by
the side of Bryant's Waterfowl, Trowbridge's Wood Pewee,
Emerson's Titmouse, Thaxter's Sandpiper, and, possibly best
of all. Walt. Whitman's Mocking-Bird in •' Out of the Cradle
endlessly Rocking."

Ichthyology in America dates also from these last years of
the century. Garden was our only resident ichthyologist until
Peck and Mitchill began their work, but Schoepf, the Hessian
military surgeon, printed a paper on the Fishes of New York
in 1787, and William Bryant, of New Jersey, and Henry Col-
lins Flagg, of South Carolina, made observations upon the elec-
tric eel, in addition to those w^hich Williamson, of North Car-
olina, laid before the Royal Society in 1775-

Paleontology had its beginning at about the same time in the
publication of Jefferson's paper on the Megalonyx or "Great
Claw " in 1797.*

* The first vertebrate fossils were found in Virginia. Samuel Maverick,
of Massachusetts, reported to the colony at Boston in 1836 that, at a place

PEESIDEXTIAL ADDRESS. 41

This early study of a fossil vertebrate was followed 20 years
later by the first paper which touched upon invertebrates — that
by vSay on ■• Fossil Zoology," in the first volume of Silliman's
Journal. Lesueur seems to have brought from France some
knowledge of the names of fossils, and identified many species
for the early American geologists.

Stratigraphical and physical geology also came in at this time,
and will be referred to later.

The science of mineralogy was brought to America in its
infancy. The first course of lectures upon this subject ever
given in London was in the winter of 1793-4. by Schmeisser,
a pupil of Werner. Dr. David Hosack. then a student of
medicine at Edinburgh, was one of his hearers, and inspired bv
his enthusiasm began at once to form the collection of minerals
which he brought to America on his return in 1794, which was
the first mineralogical cabinet ever seen on this side of the
Atlantic. This collection was exhibited for many years in Xew
York (and in 1S21 was given to Princeton College). Howard
soon after obtained a select cabinet from Europe, and the
museum of the American Philosophical Society acquired the
Smith collection. In 1S02, Mr. B. D. Perkins, a New York
bookseller, brought from London a fine collection, which soon
passed into the possession of Yale College, and in 1803 Dr. Arch-
ibald Bruce brought over one equally fine. ^^ aich was made the
basis of lectures Avhen in 1S06 he became professor of miner-
alogy in Columbia College. George Gibbs. in 1S05, imported
the magnificent collection which was long in the custody of the
American Geological Society. Seybert, about the same time,
brought to Philadelphia the cabinet which in 1813 was bought
by the Academy of Natural Sciences and was lectured upon bv
Troost in 1814.

on the James River, about sixty miles above its mouth the colonists had
tbund shells and bones, among these bones that of a whale, eigiiteen teet
below the surface. — Neill's Virginia Carolorum. p. 131.

42 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOK

Much of the early botanical exploration was, however, carried
out by European botanists : Andre Michaux [b. near Versailles,
1746, d. Madagascar, 1S02], a pupil of the Jussiens and an ex-
perienced explorer, was sent by this government, in 1785, to
collect useful trees and shrubs for naturalization in France. He
remained eleven years ; made extensive explorations in the
regions then accessible, and as far west as the Mississippi ; sent
home immense numbers of living plants; and, after his return,
in 1796, published his treatise on the American Oaks,* and pre-
pared the materials for his posthumous "Flora Boreali-Ameri-
canas."

Fran9ois Andre Michaux [b. near Versailles, 1770, d. at
Vaureal, 1855] was his father's assistant in these early travels,
and in 1S02 and 1806 himself made botanical explorations in the
Mississippi Valley. His botanical works were of great impor-
tance,! especially that known in its English translation as the
" North American Sylva," afterward completed by Nuttall, and
still the only work of the kind, though soon to be supplemented,
we hope, by Professor Sargent's projected monographs.

Frederick Pursh [b. 1774, in Tobolsk, Siberia, d. June 11,
1820, in Montreal, Canada] carried on botanical explorations
between 1799 and 1819 ; living, from iSo3 to 1S05, in Philadel-
phia, and from 1807 to 1810 in New York. In 1814 he pub-
lished in London his "Flora Americse Septemtrionalis." Pursh's
Flora was largely based .upon the labors of the American bot-
anists Barton, Hosack, LeConte, Peck, Clayton, Walter, and
Lyon, and the botanical collection of Lewis and Clarke, and
enumerated about 3,000 species of plants, while Michaux's,
printed eleven years before, had only about half that number.

A. von Enslen collected plants at this time, in the South and
West, for the Imperial Cabinet in Vienna. C. C. Robin, who

* Histoire des chines de TAmenque Septentrionale, 1801 ; 36 plates,
i' Voyage a I'ouest des monte Alleghany, &c. 8vo, pp. 684 Paris, i8o8.
Histoire des arbres for^stiferes de FAmerique, Septentrionale.

PKESLDENTIAL ADDRESS. 43

travelled from i8o3 to 1806 in what are now the Gulf States.
wrote a botanical appendix to his Travels, published in 1807. on
which Rafinesque founded his "• Florula Ludoviciana " (New
York, 1817).

Thaddeus Hsenke [b. 1761, d. in Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1817]
visited Western North America with the Spaniards late in the
last century, and made lai'ge collections of plants, which were
sent to the National Museum of Bohemia, at Prague, and in
part described in Presl's •• Reliquiae Hsnkianie." 72 plates.

Archibald Menzies [b. 1754, d. 1842], an English naval sur-
geon, also collected on our Pacific coast, under Vancouver, in
1780-95, and his plants found their way to Edinburgh and Kew.

Captain Wangenheim, Surgeon Schoepf, of the Hessian
contingent of the British army. Olaf Swartz, a Swedish botan-
ical explorer, and others, also gathered plants in these early days,
and, in some instances, published in Europe their botanical
observations.

Other collectors of this same class were L. A. G. Bosc [i759~
1828], who made botanical i-esearches in the Carolinas during
the last two years of the century, and returned to France in 1800
with a herbarium of 1,600 species. He also collected fishes,
and his name is perpetuated in connection with at least two
well-known American fauna. Another was jNI. Milbert, who
collected for Cuvier in New York, Canada, the Great Lake
region, and the Mississippi Valley from 1S17 to 1823.

The Baron Palisot de Beauvois [b. 1755, d. 1820] came from
Santo Domingo to iVmerica in 1791. He travelled extensively,
and being- a zoologist as well as a botanist, made observations
upon our native animals, particularly the reptiles.

It is to him that we owe the most carefully recorded of
existing observations of young rattlesnakes crawling down their
parent snakes' throats for protection from enemies.

Most of these men did not contribute largely to the advance-

44 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOIST.

ment of American scientific institutes or affiliate with the natu-
ralists of the day.

Of quite another type was the Count Luigi Castiglioni, who
travelled, soon after the Revolution, throughout the Eastern
States, and published in 1790 two volumes of his ti'avels.*

The Count Volney [b. at Craon Feb. 3, i757' ^^- '^^ Paris
April 25, 1820], traveller, statesman, and historian, travelled
in this country from i795 to 17981 ''^iicl hi 1S03, while a Senator
of the French Republic, published his famous work upon the
United States, containing his observations upon its soil and its
climate, and upon the Indians, together with the first doctrines
of the language of the Miamis,t and also giving a description
of the physical and botanical features of the country. Volney
was an admirer and intimate friend of Franklin, and it was in his
home atPassy, we are told, that he conceived the idea of his most
famous book " Les Ruines."f

Among the traditions of Fauquier county, Virginia, is one
which is of interest to naturalists, since it relates to an incident
showing the interest of our first President in science :

"About the year 1796," runs the story, " at the close of a long
summer's day, a stranger entered the village of Warrenton. He
was alone, and on foot, and his appearance was anything but
prepossessing. His garments, coarse and dust-covered, indicated
an individual in the humble walks. From a cane across his
shoulders was suspended a handkerchief containing his clothing.
Stopping in front of Turner's tavern, he took from his hat a paper
and handed it to a gentleman standing on the steps ; it read as
follows :

" The celebrated historian and naturalist
Volney needs no recommendation from

"• G. Washingo-on."

* Viaggio negli Stati Uniti del America Settentrionali.

t Tableau dii climat et du sol des Etats-Unis d'Ameriqiie, suivi d'eclair-
cissements sur la Floride, sur la colonic fran9aise a Scioto sur quelques
colonies canadiennes, et sur les savages. Paris, 1803. Svo, 2 vols. 2d
edition. Paris. Svo, i vol., pp. 494. Map.

J BiGELOW, John: Franklin's Home and Host, in France. T/ic Ceu/ury,
'Slay, 18SS, p. 743

PEESIDEN^TIAL ADDRESS. 45

In iSoi Jefferson began his ei.G^ht years of presidency. Since he
was the only man of science who has ever occupied the chief magis-
tracy, he has a right to a high phice in the esteem of such a society
as ours, and I only regret that, having spoken of him at length

a year ago, I cannot now discuss his scientific cai'eer in all its
aspects.

I then spoke of tiie credit which was due to him for beginning
so early as 1780 to agitate the idea of a government exploring
expedition to the Pacific, which culminated in the sending out
by Congress of the expedition of Lewis and Clarke, in 1S03.
Captain Lewis [b. 1774, d. 1809], the leader of this expedition,
was a young Virginian, the neighbor, and for some years the
private secretary, of President Jefterson. He set out in the sum-
mer of 1S03, accompanied by his associate. Captain Clarke, and
twenty-eight men. They entered the Missouri, May 14, 1804,
before the middle of the following July had reached the great
falls, and by October were upon the western slope, where, em-
bai-king in canoes upon the Kouskousky, a branch of the Colum-
bia, they descended to its mouth, where they arrived on the i^th
of November, 1805. The following spring they retraced their
course, arriving at St. Louis in September.* The results of the
expedition were first made known in Jefferson's message to Con-
gress, read February 19, 1806.

The statue of Meriwether Lewis is one of those at the base
of the Washington Monument in Richmond, Virginia, and is
worthy of the man and his career.

Dr. Asa Gray in a recent letter says :

" I have reason to think that Michaux suggested to Jefferson
the expedition which the latter was active in sending over to the
Pacific. I wonder if he put oft' Michaux for the sake of having
it in American hands .'' "|

The idea of an expedition to the Pacific was one which was likely

* See a complete bibliography of the various reports of this expedition,
by Elliott Coues, in the Bulletin of the U. S. Geological Survey,
t See Amer. Journ. Sci. , xii, No. 1.

46 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOIST.

to occur to any thoughtful American, and was, after all, simply
the continuing of a plan as old as the Spanish days of discovery.
Jefferson, at all events, was an active promoter of all such enter-
prises, and after a quarter of a century's effort the expedition was
dispatched, while in 1805 Gen. Z. M. Pike was sent to explore
' the sou'-ces of the Mississippi river and the western parts of
" Louisiana," penetrating as far west as " Pike's Peak," a name
which still remains as a memento of this enterprise.

The organization of these early expeditions marked the begin-
ning of one of the most important portions of the scientific work
of our government — the investigation of the resources and
natural history of the public domain. The expeditions of Lewis
and Clarke, and of Pike, were the precursors and prototyjDes of
the magnificent organization now accomplishing so much for
science under the charge of Major J. W. Powell.

As early as 1806, Jefferson, inspired by Patterson and Hassler,
urged the establishment of a national Coast Sui"vey, and in this
was earnestly supported by his Secretary of the Treasury, Albert
Gallatin, who drew up a learned and elaborate project for its
organization, and an act authorizing its establishment was passed
in 1807. During his administration, in 1802, the first scientific
school in this country was established, the Military Academy at
West Point. The Militar}^ Academy .was a favorite project of
General Washington, who is said to have justified his anxiety for
its establishment by the remark that " an army of asses led by a
lion is vastly superior to an army of lions led by an ass."

Jefferson has been heartily abused for not gratifying Alexander
Wilson's request to be appointed naturalist to Pike's expeditions.
It is possible that even in those days administrators were ham-
pered by lack of financial resources. It must also be remem-
bered that in 1S04 Wilson was simply an enthusiastic projector
of ornithological undertakings, and had done nothing whatever
to establish his reputation as an investigator.

PEESIDENTLAL ADDEESS. 47

One of Jefferson's first official acts was to throw his presidential
mantle over Priestley. Two weeks after he became President of
tlie United States he wrote these words :

" It is with heartfelt satisfaction that, in the first moments of
my public action, I can hail you with welcome to our land,
tender to 3'ou the homage of its respect and esteem, cover you
under the protection of those laws which were made for the wise
and good like you, and disclaim the legitimacv of that libel on
legislators which, under the form of a law, was for some time
placed among them."

* * * '' Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind,
and for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous.
Bigots may be an exception. What an effort, mv dear sir, of
bigotry in politics and religion have we gone through. * * *
All advances in science were prescribed as innovations. They
pretended to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the
education of our ancestors. We were to look backwards, not
forwards for improvement; the President (Washington) himself
declaring in one of his answers to addresses that we were never
to expect to go beyond them in real science. This was the real
ground of all the attacks on vou ; those who live bv mystery and
charlatanerie fearing you would render them useless by simpli-
fying the Christian philosophv. the most sublime and benevo-
lent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man, en-
deavored to crush your well-earned and well-desei"ved fame."*

xm.

With the close of the third decade ended the first third of a
century since the Declaration of Independence. We have now
passed in review a considerable number of illustrious names and
have noted the inception of many worthy undertakings.

" Still, however," in the words of Silliman, " although indi-
viduals were enlightened, no serious impression was produced
on the public mind ; a few lights were, indeed, held out, but
they were lights twinkling in an almost impervious gloom. "f

This was a state of affairs not peculiar to America. A gloom
no less oppressive had long obscured the intellectual atmosphere

♦Jefferson's Works (T. J. Randolph ed.), 1830, iii, 461.
t Silliman, i, 37.

48 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINaTON.

of the old world. There were a goodly number of men of
science, and many important discoveries were being made, but
no bonds had yet been formed to connect the interests of the men
of science and the men of affairs.

Speculative science, in the nature of things, can only interest
and attract scholaidy men. and though its results, concisely and
attractively stated, may have a passing interest to a certain por-
tion of every community, it is only by its practical applications
that it secures the hearty support of the community at large.

Huxley, in his recent discourse upon *•' The Advance of Science
in the Last Half Century,"* has touched upon this subject in a
most suggestive and instructive manner, and has shown that Bacon,
with all his wisdom, exerted little direct beneficial influence upon
the advancement of natural knowledge, which has after all been
chiefly forwarded by men like Galileo and Harvey, Boyle and
Newton, "who would have done their work quite as well if
neither Bacon nor Descartes had ever propounded their views
respecting the manner in which scientific investigation should be
pursued."

I think we should look upon Bacon as the prophet of modern
scientific thought, rather than its founder. It is no doubt true,
as Huxley has said, that his " scientific insight " was not sufficient
to enable him to shape the future course of scientific philosophy,
but it is scarcely true that he attached any undue value to the
practical advantages which the world as a whole, and incident-
ally science itself, were to reap from the applications of scientific
methods to the investigation of nature.

Even though the investigations of Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz,
Boyle, Torricelli, and Malpighi, had directly helped no man to
either wealth or comfort, the cumulative results of their labors,
and those of their pupils and associates, resulted in a condition

* Wood, T. H. : The Reign of Victoria; a survey of Fifty Years of Pro-
gress. London, 18S7.

PKESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 49

of scientific knowledge from which, sooner or later, utilitarian
results must necessarily have sprung.

It is true, as Huxley tells us, that at the beginning of this cen-
tury weaving and spinning were still carried on with the old
appliances ; true that nobody could travel faster by sea or by land
than at any previous time in the world's history, and true that
King George could send a message from London to York no
faster than King John might have done. Metals were still
worked from their ores by immemorial rule of thumb, and the
centre of the iron trade of these islands was among the oak for-
ests of Sussex, while the utmost skill of the British mechanic did
not get beyond the production of a coarse watch.

It cannot be denied that although the middle of the eighteenth
century was illuminated by a host of great names in science,
chemists, biologists, geologists, English, French, German, and
Italian, the deepening and broadening of natural knowledge had
produced next to no immediate practical benefits. Still I cannot
believe that Bacon, the prophet, would have been so devoid of
'* scientific insight" as to have failed to foresee at this time the
ultimate results of all this intellectual activity.

But Huxley says :

" Even if, at this time, Francis Bacon could have returned to
the scene of his greatness and of his littleness, he must have re-
garded the philosophic world which praised and disregarded his
precepts with great disfavor. If ghosts are consistent, he would
have said, " these people are all wasting their time, just as Gil-
bert, and Kepler, and Galileo, and my worthy physician Harvey
did in my day. Where are the fruits of tlie restoi'ation of science
which I promised.'* This accumulation of bare knowledge is all
very well, but ciii bono? Not one of these people is doing what I
told him specially to do, and seeking that secret of the cause of
forms, which will enable him to deal at will with matter and
superinduce new nature upon old foundations."

As Huxley, however, proceeds himself to show, in the dis-
cussion which immediately follows this passage, a " new nature.

50 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

begotten by science upon fact," has been born within the past
few decades, and pressing itself daily and hourly upon our atten-
tion, has worked miracles which have not only modified the whole
future of the lives of mankind, but has reacted constantly upon
the progress of science itself.

It is to the development of this new nature, then in its very-
infancy, that we must look for the revival of interest in science
on this side of the Atlantic.

The second decade of the century was marked by a great
accession of interest in the sciences. The second war with
Great Britain having ended, the country, for the first time since
colonial days, became sufficiently tranquil for peaceful attention
to literatui-e and philosophy. The end of the Napoleonic wars
and the restoration of tranquillity to Europe tended to scientific
advances on the other side of the Atlantic, and the results of the
labors of Cuvier, whose glory was now approaching its zenith,
of Brongniart, of Blainville, of Jussieu, of Decandolle, of Werner,
of Hutton, of Buckland, of De la Beche, of Magendie, of Hum-
boldt, Daubuisson, Berzelius, Von Buch, of Herschel, of Laplace,
of Young, of Fresnel, of Oersted, of Cavendish, of Lavoisier, Wol-
laston, Davy, and Sir William Hooker, were eagerly welcomed
by hundreds in America.

" In truth," wrote one who was among the most active in
promoting these tendencies, " in truth, a thirst for the Natural
Sciences seemed already to pervade the United States like the
progress of an epidemic."

The author of these enthusiastic words was Amos Eaton
[b. in Chatham, N. Y., 1776, d. May 6, 1843], one of the most
interesting men of his day. In 1816, at the age of forty, he
abandoned the practice of law and went to New Haven to
attend Silliman's lectures on Mineralogy and Geology. He was
a man of great force and untiring energy, and one of the pio-
neers of American geology ; though the name, '' father of Amer-

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 51

ican geology," sometimes applied to him, would seem to belong
more appropriately to Maclure, or, perhaps, to Mitchill. He
was, however, only some eight years later than Maclure in
beginning geological field-work. Eaton's " Index to the Geology
of the Northern States of America," printed in 1S17, was the first
strictly American treatise, and seems to have had a very stimu-
lating effect. He was pre-eminently an agitator and an educator.
He travelled many thousands of miles on foot throughout New
England and New York, delivering, in the meantime, at the
principal towns, short courses of lectures on natural history.
In March, 1817, having received an invitation to aid in the intro-
duction of the Natural Sciences in Williams College, his Alina
Mater, he delivered a course of lectures in Williamstown.
'' Such," he remarks, " was the zeal at this institution that an
uncont^llable enthusiasm for natural history took possession of
every mind ; and other departments of learning were, for a time,
crowded out of the college. The authorities allowed twelve
students each day (seventy-two per week) to devote their whole
time to the collection of minerals and plants, in lieu of all other
exercises."*

In April, 181 8, he went to Albany on the special invitation
of Gov. DeWitt Clinton and delivered a course of lectures on
Natural History. "In Albany I found," wrote he, " Dr. T.
Romeyn Beck, and in Troy, Doctors Burrett, Robbins, and
Dale, zealous beyond description in the cause of Natural Science.
By the exertions of these gentlemen a taste for the study of
Nature was strongly excited in those two cities, especially for
that of geology. They, together with several others, had become
members of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, and, in
the fall of 1818, established a society of the same name and
upon a similar plan in Troy. Collections were made with
such zeal that, in the course of a few months, Troy could boast

* Geological Text-Book, 2d ed., 1832, p. 16.

52 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOlSr.

of a more extensive collection of American geological specimens
than Yale College, or any other institution upon this continent."*

" In this period," remarked Bache, " the prosecution of matlie-
matics and physical science was neglected ; indeed barely kept
alive by the calls for boundary and land surveys of the more ex-
tended class, by the exertions necessary in the lecture-room, or by
isolated volunteer efforts.

"As the country was explored and settled the unworked mine
of natural history was laid open, and the attention of almost all
the cultivators of science was turned toward the development of
its riches.

" Descriptive natural history is the pursuit which emphatically
made that period. As its experiment may be taken the admira-
ble descriptive mineralogy of Cleaveland, which seemed to fill the
measures of that day and be, as it were, its chief embomment,
appearing just as the era was passing away."t

The leading spirits of the day seem to have been Silliman,
Hare, Maclure, Mitchill, Gibbs, Cleaveland, DeWitt Clinton,
and Caspar Wistar.

Names familiar to us of the present generation began now to
appear in scientific literature : Isaac Lea began to print his
memoirs on the Union idee ; Edward Hitchcock, principal of the
Deerfield Academy, was writing his first papers on the geology
of Massachusetts ; Prof. Chester Dewey, of Williams College,
[b. 1781, d. 1867], afterwards known to us all from his excellent
work upon the Carices, was discussing the mineralogy and geol-
ogy of Massachusetts ; Dr. John Torrey, also to be famous as a
botanist, was then devoting his attention to mineralogy and

* The Troy Lyceum of Natural History was incorporated in tSig, and a
lectureship was created, filled by Mr. Eaton (^Sillima/i's yoiirnal, ii, 173).
In 1820 a similar association, " The Hudson Association for Improvement
in Science," was founded in the city of Hudson, and in 1821 the Delaware
Chemical and Geological Society.

t Presidential Address Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1851, pp. vi, xlvi.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 53

chemistry ; Dr. Jacob Porter was making botanical observations
in central jNIassachusetts ; quaint old Caleb Atwater, at that time
almost the only scientific observer w^est of the Alleghanies, was
discussing the origin of prairies, meteorology, botany, geology,
mineralogy, and scenery of the Ohio country, and a little later
the remains of mammoths.

Prof, J. W. Webster, of Boston, was making general studies
in oreoloo-v ; the Rev. Elias Cornelius and Mr. John Grammer
were writing of the geology of Virginia ; ]Mr. J. A. Kain, upon
that of Tennessee, I. P. Brace, that of Connecticut, and James
Pierce, that of New Jersey.

To this period belonged the brilliant Constantine Rafinesque,
with Torrey, Silliman, Cleaveland, Gibbs, James, Schoolcraft,
Gage, Akerly, Mitchill, Dana, Beck, and Featherstonhaugh.

Dr. Henry R. Schoolcraft, afterwards prominent in ethnology,
printed, in 1S19, his '"View of the Lead Mines of Missouri,"
the first from American contributors to economic geology ; and
in the same year his '• Transallegania," a mineralogical poem,
probably the last as well as the first of its kind written in
America. In 1821 he published a scholarrly "Account of the
Native Copper on the Southern shore of Lake Superior."*

Mineralogy and geology were the most popular of the sciences.

American Geology dated its beginning from this previous
decade. Prof. S. L. Mitchill was one of the first to call
attention to the teachings of Kirwan and the pioneers of Eu-
ropean geology, and very early in the century began to
instruct the students of Columbia College in the principles
of geology as then understood. He published Observations
on the Geology of America, and also edited a New York edition
of Cuvier's " History of the Earth," contributing to this work
an appendix which was constantly quoted by early writers.

The first geological explorer was William Maclure [b. in Ayr,

*Amer. Jour. Science, iii, pp. 201-210.

54 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Scotland, 1763, d. in San Angel, Mexico, Mar. 23, 1840], a
Scotch merchant who amassed a large fortune by commercial
connections with this country, and became a citizen of the United
States about 1796. His most important service to American
science was that of a patron, for he was a liberal supporter of the
infant Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia, and for twenty-two
years its president, besides being an upholder of other important
enterprises.

The publication in 1S09 of his "Observations on the Geology
of the United States" marks the beginning of American geo-
graphical geologv and the first attempt at a geological survey of
the United States. This had long been the object of his ambi-
tion, and, in order to prepare himself for the task, he had spent
several years in travel throughout Europe, making observations
and collecting objects in natural history, which he forwarded to
the country of his adoption.

His undertaking was undoubtedly a remarkable one. " He
went forth with his hammer in his hand and his wallet on his
shoulder, pursuing his researches in every direction, visiting
almost every State and Territory, wandering often amidst path-
less tracts and di^eary solitudes until he had crossed and re-
crossed the Alleghany mountains not less than fifty times. He
encountered all the privations of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and ex-
posure, month after month and year after year, until his indom-
itable spirit had conquered every difficulty and crowned his
enterprise with success,"* and after the publication of his me-
moir he devoted eight years more to collecting materials for a
second and revised addition.

The geological map of the United States, published in 1809,
appears to have been the first of the kind ever attempted for an
entire country. Smith's geological map of England was six
years later, and Greenough's still subsequent in date.

♦Martin: Memoir of William Maclure, p. 11.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 55

The publication in London in 1813 of Bakewell's " Introduc-
tion to Geology" seems to have given a great stimulus to geo-
logical researches in this country, as may be judged from the
publication of an American edition a year or two later.

Mitchill, Bruce, and Maclure soon had a goodly band of asso-
ciates. Naturalists were not confined to limited specialties in
those days, and we find all the chemists, botanists, and zoolo-
gists absorbed in the consideration of geological problems.
Maclure and most of the Americans were disciples of Werner.

Silliman, writing in 1818, said:

"A grand outline has recently been drawn by Air. Maclure
with a masterly hand and with a vast extent of personal oliser-
vation and labour; but, to fill up the detail, both observation and
labour still more extensive are demanded ; nor can the object be
efiected till more good geologists are formed and distributed over
our extensive territory."

On the 6th of September, 1819, the American Geological
Society was organized in the philosophical room of Yale Col-
lege, an event of great importance in the history of science,
hastening, as it seems to have done, the establishment of State
surveys and stimulating observation throughout the country.
This Society, which continued in existence until about 1826,
may fairly be considered the nucleus of the Association of Ameri-
can Geologists and Naturalists, and, consequently, of the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of Science. Members
appended to their names the symbols, M. A. G. S., and it was
for a time the most active of American scientific societies.

The characteristics of the leading spirits were summed up by
Eaton at the time of its beginning :

" The President, William Maclure, has already struck out the
grand outline of North American geographical geology. The
first Vice-President, Col. G. Gibbs, has collected more facts and
amassed more geological and mineralogical specimens than any
other individual of the age. The second Vice-President. Pro-
fessor Silliman, gives the true scientific dress to all the naked

56 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHHSTaTON".

mineralog'ical subjects which are furnished to his hand. The
third Vice-President, Professor Cleaveland, is successfully em-
ployed in elucidating and familiarizing those interesting scenes ;
and thus smoothing the rugged paths of the student. Professor
Mitchill has amassed a large store of materials and annexed them
to the labors of Cuvier and Jameson. The drudgery of climbing
cliffs and descending into fissures and caverns, and of traversing
in all directions our most rugged mountainous districts, to ascer-
tain the distinctive characters, number, and order of our strata,
has devolved upon me."*

Eaton has very fairly defined his own position among the early
geologists, which was that of an explorer and pioneer. The epi-
thet, " Father of American Geology," which has sometimes been
applied to him, might more justly be bestowed upon Maclure, or
even upon Mitchill. The name of Amos Eaton [b. 1776, d.
1873] will always be memorable, on account of his connection
with the geological survey of New York, which was begun in
1820, at the private expense of Hon. Stephen Van Rensselaer;
also as the founder, in 1834, of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti-
tute, the first of its class on the continent.

The vState of New York was not pre-eminently prompt in
establishing an olficial survey, but the liberality of Van Rensse-
laer and the energy of Eaton gave to New York the honor of
attaching the names of its towns and counties to a large num-
ber of the geological formations of North America.

In these early surveys Eaton was associated with Dr. Theo-
dore Romeyn Beck and Mr. H. Webster, naturalist and collec-
tor, one of the first being a survey of the countv of Alban}', un-
der the special direction of a County Agricultural Society, fol-
lowed by similar surveys of Rensselaer county and Saratoga
county and others along the Erie Canal.

In July, 1818, Professor Sill i man began the publication of the
Americait Journal of Science^ which has been for more than
two-thirds of a century the most prominent register of the scien-

■•■■" Index to the Geology of the Northern States. 2d ed. 1820. p. viii.

PRESroETsTTIAL ADDEESS. 57

tific progress of this continent. Silliman's journal succeeded,
and far more than replaced, the Atnerican Mineralogical Jour-
nal^ the earliest of American scientific periodicals, which was
established in New York 1810 by Dr. Archibald Bruce, and
which was discontinued after the close of the first volume, in
1S14, on account of the illness and untimely death of its pro-
jector.* Tlie Mineralogical Jojwnal was not so limited in
scope as in name, and was for a time the principal organ of
our scientific specialists. f

We can but admire the spirit of Silliman, who remarks in the
preface to the third volume :

" It must require several years from the commencement of the
work to decide the question [whether it is to be supported], and
the editor (if God continues his life and healtli) will endeavour
to prove himself neither impatient nor querulous during the time
that his countrymen hold the question undecided, xvhether there
shall be a7i Atnerican Journal of Scietice and Arts."

In the fall of 1822 he announced that a trial of four years had
decided the point that the American public would support this
journal.

Prior to the establishing of Silliman's journal, the principal
organs of American science were the Medical Repository,
commenced in 179S, of which Dr. Mitchill was the chief
proprietor ; the JVexv York Aledical and Physical Journal,
conducted chiefly by Dr. Hosack ; the Boston Journal of Phi-
losophy and the Arts, and other similar periodicals. Our
students looked chiefly, however, to the English journals —
Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine and Nicholson's Journal of
Natural Philosophy, and later, Thomson's Annals of Phil-
osophy, the Annates de Chimie.

*"No future historian of American science will fail to commemorate
this work, us our earliest purely scientific journal, supported bv original
American communications'' said Silliman in his prospectus, 1817.

xThe only copies of this journal known to he in existence are in the N.
Y. State Library and the Harvard Library.

58 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOlSr.

The American Monthly Magazine^ established in 1S14 by
Charles Brockden Brown, was fully as much devoted to science
as to literature, and an examination of this and other journals
of the early portion of the century will, I think, satisfy the student
tliat scientific subjects were more seriously considered by our
ancestors than by the Americans of to-day. The American
Monthly published elaborate reviews of technical works, sucli as
Cleaveland's Mineralogy, and summaries of the world's progress
in science, as well as the monthly proceedings of all the scientific
societies in New York, and papers on systematic zoology and
botany by Rafinesque.

In 181 2 the American Antiquarian vSociety was established at
Worcester, and before 1820, when its first volume of transactions
appeared, had collected 6,000 books and ''a respectable cabinet."
This was a pioneer effort in ethnological science. Archceologia
Americana contained papers by Mitchill, Atwater, and others,
chiefly relating to the aboriginal population of America. The
name of Isaiah Thomas, LL. D. [b. in Boston 1749, d. in Wor-
cester 1831], the founder and first president of the society, who
at his own expense erected a building for its accommodation and
endowed its first researches, should be remembered with grati-
tude by American naturalists. He was one of the most eminent
of American printers, and styled by DeWarville ^' the Didot of
America."

In 181 2 the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
W3S founded, the outgrowth of a social club, whose members,
we are told, had no conception of the importance of the work
they were undertaking when, in a spirit of burlesque, they
assumed the title of an academy of learning.

In 1 81 6 the Coast Survey, after years of discussion, was placed
in action under the supervision of Hassler (who had been ap-
pointed its head as early as 181 1), but, two years later, the work
going on too slowly to please tli? Government, it was stopped.

PRESTDETSTTIAL ADDRESS. 59

The Linnsean Society of New England, established in Boston
about this time, was the precursor of the Boston Society of
Natural Science.

The publication of an American edition of Rees's Cyclopaedia,
In Philadelphia, was begun in 1810, and the 47th volume com-
pleted in 1824. This was an event in the history of American
science, for it furnished employment and thus fostered the inves-
tigations of several eminent naturalists, among whom wei'e Alex-
ander Wilson, Thomas Say, and Ord ; while, at the same time, it
fostered a taste for science in the United States and gave currency
to several rather epoch-making articles, such as Say's upon
Conchology and Entomology.

Mr. Bradbury, the publisher of this Cyclopaedia, was the first
of a goodly company of liberal and far-seeing publishers who
have done much for science in this country by their patronage of
important scientific publications.

In 1817 Josiah Meigs, Commissioner of the Land Ofiice, issued
a circular to the several Registers of the Land Offices of the
United States requiring them to keep daily meteorological obser-
vations, and also to report upon such phenomena as the times of
the unfolding of leaves of plants and the dates of flowering, the
migrations of birds and fishes, the dates of spawning of fishes,
the hibernation of animals, the history of locusts and other in-
sects in large numbers, the falling of stones and other bodies from
the atmosphere, the direction of meteors, and discoveries rela-
tive to the antiquities of the country.

It does not appear that anything ever resulted from this step,
but it is referred to as an indication that, seventy years ago, our
Government was willing to use its civil service officials in the
interest of science. A few years later the same idea was carried
into effect by the Smithsonian Institution.

In those early days each of the principal cities had public mu-
seums founded and supported by private enterprise. Their pio-

60 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOlSr.

prietors were men of scientific tastes, who affiliated with the nat-
uralists of the day and placed their collections freely at the dis-
posal of investigators.

The earliest was the Philadelphia Museum, established by
Charles Wilson Peale, and for a time housed in the buildine of
the American Philosophical Society. In iSoo it was full of pop-
ular attractions.

" There were a mammoth's tooth from the Ohio, and a woman's
shoe from Canton ; nests of the kind used to make soup of, and a'
Chinese fan six feet long; bits of asbestos, belts of wampum,
stuffed birds and feathers from the Friendly Islands, scalps, tom-
ahawks, and long lines of portraits of great men of the Revolu-
tionary War. To visit the Museum, to wander through the rooms,
play upon the organ, examine the rude electrical machine, and
have a profile drawn by the physiognomitian, were pleasures
from which no stranger to the city ever refrained."

Dr. Hare's oxyhydrogen blow-pipe was shown in this Museum
by Mr. Rubens Peale as early as 1810.

The Baltimore Museum was managed by Rembrandt Peale,
and was in existence as early as 1815 and as late as 1830.*

Earlier efforts were made, however, in Philadelphia. Dr.
Chovet, of that city, had a collection of wax anatomical models
made by him in Europe, and Prof. John Morgan, of the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, who learned his methods from the Hunters
in London and Su6 in Paris, was also forming such a collection
before the Revolution. f

The Columbian Museum and Turrell's Museum, in Boston,
are spoken of in the annals of the day, and there was a small
collection in the attic of the State House in Hartford.

*" Baltimore has a handsome museum superintended by one of the
Peale family, well known for their devotion to natural science and to
works of art. It is not their fault if the specimens which they are enabled
to display in the latter department are very inferior to their splendid ex-
hibitions in the former."— Mrs. Trollope, Domestic Manners of the
Americans. London, 1831.

t Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, ii, p. 366.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 61

The Western Museum, in Cincinnati, was founded about 1815?
by Robert Best, M. D., afterwards of Lexington, Ky., who seems
to have been a capable collector, and who contributed matter to
Gcnlman's " American Natural History." In iSiS a society styled
tie Western Museum Society was organized among the citizens,
which, though scarcely a scientific organization, seems to have
taken a somewhat liberal and public-spirited view of what a mu-
seum should be. To the naturalist of to-day there is something
refreshing in such simple appeals as the following :

'• In collecting the fishes and reptiles of the Ohio the managers
will need all the aid which their fellow-citizens may feel disposed
to give them. Although not a very interesting department of
zoology, no object of the Society offers so great a prospect of
novelty as that which embraces these animals.

*•• The obscure and neglected race of insects will not be over-
looked, antl any specimen sufficiently perfect to be introduced
into a cabinet of entomology will be thankfully received."*

Major John Eatton LeConte, U.S. A. [b. i7S4,d. 1S60], was
a very successful student of botany and zoology. He published
many botanical papers and contributions to descriptive zoology,
and also in Paris, in conjunction with Boisduval, the first
instalment of a work, of which he was really sole author, upon the
Lepidoptera of North America, j

The elder brother. Dr. Lewis LeConte [b. 1783. d. 1S38J,
was equally eminent as an observer, and was, for forty years, one
of the most prominent naturalists in the South. On his planta-
tion in Liberty county, Ga., he established a botanical garden
and a chemical laboratory. His zoological manuscripts were de-
stroyed in the burning of Columbia just at the close of the civil
war, but his observations, which he was averse to publishing in
his own name, were, we are told, embodied in the writings of his

*An Address to the people of the Western Country, dated Cincinnati,
Sept. 15, iSiS, and signed by Elijah Slack, James Findlay, William Steele,
Jesse Embrees, and Daniel Drake, Managers.

+ Histoire Generale et Iconographie.

62 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

brother, of Stephen Elliott, of the Scotch botanist Gordon,* of
Dr. William Baldwin, and others. f J

Stephen Elliott, of Charleston, South Carolina [b. i7ii,d.
1830], was a graduate of Yale in the class of 1791, and, while
prominent in the political and financial circles of his State, found
time to cultivate science. He founded in 1S13 the Literary and
Philosophical Society of South Carolina, and was its first presi-
dent; and in 1S29 was elected Professor of Natural History and
Botany in the South Carolina Medical College, which he aided
to establish. He published " The Botany of South Carolina and
Georgia" (Charleston, 1821-27), having been assisted in its
preparation by Dr. James McBride ; and had an extensive
museum of his own gathering. The Elliott Society of Natural
History, founded in 1853, or before, and subsequently con-
tinued under the name of the Elliott Society of Science and
Art, 1859-75, was named in memory of this public-spirited
man.

Jacob Green [b. 1790, d. 1S41], at different times professor
in the College of New Jersey and in Jefferson Medical College,
was one of the old school naturalists, equally at home in all
of the sciences. His paper on Trilobites (1833) was our first
formal contribution to invertebrate paleontology ; his "•Account of
some new species of Salamanders, "§ one of the earliest steps in
American herpetology ; his " Remarks on the Unios of the United
States," II the beginning of studies subsequently extensively prose-
cuted by Lea and some other entomologists. He also wrote upon
the crystallization of snow, and was the author of " Chemical

* Loudon's Gardeners' Magazine.

t A. H. Stephens in yoltnson's Cyclopcsdia, p. 1702.

J The LeConte family deserves a phice in Galto's "Hereditary Ge-
nius." Prof. John LeConte, the physicist, and Prof. Joseph LeConte,
the geologist, were sons of Dr. Lewis LeConte ; while Dr. J. L. LeConte
is the son of his brother, Major LeConte.

§ Contributions of the Maclurian Lyceum, i, Jan., 1827, p. 3.

IJ Ibid, i, ii, 41.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 63

Philosophy," "Astronomical Researches," and a work upon
Botany of the United States,

The earlier volumes of Silliman's Journal were filled with notes
of his observations in all departments of natural history.

Jose Francisco Correa da Serra, secretary of the Royal
Academy of Lisbon, was resident in Philadelphia in 1813, in the
capacity of Portuguese minister, and affiliated with our men of
science in botanical and geological interests. In 1S14 he lectured
on botany in the place of B. S. Barton, and also published sev-
eral botanical papers, as well as one upon the soil of Kentucky.

Alire Raffenau Delile, formerly a member of Napoleon's
scientific expedition to Egypt, and the editor of the *■' Flora of
Egypt," was in New York about this time, for the purpose of
completing his medical education, and seems to have clone much
to stimulate interest in botanical studies.

To this as well as to the subsequent period belonged Dr.
Gerard Troost [b. in Holland, Mar. 15, 1776, ed. at Leyden, d.
at Nashville. Aug. 17, 1S50], a naturalist of Dutch birth and edu-
cation, who came to Philadelphia in iSio, and was a founder
and the first President of the Philadelphia Academy. In 1826
he founded a Geological Survey of the environs of Philadelphia ;
in 1837 became Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Ge-
ology in the University of Nashville. As State geologist of
Tennessee from 1831-49 he published some of the earliest State
geological repoils.

Another expedition, well worthy of mention, though not ex-
ceedingly fruitful, was one made under the direction of Mr.
Maclure, President of the Philadelphia Academy, to the Sea
Islands of Georgia and the Florida peninsula. The party con-
sisted of Maclure, Say, Ord, and Titian R. Peale, and its re-
sults, though not embodied in a formal report, may be detected
in the scientific literature of the succeeding years. This was
early in i8i8, while Florida was still under the dominion of

(J 4 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Spain, and the expedition was finall}^ abandoned, owing to the
hostile attitude of the Seminole Indians in that territory.

XIV.

The third decade of the century, beginning with 1820, was
marked by a continuation of the activities of that which pre-
ceedcd. In 1S26 there were in existence twenty-five scientific
societies, more than half of them especially devoted to natural
history,* and nearly all of very recent origin.

The leading spirits were Mitchill, Maclure, Webster, Torrey,
Silliman, Gibbs, LeConte, Dewey, Hare, Hitchcock, Olmstead,
Eliot, and T. R. Beck.

Nathaniel Bowditch [b. 1773, d. 1838], who, in 1829, began
the publication of his magnificent translation of the "Mecanique
Celeste" of La Place, with those scholarly commentations which
secured him so lofty a place among the mathematicians of the
woi'ld.

vStill more important was the lesson of his noble devotion of
his life and fortune to science. The greater part of his monu-
mental work was completed, we are told, in 181 7, but he found
that to print it would cost $12,000, a sum far beyond his means.
A few years later, however, he began its publication from his
own limited means, and the work was continued, after his death,
by his wife. The dedication is to his wife, and tells us that
'■' without her approbation the work would not have been under-
taken."

Another person was W. C. Redfield [b. 1789, d. 1857], who,
in 1S27, promulgated the essential portions ef the theory of
storms, which is now pretty generally accepted, and which was
subsequently extended by Sir William Reid in Barbadoes and
Bermuda, and greatly modified by Professor Loomis, of New
Haven. An eloquent eulogy of Redfield was pronounced by ,

Amer. Journ. Sci., x, p. 368. (Cut).

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 65

Professor Denison Olmsted at the Montreal meeting of the Ameri-
can Association in 1857.*

Among the rising young investigators appear the names of
Joseph Henry, A. D. Bache, C. U. Shepard, the younger Silli-
man, Henry Seybert, William Mather, Ebenezer Emmons,
Percival, the poet geologist, DeKay, Godman, and Harlan.

The organization, in 1824, of the Rensselaer School, after-
wards the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at Troy, marked the
beffinninsf of a new era in scientific and technological education.
Its principal professoi's were Amos Eaton and Dr. Lewis C.
Beck.

In 1820 an expedition was sent by the General Government
to explore the Northwestern Territory, especially the region
around the Great Lakes and the sources of the Mississippi. This
was under charge of Gen. Lewis Cass, at that time Governor of
Michigan Territory. Henry R. Schoolcraft accompanied this
expedition as mineralogist, and Capt. D. B. Douglass, U. S. A.,
as topographical engineer ; and both of these sent home consider-
able collections reported upon by the specialists of the day. Cass
himself, though better known as a statesman, was a man of scien-
tific tastes and ability, and his '' Inquiries respecting the History,
Traditions, Languages, &c., of the Indians," published at Detroit
in 1833, is a work of high merit.

Long's expeditions into the far West were also in progress at
this time, under the direction of the General Government ; the
first, or Rocky Mountain, exploration in 1819-20; the second to
the sources of the St. Peter's, in 1823. In the first expedition
Major Long was accompanied by Edwin James as botanist and
geologist, who also wrote the Narrative published in 1823. The
second expedition was accompanied by William H. Keating,
Professor of Mineralogy and Chemistry in the University of
Pennsylvania, who was its geologist and historiographer. Say

* See History of N. Y. Academy of Science, p. 76.

66 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOlSr.

was the zoologist of both explorations. De Schweinitz worked
up the botanical material which he collected.

The English expeditions sent to Arctic North America under
the command of Sir John Franklin were also out during these
yeai's, the first from 1819 to 1S22, the second from 1825 to 1S27,
and yielded many important results. To naturalists they have
an especial interest, because Sir John Richardson, who accom-
panied Franklin as surgeon and naturalist, Avas one of the most
eminent and successful zoological explorers of the century, and
had more to do with the development of our natural history than
any other man not an American.

His natural history papers in Franklin's reports, 1823 and
1828, his '' Fauna Boreali Americana," published between 1827
and 1836, his report upon the ''Zoology of North America," are
all among the classics of our zoological literature.*

The third decade was somewhat mai^ked by a renewal of in-
terest in zoology and botany, which had, during the few preced-
ing years, been rather overshadowed by geology and mineralogy.

Rafinesque had retired to Kentucky, where, from his profes-
sor's chair in Transylvania University, he was issuing his An-
nals of Nature and his Western Minerva ; and his brilliancy
being dimmed by distance, other students of animals had a
chance to work.

One of the most noteworthy of the workers was Thomas Say
[b. 1787' ^- ^834], who was a pioneer in several departments of
systematic zoology. A kinsman of the Bartrams, he spent many
of his boyhood days in the old botanic garden at Kingsessing,
in company with the old naturalist, William Bartram, and the
ornithologist Wilson. At the age of twenty-five, having been
unsuccessful as an apothecary, he gave his whole time to
zoology. He slept in the hall of the Academy of Natural

* See Rev. John McIlwraith's Life of Sir John Richardson, C. B.,
LL. D. London, 186S. Also Obituary in London Reader, 1865, p. 707.

PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 67

Sciences, where he made his bed beneath die skeleton of a
horse, and fed himself upon bread and milk. He was wont, we
are told, to regard eating as an inconvenient interruption to sci-
entific pursuits, and to wish that he had been created with a hole
in his side, through which his food might be introduced into his
system. He built up the museum of the society, and made
extensive contributions to biological science.

His article on conchology, published in 1816 in the American
edition of Nicholson's Cyclopaedia, was the foundation of that
science in this country, and was republished in Philadelphia in
1S19, with the title, "A Description of the Land and Fresh-
water Shells of the United States."

" This work," remarked a contemporary, " ought to be in the
possession of every American lover of Natural Science. It has
been quoted by M. Lamarck and adopted by J/, de Fei-riisac^
and has thus taken its place in the scientific world."

Such was fame in America in the year of grace 1820.

In 1817 he did a similar service for systematic entomology,
and his contributions to herpetology, to the study of marine
invertebrates, especially the Crustacea, and to that of invertebrate
paleontology, were equally fundamental.

As naturalist of Long's expeditions he described many Western
vertebrates, and also collected Indian vocabularies, and it is
said that the narrative of the expeditions was chiefly based upon
the contents of his note-books.

In 1S25 he removed from Philadelphia to New Harmony, In-
diana, and, in company with Maclure and Troost, became a
member of the community founded there by Owen of Lanark.
Comparatively little was thenceforth done by him, and we can
only regret the untimely close of so brilliant a career.*

* See Memoirs by B. H. Coates, read before American Philosophical
Society. Dec. 16, 1834. Memoirs by George Ord ; also a tribute to his
memory in Ball's presidential address before the Society in January, 18SS.

68 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHESTGTON.

Charles Alexander Lesueur [b. at Havre-de-Grace, France,
Jan. I, 1778, d. at Havre, Dec. 12, 1846], the friend and associate
of Macliu'e and Say, accompanied them to New Harmony. The
i-omantic life of this talented Frenchman has been well narrated
in his biography by Ord.* He was one of the staff' of the Bau-
din expedition to Australia in 1800, and to his efforts, seconding
those of Peron, his associate, were due most of the scientific
results wdiich France obtained from that ill-fated enterprise.
Lesueur, though a naturalist of considerable ability, was, above
all, an artist. The magnificent plates in the reports prepared by
Peron t and Freycinet J were all his. He was called "the
Raffaelle of zoological painters," and his removal to America in
1S15 was greatly deplored by European naturalists. He travelled
for three years with Maclure, exploring the West Indies and the
eastern United vStates, making a magnificent collection of draw-
ings of fishes and invertebrates, and in 1818 settled in Philadel-
phia, where, supporting himself by giving drawing lessons, he
became an active member of the Academy of Sciences, and
published manv papers in its Journal.

No one ever drew such exquisite figures of fishes as Lesueur,
and it is greatly to be regretted that he never completed his pro-
jected work upon North American Ichthyology. He issued a
prospectus, with specimen plates, of a " Alemoir on the Medusas,"
and his name will alwavs be associated with the earliest American
work upon marine invertebrates and invertebrate paleontology,
because it was to him that Say undoubtedly owed his first ac-
quaintance with these departments of zoology. In 1820, while
at Albany in the service of the United States and Canadian
Boundary Commission, he gave lessons to Eaton and identified
his fossils, thus laying the foundations for the future work of
the rising school of New York paleontologists.

* Ord : Memoir of Charles Alexander Lesueur. Atn. your. Set'., 2d ser.,
viii, p. 1S9.
tVoyage des Decouvertes aux Terres Australes.
{Voyage aux Terres Australes.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 69

Twelve years of his life were wasted at New Harmony, and
in 1837, ^fter the death of Say, he returned to France, aarrying
his collections and drawings to the Natural History Museum at
Havre, of which he became Curator. His period of productive-
ness was limited to the six years of his residence in Philadelphia.
But for their sacrifice to the socialistic ideas of Owen, Say and
Lesueur would doubtless be counted among the most distin-
ETuished of our natui-alists, and the course of American zoolosr-
ical research would have been entirely different.

The Rev. Daniel H. Barnes [b. 17S5, d. 1S3S], of New York,
a graduate of Union College and a Baptist preacher, was one of
Say's earliest disciples, and from 1823 he published papers on
conchology, beginning with an elaborate study of the fresh-vs^ater
mussels. This group was taken up in 1827 by Dr. Isaac Lea,
and discussed from year to year in his well -known series of
beautifully illustrated monographs.

Mr. Barnes published, also, papers on the " Classification of the
Chitonidfe,"' on '' Batrachian Animals and Doubtful Reptiles,"
and on '• Magnetic Polarity."

The officers of the Navy had already begun their contributions
to natural histoiy which have been so serviceable in later years.
One of the earliest contributions by Barnes was a description of
five species of Chiton collected in Peru by Capt. C. S. Ridgely,
of the " Constellation."

In this period (1828-]-) was begun the publication of Audu-
bon's folio volumes of illustrations of North American birds —
a most extraordinarv work, of which Cuvier enthusiasticallv ex-
claimed: " C'est le plus magnifique monument que I'Art ait en-
core elev6 a la Nature."

Wilson was the Wordsworth of American naturalists, but Au-
dubon was their Rubens. With pen as well as with brush he
delineated those wonderful pictures which have been the delight
of the world.

70 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Born in 17S1, in Louisiana, while it was still a Spanish colony,
he became, at an early age, a pupil of the famous French painter
David, under whose tuition he acquired the rudiments
of his art. Returning to America, he began the career of an ex-
plorer, and for over half a century his life was spent, for the
most part, in the forests or in the preparation of his ornitholog-
ical publications — occasionally visiting England and France,
where he had many admirers. His devotion to his work was as
complete and self-sacrificing as that of Bowditch, the story of
whose translation of LaPlace has already been referred to. It
was a great surprise to his friends (though his own fervor did
not permit him to doubt) that the sale of his folio volumes was
sufficient to pay his printer's bills. Audubon was not a very
accomplished systematic zoologist, and when serious discrimi-
nations of species was necessary, sometimes formed alliances
with others. Thus Bachman became, his collaborator in the
study of mammals, and the youthful Baird was invited by him,
shortly before his death in 185 1, to join him in an ornithological
partnership. His relations with Alexander Wilson form the
subject of a most entertaining narration in the "■ Ornithological
Biography."*

Thomas Nuttall [b. in Yorkshire, 17S6, d. at St. Helens, Lanca-
shire, Sept. 10, 1859] was so thoroughly identified with Ameri-
can natural history and so entirely unconnected with that of
England that, although he I'eturned to his native land to die, we
may fairly claim him as one of our own worthies. He crossed
the ocean when about twenty-one years of age, and travelled in
every part of the United States and in the ^itndwich Islands
studying birds and plants. From 1822 to 182S he was curator
and lecturer at the Harvard Botanical Garden. Besides numer-
ous papers in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy,
he published in Philadelphia, in 1818, his •■' Genera of North

*i.P- 439-

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 71

American Plants," in his " Geological Sketch of the Valley of.
the Mississippi," in 1S21 ; his " Journal of Travels into the Ar-
kansas Territory," a work abounding in natural history obser-
vations ; in 1S32-4 his " Manual of the Ornithology of the United
States and Canada ;" and in iS43-9his " North American Sylva,"
a continuation of the Sylva of Michaux. About 1S50 he retired
to a rural estate in England, where he died in 1S59.

Nuttall was not great as a botanist, as a geologist, or a zoolo-
gist, but was a man useful, beloved, and respected.

Richard Harlan, M. D. [b. 1796, d. 1S43]. who, with Mitchill,
Say, Rafinesque, and Gosse, was one of the earliest of our herpetolo-
gists, and who was one of Audubon's chief friends and supporters,
published in 1825 the first instalment of his " Fauna Americana,"
which treated exclusively of mammals. This was followed, in
1826, by a rival work on mammals, by Godman. Harlan's book
was a compilation, based largely on translations of portions of
Desmarest's " Mammalogie," printed three years before in Paris.
It was so severely criticised that the second portion, which was
to have been devoted to reptiles, was never published, and its
author turned his attention to medical literature. Godman's
" North American Natural History, or Mastology," contained
much original matter, and, though his contemporaries received it
with faint praise, it is the only separate, compact, illustrated
treatise on the mammals of North America ever published, and is
useful to the present day. John D. Godman [b. in Annapolis,
Md., Dec. 20, 1794, d. in Germantown, Pa., Apl. 17, 1S30] died
an untimely death, but gave promise of a brilliant and useful
career as a teacher and investigator. His •' Rambles of a Nat-
uralist " is one of the best series of essays of the Selborne type
ever produced by an American, and his "American Natural His-
tory " is a work of much importance, even to the present day,
embodying as it does a large number of original observations.
Michaux's Sylva was, as we have seen, continued by Nuttall :

72 BIOLOaiCAL SOCIETY OF WASIIINGTOlSr.

Wilsons American Ornithology was, in like manner, continued
by Charles Lucien Bonaparte [b. in Paris, May 24, 1S03, d.
in Paris, July 30, 1857], Pii^ce of Canino, and nephew of
Napoleon the First, a master in systematic zoology. Bonaparte
came to the United States about the year 1822, and returned to
Italy in 1S28. His contributions to zoological science were of
great importance. In 1827, he published in Pisa his " Specchio
comparativo delle ornithologie di Roma e di Filadelfia," and
from 1825 to 1S33 his " American Ornithology," containing de-
scriptions of over one hundred species of birds discovered by
himself.

The publication of Torrey's " Flora of the Middle and North-
ern Sections of the United States " was an event of importance,
as was also Dr. W. J. Hooker's essay on the Botany of
America,* the first general treatise upon the American flora or
fauna, by a master abroad, is pretty sure evidence that the work
of home naturalists was beginning to tell.

So, also, in a different way, was the appearance in 1829 of
the first edition of Mrs. Lincoln's "• Familiar Lectures on Bot-
any," a work which did much toward swelling the army of
amateur botanists.

Important work was also in progress in geology. Eaton and
Beck were carrying on the Van Rensselaer survey of New York,
and in 18 18 the former published his " Index to the Geology of
the Northern States." Prof. Denison Olmstead, of the Univer-
sity of North Carolina, w^as completing the official survey of
that State — the first ever authorized by the government of a State.

Prof. Lai-dner Vanuxem, of North Carolina, in 1828, made an
important advance', being the first to avail himself successfully of
paleontology for the determination of the age of several of our
formations, and their approximate synchronism with European
beds.f

* Brewster's Edinburgh Journal of Science, iii, p. 103.
t Gill.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 73

Horace H. Hayden, of Baltimore [b. 1769, d. 1844], pub-
lished in 1S30 '-Geological Essays, or an inquiry into some of
the creoloo-ical phenomena to be found in various parts of America
and elsewhere,"* which was well received as a contribution to
the history of alluvial formations of the globe, and was apparentl}-
the first general work on geology published in this country.
Silliman said that it should be a text-book in all the schools.
He published, also, a " New Method of preserving x\na-
tomical Preparations, "f "A Singular ore of Cobalt and Manga-
nese,"J on "The Bare Hills near Baltimore, "|| and on "Silk
Cocoons," § and was a founder and vice-president of the Maryland
Academy of Sciences.

XV.

In the fourth decade (1830-40) the leading spirits were Silli-
man, Hare, Olmstead, Hitchcock, Torrey, DeKay, Henry, and
Morse.

Among the men just coming into prominence were J. W.
Draper, then professor in Hampden Sidney College, in Virginia,
the brothers W. B. and H. D. Rogers, A. A. Gould the
conchologist, and James D. Dana.

Henrv was just making his first discoveries in physics, having,
in 1S29, pointed out the possibility of electro-magnetism as a
motive power, and in 183 1 set up his first telegraphic circuit at
Albany. In 1S32 the United States Coast Survey, discontinued
in 1818, was i^eorganized under the direction of its first chief,
Hassler, now advanced in years. ^

The natural history survey of New York was organized by the

* Rev. Sill. Journ., iii, 47. Blackwood's Mag., xvi, 420; xvii, 56.

t American Medical Record, 1822.

J Ibid. 1832. II Silliman's Journal, 1822.

§ Journ. Amer. Silk Company, 1839.

H Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., ii, 163.

74 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHESTOTON",

State in 1836, and James Hall and Ebenezer Emmons were
placed upon its staff'.

G. W. Featherstonhaugh [b. 1780, d. 1866] was conducting
(1834-5) a Government expedition, exploring the geology of
the elevated country between the Missouri and Red rivers and
the Wisconsin territories. He bore the name of" United States
Geologist," and projected a geological map of the United States,
which now, half a century later, is being completed by the U. S.
geologist of to-day. Besides his report upon the survey just
referred to, Featherstonhaugh printed a " Geological Reconnois-
sance, in 1S35, from Green Bay to Coteau des Prairies," and a
" Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor," in London, 1847.

In 183S the United States Exploring Expedition under Wilkes
was sent upon its voyage of circumnavigation, having upon its staff
a young naturalist named Dana, whose studies upon the crusta-
ceans and radiates of the expedition have made him a world-wide
reputation, entirely independent of that which he has since gained
as a mineralogist and geologist. It is customary to refer to the
Wilkes expedition as having been sent out entirely in the inter-
ests of science. As a matter of fact it was organized primarily
in the interests of the whale fishery of the United States.

Dana, before his departure with Wilkes, had published, in
1837, the first edition of liis " System of Mineralogy," a work
which, in its subsequent editions, has become the standard man-
ual of the world.

The publication of Lyell's " Principles of Geology " at the be-
ginning of this decade (1830) had given new direction to the
thoughts of our geologists, and they were all hard at work under
its inspiration.

With 1839 ended the second of our thirty -year periods — the
one which I have chosen to speak of as the period of Silliman —
not so much because of the investigations of the New Haven
professor, as on account of his influence in the promotion of
American Science and scientific institutions.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 75

This was a time of hard work, and we must not withhold our
pi'aisc trom the noble little company of pioneers who were, in those
years, building the foundations upon which the scientific institu-
tions of to-day are resting.

The difficulties and drawbacks of scientific research at this time
have been well described by one who knew them :*

" The professedly scientific institutions of our c-ountry issued,
from time to time, though at considerable intervals, volumes of
transactions and proceedings unquestionably not without their
influence in keeping alive the scarcely kindled flame, but whose
contents, as might be expected, were, for the most part, rather in
conformity with the then existing standard of excellence than in
advance of it. Natural history in the United States was the mere
sorting of genera and species. The highest requisite for distinc-
tion in any physical science was the knowledge of what European
students had attained. Astvononi}' was, in general, confined to
observations, and those not of the most refined character, and its
merely descriptive departments were estimated far more highlv
than the study , of its laws. Astronomical computation had hardlj'
risen above the ciphering out of eclipses and occultations. Indeed,
I risk nothing in saying that astronomy had lost ground in Amer-
ica since those colonial times, w^hen men like Rittenhouse kept
up a constant scientific communication with students of astronomy
beyond the seas. And I believe I may farther say, that a single
instance of a man's devoting himself to science as the only earthlv
guide, aim, and object of his life, while unassured of a professor's
chair or some analogous appointment upon which he might de-
pend for subsistence, was utterly unknown.

'* Such was the state of science in general. In astronomy the
expensive appliances requisite for all observations of the higher
class were wanting, and there was not in the United States, with
the exception of the Hudson Obsei'vatory, to which Professor
Loomis devoted such hours as he could spare from his duties in
the college, a single establishment provided with the means of mak-
ing an absolute determination of the place of any celestial body, or
even relative determinations at all commensurate in accuracy with
the demands of the times. The only instrument that could be
thought of for the purpose was the Yale College telescope, which,
although provided with a micrometer, was destitute of the means
of identifying comparison-stars. A better idea of American as-
tronomy a dozen years ago can hardly be obtained than by quot-

* Gould, B. A. Address in commemoration of Sears Cook Walker.
<-Proc. Amer. Assoc. Ad. Sci'., viii, 25

76 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

ing from an article published at that time by the eminent geometer
who now retires from the position of President of this Association.
He will forgive me the liberty for the sake of the illustration.
' The impossibility,' said he, ' of great national progress in as-
tronomy, while the materials are, for the most part, imported, can
hardly need to be impressed upon the patrons of science in this
country. * * * And next to the support of observers is the
establishment of observatories. Something has been done for this
purpose in various parts of the country, and it is earnestly to be
hoped that the intimations which we have heard regarding the in-
tentions of Government may prove to be well founded ; that we
shall soon have a permanent national observatory equal in its ap-
pointments to the best furnished ones of Europe ; and that Ameri-
can ships will ere long calculate their longitudes and latitudes from
an American nautical almanac. That there is on this side of the
Atlantic a sufficient capacity for celestial observations is amply
attested by the success which has attended the efforts, necessarily
humble which have hitherto been made.'"*

XVI.

Just before the middle of the century a wave, or to speak more
accurately, a series of weaves of intellectual activity began to pass
over Europe and America. There was a renaissance, quite as
important as that which occurred in Europe at the close of the
Middle Ages. Draper and other historians have pointed out the
causes of this movement, prominent among which were the in-
troduction of steam and electricity, annihilating space and
relieving mankind from a great burden of mechanical drudgery.
It was the beginning of the " age of science," and political as well
as social and industrial changes followed in rapid succession.

In Europe the great work began a little earlier. Professor
Huxley, in his address to the Royal Society in 1SS5, took for a
fixed point his own birthday in 1S35, which ^as four months
before the completion of the railway between Stockton and
Darlington — " the ancestral representative of the vast reticulated
fetching and carrying organism which now extends its meshes
over the civilized world." Since then, he remarked, " the greater

* Peirce, Benjamin, Cambridge Miscellanj-, 1842, p. 25.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 77

part of the vast body of knowledge which constitutes the modern
sciences of physics, chemistry, biology, and geology has been
acquired, and the widest generalizations therefrom have been
deduced, and, furthermore, the majority of those applications of
scientific knowledge to practical ends which have brought about
the most striking differences between our present civilization and
that of antiquity have been made within that period of time."

It is within the past half century, he continued, that the most
brilliant additions have been made to fact and theory and service-
able hypothesis in the i-egion of pure science, for within this time
falls the establishment on a safe basis of the greatest of all the
generalizations of science, the doctrines of the Conservation of
Energy and of Evolution. Within this time the larger moiety of
our knowledge of light, heat, electricity, and magnetism has been
acquired. Our present chemistry has been, in great part, created,
while the whole science has been remodelled from foundation to
roof.

'' It may be natural," continued Professor Huxley, "■ that
progress should appear most striking to me among those sciences
to which my own attention has been directed, but I do not think
this will wholly account for the apparent advance ' by leaps and
bounds' of the biological sciences within my recollection. The
cell theory was the latest novelty when I began to work ^vith the
microscope, and I have watched the building of the whole vast
fabric of histology. I can say almost as much of embryology,
since Von Baer's great work was published in 1S2S. Our
knowledge of the morphology of the lower plants and animals
and a great deal of that of the higher forms has very largely been
obtained in my time ; while physiology has been put upon a to-
tally new foundation, and, as it were, reconstructed, by the thor-
ough application of the experimental method to the study of the
phenomena of life, and bv the accurate determination of the
purely physical and chemical components of these phenomena.

78 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

The exact nature of the processes of sexual and non-sexual repro-
duction has been brought to light. Our knowledge of geograph-
ical and geological distribution and of the extinct forms of life
has been increased a hundredfold. As for the progress of geo-
logical science, what more need be said than that the first volume
of Lyell's ' Principles ' bears the date of 1830."

It cannot be expected that, within the limits of this address, I
should attempt to show what America has done in the last half
century. I am striving to trace the beginnings, not the results, of
scientific work on this side of the Atlantic. I will simply quote
what was said by the London Times in 1S76 :

'' In the natural distribution of subjects, the history of enter-
prise, discovery, and conquest, and the growth of republics, fell
to America, and she has dealt nobly with them. In the wider
and more multifarious provinces of art and science she runs neck
and neck with the mother country and is never left behind."

It is difficult to determine exactly the year when the first
waves of this renaissance reached the shores of America. Silli-
man, in his Priestley address, placed the date at 1S45. I should
rather say 1840, when the first national scientific association was
organized, although signs of awakening maybe detected even be-
fore the beginning of the pi'evious decade. We must, however,
caiefully avoid giving too much prominence to the influence of
individuals. I have spoken of this period of thirty years as the
period of Agassiz. Agassiz, however, did not bring the waves
with him ; he came in on the crest of one of them ; he was not
the founder of modern American natural history, but, as a public
teacher and organizer of institutions, he exerted^ a most important
Influence upon its growth.

One of the leading events of the decade was the reorganization
of the Coast Survey in 1S44, i^u^der the sage administration of
Alexander Dallas Bache,* speedily followed by the beginning of

*Proc. Ainer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., ii, 164.

PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 79

investigations upon the Gulf Stream, and of the researches of
Count Pourtales into its fauna, which laid the foundations of mod-
ern deep-sea exploration. Others were the founding of the
Lawrence Scientific School, the Cincinnati Observatory, the
Yale Analytical Laboratory, the celebration of the Centennial
Jubilee of the American Philosophical Society in 1S43. and the
enlargement of Silliman's " American Journal of Science."

The Naval Astronomical Expedition was sent to Chili, under
Gibbon (1849), to make observations upon the parallax of the
sun. Lieut. Lynch was sent to Palestine (in 184S) at the head
of an expedition to explore the Jordan and the Dead Sea.

Fremont conducted expeditions, in 1848, to explore the
Rockv Mountains and the territory beyond, and Stansbury, in
i849-'^o, a similar exploration of the valley of the Great Salt
Lake. David Dale Owen was heading a Government Geological
Survey in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota (1848), and from all
of these came results of importance to science and to natural
history.

In 1849, Prof. W. H. Harvey, of Dublin, visited America and
collected materials for his Nereis Boreali-Afnericana^ which
was the foundation of our marine botany.

Sir Charles Lyell, ex-President of the Geological Society
of London, visited the United States in 1841 and again in 1845,
and published two volumes of travels, which were, however, of
much less importance than the effects of his encouraging presence
upon the rising school of American geologists. His " Principles
of Geology," as has already been said, was an epoch-making
work, and he was to his generation almost what Darwin was to
the one which followed.

Certain successes of our astronomers and physicists had a bear-
ing upon the progress of American science in all its departments,
which was, perhaps, even greater than their actual importance
would seem to warrant. These were the discovery, by the Bards

80 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHESTOTON.

of Cambridge, of Bards comet in 1846, of the satellite Hyperion
in 1S48, of the third ring of Saturn in 1S50, the discovery by
Herrick and Bradley, in 1846, of the bi-pai"tition of Belas comet,
and the application of the telegraph to longitude determination
after Locke had consti^ucted, in 184S, his clock for the registra-
tion of time observations by means of electro-magnetism.

It is almost ludicrous at this day to observe the grateful senti-
ments with which our men of science welcomed the adoption of
this American method in the observatory at Greenwich.

Americans were still writhing under the sting of Sidnej"
Smith's demand " Who reads an American book?" and the nar-
rations of those critical observers of national customs, Dickens,
Basil Hall, and Mrs. Trollope.

The continental approval of American science was like balsam
to the sensitive spirits of our countrymen.

John William Draper's versatile and original researches in
physics were also yielding weighty results, and as early as 1S47
he had already laid the foundations of the science of spectroscojDy
which Kirchhoff so boldly appropriated many years later.

Most important of all, by reason of its breadth of scope, was
the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution, which was organ-
ized in 1846 by the election of Joseph Henry to its secretaryship.
Who can attempt to say what the conditions of science in the
United States would be to-day, but for the bequest of Smithson?
In the words of John Qiiincy Adams, "• Of all the foundations
or establishments for pious or charitable uses which ever signal-
ized the spirit of the age or the comprehensive beneficence of the
founder, none can be named more deserving tli^ approbation of
mankind."

Among the leaders of this new enterprise and of the scientific
activities of the day may be named : Silliman, Hare, Henry,
Bache, Maury, Alexander, Locke, Mitchel, Peirce, Walker,
Draper, Dana, Wyman, Agassiz, Gray, Ton-ey, Haldeman,

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 81

Morton, Holbrook, Gibbes, Gould, DeKay, Storer, Hitchcock,
Redfield, the brothers Rogers, Jackson, Hays, and Owen.

Among the rising men were Baird, Adams the conchologist,
Bm-nett, Harris the entomologist, and the LeConte brothers
among zoologists; Lapham, D. C. Eaton, and Grant, among
botanists; Sterry Hunt. Brush, J. D. Whitney, Wolcott Gibbs,
and Lesley, among chemists and geologists, as well as Schiel,
of St. Louis, who had before 1843 discovered the principle of
chemical homology.

I have not time to say what ought to be said of the coming of
Agassiz in 1846. He lives in the hearts of his adopted country-
men. He has a colossal monument in the museum which he
reared, and a still greater one in the lives and works of pupils
such as Agassiz, Allen, Burgess, Burnett, Brooks, Clarke, Cooke,
Faxon, Fewkes, Gorman, Hartt, Hyatt, Joseph LeConte, Lyman,
McCrady, Morse, Mills, Niles, Packard, Putnam, Scudder, St.
John, Shaler, Verrill, Wilder, and David A. Wells.

XVIL

They were glorious men who represented American science at
the middle of the century. We may well wonder whether the
present decade will make as good a showing forty years hence.

The next decade was its continuation. The old leaders were
neaidy all active, and to their ranks were added many more.

An army of new men \vas rising up.

It was a period of great explorations, for the frontier of the
United States was sweeping westward, and there was need of a
better knowledge of the public domain.

Sitgreaves explored the region of the Zuiii and Colorado rivers
in 1852, and Marcy the Red River of the North. The Mexican
boundary survey, under Emory, was in progress from 1S54 to
1S56. and at the same time the various Pacific railroad surveys.
There was also the Herndon exploration of the valley of the Am-

82 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHESTGTOlSr.

azon, and the North Pacific exploring expedition under Rogers.
These were the days, too, when that extensive exploration of
British North America was begun, through the co-operation of
the Hudson's Bay Company with the Smithsonian Institution.

It was the harvest-time of the museums. Agassiz was building
up with immense rapidity his collections in Cambridge, utilizing
to the fullest extent the methods which he had learned in the
great European establishments and the public spirit and generosity
of the Americans. Baird was using his matchless powers of
organization in equipping and inspiring the ofliicers of the various
surveys, and accumulating immense collections to be used in the
interest of the future National Museum.

Systematic natural history advanced with rapid strides. The
magnificent folio reports of the Wilkes expedition were now
being published, and some of them, particularly those by Dana
on the crustaceans and the zoophytes and geology, that of Gould
upon the mollusks, those by Torrey, Gray, and Eaton upon the
plants, were of great importance.

The reports of the domestic surveys contained numerous papers
upon systematic natural history, prepared under the direction of
Baird, assisted by Girard, Gill, Cassin, Suckley, LeConte, Cooper,
and others. The volumes relating to the mammals and the birds,
prepared by Baird's own pen, were the first exhaustive treatises
upon the mammalogy and ornithology of the United States.

The American Association was doing a great work in popular
education through its system of meeting each year in a difterent
city. In 1S50 it met in "Charleston, and its entire expenses were
paid by the city corporation as a valid mark of public approval,
while the foundation of the Charleston museum of natural his-
tory was one of the direct results of the meeting.

In 1S57 it met in Montreal, and delegates from the English
scientific societies were present ; this was one of the earliest of
those manifestations of international courtesy upon scientific
ground of which there have since been many.

PRESLDE^S'TIAL ADDRESS. 83

In the seventh decade, which began with threatenings of civil
war, the growth of science was ahiiost arrested. A meeting of
the American Association was to have been held in Nashville in
iS6i, but none was called. In 1866, at Buffalo, its sessions were
resumed with the old board of officers elected in 1S60. One of
the vice-presidents, Gibbes, of South Carolina, had not been
heard from since the war began, and the Southern members
were all absent. Many of the Northern members wrote, explain-
ing that they could not attend this meeting because they
could not afford it, '' such had been the increase of liv-
ing expenses, without a corresponding increase in the salaries
of men of science." Few scientists were engaged in the war,
though one, O. M. Mitchel, who left the directorship of the
Dudley observatory to accept the command of an Ohio brigade,
died in service in 1862, and another, Couthouy, sacrificed his
life in the navy. Others, like Ordway, left the ranks of science
never to resume their places as investigators.

Scientific effort was paralyzed, and attention was directed to
other matters. In 1S64, when the Smithsonian building was
burned, Lincoln, it is said, looking at the flames from the win-
dows of the Executive Mansion, remarked to some military offi-
cers who were present: "Gentlemen, yonder is a national
calamity. We have no time to think about it now. We must
attend to other things."

The only important events during the war were two ; one
the organization of the National Academy of Sciences, which
soon became what Bache had remarked the necessity for in
1851, when he said: "An institution of science, supplementary
to existing ones, is much needed to guide public action in refer-
ence to scientific matters."*

The other was the passage, in 1862, of the bill for the estab-
lishment of scientific educational institutions in every State.

* Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., vi, xlviii.

84 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

The agricultural colleges were then, as they still are, unpopular
among many scientific men, but the wisdom of the measure is
apparently before long to be justified.

Before the end of the decade, the Northern States* had begun a
. career of renewed prosperity, and the scientific institutions were
reorganized. The leading spirits were such men as Pierce,
Henry, Agassiz, Gray, Barnard, the Goulds, Newberry, Lea,
Whittlesey, Foster, Rood, Cooke, Newcomb, Newton, Wy-
man, VVinchell.

Among the rising men, some of them very prominent before
1S70, were Barker, Bolton, Chandler, Eggleston, Hall, Hark-
ness, Langley, Mayer, Pickering, Young, Powell, Pumpelly,
Abbe, CoUett, Emerson, Hartt, Lupton, Marsh, Whitfield,
Williams, N. H. Winchell, Agassiz, the Aliens, Beale, Cope,
Coues, Canby, Dall, Hoy, Hyatt, Morse, Orton, Perkins, Rey,
Riley, Scudder, Sidne}^ Smith, Stearns, Tuttle, Verrill, Wood.

Soon after the war the surve3'S of the West, which have coa-
lesced to form the U. S. Geological Survey, were forming under
the direction of Clarence Cook, Lieut. Wheeler, F. V. Hayden,
and Major Powell.

The discovery of the nature of the corona of the sun by Young
and Harkness in 1S69 was an event encouraging to the rising
spirits of our workers.

XVIIL

With 1869 we reach the end of the third period and the thresh-
old of that in which we are living. I shall not attempt to define
the characteristics of the natural history of to-day, though I wish
to direct attention to certain tendencies and conditions which
exist. Let me, however, refer once more to the past, since it
leads again directly up to the present.

* See A D. White's Scientific and Industrial Education in the United
States < Popular Science Monthly, v, p. 170.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 85

In a retrospect published in 1876,* one of our leaders stated
that American science during the first forty years of the present
century was in " a state of general lethargy, broken now and
then by the activity of some first-class man, which, however,
commonly ceased to be directed into purely scientific channels."
This depiction was, no doubt, somewhat true of the physical
and mathematical sciences concerned, but not to the extent indi-
cated by the %vriter quoted. What could be more unjust to the
men of the last generation than this.? "It is," continues he,
" strikingly illustrative of the absence of everything like an
eftective national pride in science that two generations should
have passed without America having produced anything to con-
tinue the philosophical researches of Franklin."

I may not presume to criticise the opinion of the writer from
whom these words are quoted, but I cannot resist the tempta-
tion to repeat a paragraph from Prof. John W. Draper's eloquent
centennial address upon " Science in America :"

" In many of the addresses on the centennial occasion," he
said, " the shortcomings of the United States in extending the
boundaries of scientific knowledge, especially in the physical and
chemical departments, have been set foi'th. ' We must acknowl-
edge with shame our inferioritv to other people,' says one. ' We
have done nothing,' says another. * * * But we must not
forget that many of these humiliating accusations are made by
persons who are not of authority in the matter ; who, because
they are ignorant of what has been done, think that nothing
has been done. They mistake what is merely a blank in their
own information for a blank in reality. In their alacrity to de-
preciate the merit of their own country they would have us confess
that, for the last century, we have been living on the reputation
of Franklin and his thunder-rod."

These are the words of one who, himself an Englishman by
birth, could, with excellent grace, upbraid our countrymen for
their lack of patriotism.

The early American naturalists have been reproached for de-

* North American Review.

8G BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

voting their time to explorations and descriptive natviral history,
and their work depreciated, as being of a character beneath the
dignity of the biologists of to-day.

" The zoological science of the country," said the president of
the Natural History Section of the American Association a few
years since, "presents itself in two distinct periods: The first
period may be recognized as embi'acing the lowest stages of the
science ; it included, among others, a class of men who busied
themselves in taking an inventory of the animals of the country,
an important and necessarv work to be compared to that of the
hewers and diggers who Prst settle a new country, but in their
work demanded no deep knowledge or breadth of view."

It is quite unnecessary to defend systematic zoology from such
slurs as this, nor do I believe that the writer quoted would really
defend the ideas whicli his words seem to convev, although, as
Professor Judd has regretfully confessed in his recent address
before the Geological Society of London, systematic zoologists
and botanists have become somewhat rare and out of fashion in
Europe in modern times.

The best vindication of the wisdom of our early writers will
be, I think, the presentation of a counter-quotation from another
presidential address, that of the venerable Dr. Bentham before
the Linnaean Society of London, in 1S67 :

"It is scarcely half a century," wrote Bentham, " since our
American bi'ethren applied themselves in earnest to the in-
vestigation of the natural productions and physical condition of
their vast continent ; their progress, especially during the latter
half of that period, had been very rapid until the outbreak of the
recent war, so deplorable in its eftbcts in the interests of science
as well as on the material prosperity of their countiy. The pe-
culiar condition of the North American Continent requires im-
peratively that its physical and biological statistics should be ac-
curately collected and authentically recorded, and that this should
be speedil}' done. It is more than any country, except our Aus-
tralian colonies, in a state of transition. Vast tracts of land are
still in what may be called almost a primitive state, unmodified
by the effects of civilization, uninhabited, or tenanted only by the
remnants of ancient tribes, whose unsettled life never exercised

PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 87

much influence over the natural productions of the country. But
this state of things is rapidly passing away ; Ihe invasion and
steady progress of a civilized population, whilst changing gen-
erally the face of nature, is obliterating many of the evidences
of a former state of things. It may be true that the call for re-
cording the traces of previous conditions may be particularly
strong in Ethnology and Archaeology ; but in our own branches
of the science, the observations and consequent theories of Dar-
win having called special attention to the history of species, it
becomes particularlv important that accurate biological statistics
should be obtained for future comparison in those countries
where the circumstances influencing those conditions are the most
rapidlv changing. The larger races of wild animals are dwin-
dling down, like the aboriginal inhabitants, under the deadly in-
fluence of civilized man. Myriads of the lower orders of animal
life, as well as of plants, disappear with the destruction of forests,
the drainage of swamps, and the gradual spread of cultivation,
and their places are occupied by foreign invaders. Other races,
no doubt, without actually disappearing, undergo a gradual change
under the new order of things, which, if perceptible only in the
course of successive generations, require so much the more for
future proof an accurate record of their state in the still unsettled
condition of the country. In the Old World almost every at-
tempt to compare the present state of vegetation or animal life
with that which existed in uncivilized times is in a great meas-
ure frustrated by the absolute want of evidence as to that former
state; but in North America the change is going forward, as it
were, close under the eye of the observer. This consideration
may one day give great value to the reports of the naturalist sent
by the Government, as we have seen, at the instigation of the
Smithsonian Institution and other promoters of science, to ac-
company the surveys of new territories."

Havinsr said this much in defence of the scientific men of the
United States, I wish, in conclusion, to prefer some very serious
charges against the country at large, or, rather, as a citizen of
the United States, to make some very melancholy and hiunili-
ating confessions.

The present century is often spoken of as " the age of science,"
and Americans are somewhat disposed to be proud of the manner
in which scientific institutions are fostered and scientific investi-
gators encouraged on this side of the Atlantic.

Our countrymen have made very important advances in many

88 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

departments of research. We have a few admirably organized
laboratories and observatories, a few good collections of scientific
books, six or eight museums worthy of the name, and a score or
moi-e of scientific and technological schools, well organized and
better provided with officers than with money. We have several
strong scientific societies, no one of which, however, publishes
transactions worthy of its own standing and the collective reputa-
tion of its members. In fact, the combined publishing funds of all
our societies would not pay for the annual issue of a volume of
memoirs, such as appears under the auspices of any one of a dozen
European societies which might be named.

Our Government, by a liberal support of its scientific depart-
ments, has done much to atone for the really feeble manner in
which local institutions have been maintained. The Coast Sur-
vey, the Geological Surveys, the Department of Agriculture, the
Fish Commissions, the Army, with its Meteorological Bureau, its
Medical Museum and Library, and its explorations ; the Navy,
with its Observatory, its laboratories and its explorations ; and in
addition to these, the Smithsonian Institution, with its systematic
pi^omotion of all good works in science, have accomplished more
than is ordinarily placed to their credit. Many hundreds of vol-
umes of scientific memoirs have been issued from the Government
pi-inting office since 1S70, and these have been distributed in such
a generous and far-reaching way that they have not failed to reach
every town and village in the United States whei"e a roof has been
provided to protect them.

It may be that some one will accuse the Government of having
usurped the work of the private publisher. Very little of value
in the way of scientific literature has been issued during the same
period by publishers, except in reprints or translations of works
of foreign investigators. It should be borne in mind, however,
that our Government has not only published the results of investi-
gations, but has supported the investigators and provided them

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 89

with laboratories, instruments and material, and that the me-
moirs which it has issued would never, as a i^ule, have been ac-
cepted bv private publishers.

I do not ^^ ish to underrate the efficiency of American men of
science, nor the enthusiasm with which many public men and cap-
italists have promoted our scientific institutions. Our countrymen
have had wonderful successes in many directions. They have
borne iheir share in the battle of science against the unknown.
Thev have had abundant recognition from their fellow-workers
in the Old World. Thev have met perhaps a more intelligent
appreciation abroad than at home. It is the absence of home ap-
preciation that causes us very much foreboding for the future.

In Boston or Cambridge, in New York, Philadelphia, Bal-
timore, Washington, Chicago, or San Francisco, and in most of
the college towns, a man interested in science may find others
I'eady to talk over with him a new scientific book, or a discovery
which has excited his interest. Elsewhere, the chances are, he
will have to keep his thoughts to himself. One may quickly re-
cite the names of the towns and cities in \vhich mav be found ten
or more people whose knowledge of anv science is aught than
vague and rudimentary. Let me illustrate my idea by supposing
that everv inhabitant of the United States, over fifteen years of
age, should be required to mention ten living men eminent in sci-
entific work, would one out of a hundred be able to respond.''
Does anv one suppose that there are three or four hundred thou-
sand people enlightened to this degree.''

Let us look at some statistics, or, rather, some facts, which
it is convenient to ai'range in statistical form. The total number
of white inhabitants of the United States in iSSowas about forty-
two millions. The total number of naturalists, as shown in the
Naturalist's Directory for iSS6, was a little over 4,600. This
list includes not only the investigators, who probably do not ex-
ceed five hundred in number, and the advanced teachers, who

90 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHLNGTON.

muster, perhaps, one thousand strong, but all who are sufficiently-
interested in science to have selected special lines of study.

We have, then, one person interested in science to about ten
thousand inhabitants. But the leaven of science is not evenly dis-
tributed through the national loaf. It is the tendency of scientific
men to congregate together. In Washington, for instance, there
is one scientific man to every 500 inhabitants, in Cambridge one
to 850, and in Nevv^ Haven one to 1,100. In New Orleans the
proportion is one to S,Soo, in Jersey City one to 24,000, in New
York one to 7,000, and in Brooklyn one to 8,500. I have before
me the proportions worked out for the seventy-five principal cities
of the United States. The showing is suggestive, though no doubt
in some instances misleading. The tendency to gregariousness
on the part of scientific men may, perhaps, be further illustrated by
a reference to certain societies. The membership of the National
Academy of Sciences is almost entirely concentrated about Bos-
ton, New York, Philadelphia, Washington and New Haven.
Missouri has one member, Illinois one. Ohio one, Maryland, New
Jersey and Rhode Island three, and California four — while thirty-
two vStates and Territories are not represented. A precisely sim-
ilar distribution of members is found in the American Society of
Naturalists. A majority of the members of the American Associ-
ation for the Advancement of Science live in New^ York, Massa-
chusetts, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Min-
nesota, Ohio, Illinois and New Jersey.

It has been stated that the average proportion of scientific
men to the population at lai-ge is one to ten thousand. A more
minute examination shows that while fifteen of the States and Ter-
ritories have more than the average proportion of scientific men,
thirty-two have less. Oregon and California, Michigan and Del-
aware have very nearly the normal number. Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, Colorado and Florida have
about one to four thousand. West Virginia, Nevada, Aikansas,

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 91

Mississippi, Georgia, Kentuck}^ Texas, Alabama and the Caro-
linas are the ones least liberally furnished. Certain cities appear
to be absolutely without scientihc men. The worst cases of des-
titution seem to be Paterson, New Jersey, a city of 50,000 in-
habitants. Wheeling, with 30.000, Qiiincy, Illinois, with 36,000,
Newport. Kentucky, with 20.000, Williamsport, Pennsylvania,
and Kingston, New York, with iS,ooo, Council Bluffs, Iowa,
and Zanesville, Ohio, with 17,000, Oshkosh and Sandusky, wiih
15,000, Lincoln, Rhode Island, Norwalk, Connecticut, and
Brockton and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with 13,000. In these
there are no men of science recorded, and eight cities of more
than 1^,000 inhabitants have only one, namely, Omaha, Ne-
braska, and St. Joseph, Missouri, Chelsea, Massachusetts, Co-
hoes, New York, Sacramento, California, Binghamton, New
York, Portland, Oi'egon, and Leadville, Colorado.

Of course these statistical statements are not properly statis-
tics. I have no doubt that some of these cities are misrepresented
in what has been said. This much, however, is probably true,
that not one of them has a scientific societv. a museum, a school
of science, or a sufficient number of scientific men to insure even
the occasional delivery of a course of scientific lectures.

Studying the distribution of scientific societies, we find that
there are fourteen States and Territories in which there are no sci-
entific societies w'hatever. There are fourteen States which have
State academies of science or societies which are so organized as
to be equivalent to State academies.

Perhaps the most discouraging teature of all is the diminutive
circulation of scientific periodicals. In addition to a certain num-
ber of specialists' journals, we have in the United States three
which are wide enough in scope to be necessary to all who attempt
to keep an abstract of the progress of science. Of these, the Amer-
ican yournal of Science has, we are told, a circulation of less than
Soo ; the A?nerican Naturalist y less than 1,100, and Science^ less

92 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASIIINOTON".

than 6,000. A considerable proportion of the copies printed go,
as a matter of course, to public institutions, and not to individuals.
Even the Popular Sciefice Monthly and the Scientific Ameri-
can^ which appeal to large classes of unscientific i^eadcrs, have
circulations absurdly small.

The most efTective agents for the dissemination of scientific
intelligence are, probably, the religious journals, aided to some
extent by the agricultural journals, and to a very limited degree
by the weekly and daily newspapers. It is much to be regretted
that several influential journals, which ten or fifteen years ago
gave attention to the publication of trustworthy scientific intelli-
gence, have of late almost entirely abandoned the effort. The
allusions to science in the majority of our newspapers are singu-
larly inaccurate and unscholarly, and too often science is referred
to only when some of its achievements offer opportunity for witti-
cism.

The statements which I have just made may, as I have said,
prove, in some instances erroneous, and, to some extent, mislead-
ing, but I think the general tendency of a careful study of the dis-
tribution of scientific men and institutions is to show that the peo-
ple of the United States, except in so far as they sanction by their
approval the work of the scientific departments of the Government,
and the institutions established by private munificence, have little
reason to be proud of the national attitude toward science.

I am, however, by no means despondent for the future. The
importance of scientific work is thoroughly appreciated, and it
is well understood that many important public duties can be per-
formed properly only by trained men of science. The claims of
science to a prominent place in every educational plan are every
year more fully conceded. Science is permeating the theory and
the practice of every art and every industry, as well as every de-
partment of learning. The greatest danger to science is, per-
haps, the fact that all who have studied at all within the

PRESrDEjSTTIAL ADDRESS. 93

last quarter of a century have studied its rudiments and feel
competent to employ its metliods and its language, and to form
judgments on the merits of current work.

In the meantime the professional men of science, the scholars,
and the investigators seem to me to be strangely indifferent to the
questions as to how^ the public at large is to be made familiar
with the results of their labors. It may be that the tendency to
specialization is destined to deprive the sciences of their former
hold upon popular interest, and that the study of zoology, bot-
any and geology, mineralogy and chemistry will become so
technical that each will require the exclusive attention of its
votaries for a period of years. It may be that we are to have no
more zoologists such as Agassiz and Baird, no more botanists
such as Gray, and that the place which such men filled in the
con^munity will be supplied by combinations of a number of
specialists, each of whom knows, with more minuteness, limited
portions of the subjects grasped bodily by the masters of the last
generation. It may be that the use of the word naturalist is to
became an anachronism, and that we are all destined to become,
generically biologists, and, specifically, morpholog^sts, histologists,
embryologists, physiologists, or, it may be, cetologists, chirop-
terologists, oologists, carcinologists, ophiologists, helmintholo-
gists, actinologists, coleopterists, caricoologists, mycologists,
muscologists, bacteriologists, diatomologists, paleo-botanists, cryS-
tallographet"s, petrologists, and the like.

I can but believe, however, that it is the duty of every sci-
entific scholar, however minute his specialty, to resist in himself,
and in the professional circles which surround him, the tendency
toward narrowing technicality in thought and sympathy, and
above all in the education of non-professional students. •

I cannot resist the feelinfj that American men of science are
in a large degree responsible if their fellow-citizens are not
fully awake to the claims of scientific endeavor in their midst.

94 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

I am not in sympathy with those who feel that their dignity
is lowered when their investigations lead toward improvement
in the physical condition of mankind, but I feel that the highest
function of science is to minister to their mental and moral wel-
fare. Here in the United States, more than in any other country,
it is necessary that sound, accurate knowledge and a scientific
manner of thought should exist among the people, and the man
of science is becoming, more than ever, the natural custodian of
the treasured knowledge of the world. To him, above all oth-
ers, falls the duty of organizing and maintaining the institutions
for the diffusion of knowledge, many of which have been spoken
of in these addresses — the schools, the museums, the expositions,
the societies, the periodicals. To him, more than to any other
American, should be made familiar the w^ords of President
Washington in his farewell address to the American people :

"Promote, then, as an object of primary importance,
institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.

In PROPORTION AS THE STRUCTURE OF A GOVERNMENT GIVES
FORCE TO PUBLIC OPINIONS IT SHOULD BE ENLIGHTENED.

WILLIAM STIMPSON.

SOME AMERICAN CONCHOLOGISTS.*
By William H. Dall.

I had selected another theme as the subject of my address on
this occasion. But the press of engagements which had to be
met prevented the completion of the work required by my first
choice, and in looking about for a substitute which would require
less original research I remembered that we have not anywhere
an epitome of the biography of those naturalists who began in
this country the study of the mollusca and who may be truly said
to be the pioneers of American conchology.

There was the more propriety in the selection of this topic at
the present time since in the year 1SS7 came the seventieth
anniversary of the publication in the United States of the first
paper on the American shells, bv an American, which ever
appeared. We can regard it as forming the extreme limit which
might have been attained by a single life, mature enough in 18 17
to have appreciated in some measure the dawn of conchological
investigation in America. The only naturalist ^vhose life nearly
coincided with this period, the late Dr. Isaac Lea, passed over to
the majority about a year ago, and, as it happens, his attention
was not called to what the French call •' the beautiful Science"
until 1835.

The contributions of American investigators to the sum of our
knowledge of the mollusca have been numerous and important.
Many American publications are among the classics of this branch
of science. f

*Annual presidential address, delivered at the Eighth Anniversary
Meeting of the Biological Society, January 2S, 18SS, in the lecture-room
of Columbian University.

t Consult BiNXEY (W. G.): Bibliography of North-American Conchol-
ogy, previous to the year i860, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution,

95

96 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

But it is not to their publications that I desire to direct your
attention, nor to the reputation, due to their labors, acquired for
the United States among foreign investigators. It is to the men
themselves, the circumstances of their lives, their struggles in an
inappreciative age, their unwearied and self-sacrificing devotion to
the study of nature.

Of course, in an address of this sort, there is only time for the
briefest mention of many facts of interest and value to the biog-
rapher ; and it would be quite impossible to do even as much as
this for all those who have a right to appear on a complete record.
So I have confined my attention to some of those who may fairly
be considered as pioneers, reserving for another occasion those still
active, and many other worthy names.

Following the example of Coues and Goode in their classifi-
cation of the students of vertebrate zoology, I may divide the
study of mollusca in this country into three periods, although
these are connected b}- many intermediate links. The infancy of
the science, witli a Linnaean classification, has no representation
in American conchological Hterature, which sprang, full-grown,
like Minerva from the head of Jove, from the Lamarckian school

Parti. Washington, Smithsonian Institution, March 1863; Part ii, June,
1S64, Svo, viii, 650, and iv, 298 pp. Also Tryon (G. W.) : A Sketch of the
History of Conchology in the United States (Am. Journ. Science, xxxiii,
March 1862, pp. 13-32), and List of American Writers on Recent Con-
chology, with the titles of their memoirs and dates of publication. New-
York, Bailliere, 1S61, 8vo, 68 pp.

There are also a number of portraits of the more distinguished Con-
chologists given in the first and second volumes of the American Journal
of Conchology, though these are not always as good as might be wished.

The above-mentioned works, which contain almost no biographical de-
tails, and various dictionaries and encyclopedias have been freely con-
sulted for the material used in this address, but a good deal of it has been
the result of personal inquiry, letter-writing, and even advertisement in
the newspapers for dates and other missing details. To numerous cor-
respondents I take this opportunity of expressing m}' thanks for data
furnished and which would probably in a few years have been irretrievably
lost.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 97

of Europe. The first period might fitly bear the name of its in-
augurator, Thomas Say. It is characterized by a rapid advance
in the determination of the fauna, the classification of the species,
and the exploration of vast areas. It extended from 1S17 to
1841.

The second period should bear the name of Dr. A. A. Gould.
It was inaugurated by his report on the Invertebrata of Massa-
chusetts, and characterized by the broader scope of investigation,
the interest in geographical distribution, the anatomy of the
soft parts, and the more precise definition and exact discrimination
of specific forms, as exemplified in his writings.

The third period would be appropriately called after Dr. Wil-
liam Stimpson, who eagerly adopted the radical changes in classi-
fication rendered necessary by the discoveries of Loven, and
stood ready to welcome the theory of evolution with all the light
it shed in dark places.

Though violently opposed to evolution, the teachings of Agas-
siz did much to hasten the fruition of the new school of students.
For the rational methods of teaching and investigation which he
devised or made popular, the present era is greatly in his debt.
This period can hardly be said to have been introduced by any
epoch-making work, but gradually the old methods were discarded
for the new.

The latter were fully exemplified by such works as Morse's
" Pulmonifera of Maine" (1S64), Stimpson's ^' Hyd'-obiinie "
(1865), and a long list of subsequent publications.

Of men belonging to the Sayian period may be mentioned Say,
Lesueur, Barnes, Green, Morton, Couthouy, Warren, Anthony,
Nuttall, Haldeman, and Conrad.

Rafinesque \\ii% sui generis^ and Lea links this period with the
next.

Of the Gouldian period are Gould, Amos Binney, C. B.
Adams, Carpenter.

98 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Of the Stimpsonian period I can only refer to Bland, whose
place is here rather than with Gould ; and lastly, Stimpson himself.

Thomas Say.

Thomas Say was born at Philadelphia, of Qiiaker ancestry,
July 27, 17^7* -^^^ father, as was usual in those days, united to
the profession of a physician the duties of an apothecary. Young
Say received a very rudimentary education in one of the Qiiaker
schools and at the " Friends' Academy " at Weston, a few miles
from Philadelphia. At a later time he studied pharmacy under
his father's supervision, and was established in that business with
another person whose steady habits it was supposed would ensure
success. Among his acquaintance Say's name was always
associated with honor and veracity. Conscious of rectitude him-
self, ingenuous and sincere, he took for granted that others were
so, and, as is too often the case, he fell a victim to his trust in
others. Having endorsed the business paper of ostensible friends,
through their failure he was involved in financial ruin. His heart
was not in business, he attended to it with indifference, and, from
his school days, was drawn irresistibly toward a study of animated
nature. Maich 21, 181 2, he became a member of the Academy
of Natural Sciences, then in the process of transformation from
a social club to an association of naturalists. The president,
William Maclure, seems to have been a warm and intimate friend
of Say, and assisted him pecuniarily, for he became the first
curator of the embryo museum and lived on its premises for sev-
eral years, part of the time subsisting on such frugal fare as might
be obtained for twelve cents a day ! His time was devoted to
study and his reputation as a naturalist was already somewhat
spread, for he was selected by the publishers to furnish several
articles on American Natural History to the American edition of
Nicholson's British Encyclopedia, a work which rapidly reached
its third edition. In the winter of 181 6-1 7 appeared the second

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 99

volume, in which the article " Conchology," consisting of fifteen
pages and illustrated by four plates, was prepared by Say, and has
the honor of being the first paper on American Conchology by
an American which appeared in this country. It contained a
general statement of the principles of the science as then under-
stood, followed by descriptions of American land and fresh-water
shells to the number of thirty-one species. The article was
issued separately, with a title page, as "Descriptions of Land
and Fresh-water Shells of the United States." The second edi-
tion, issued the following year, contained some improvements,
and the third edition (1819) had the article considerably en-
larged, as it forms twenty pages of the fourth volume of the
series.*

The readiness with which Say i^esponded to the requests of
others, his liberality in communicating his knowledge to those
who sought it, and his agreeable social qualities were the cause
of so many interruptions that he was led to devote to study the
hours which he should have given to repose, and often worked
all night. This injudicious course resulted in serious derange-
ment of the digestive organs, and weakened his constitution.
These causes, together with habits of rigid austerity in diet, were
probably instrumental in bringing about his premature decease.

In 1818, Say, Ord, Maclure, and Peale made an expedition to
the sea islands of Georgia and the country east of Florida, then
under Spanish rule. Later, Say was appointed chief zoologist to
the two expeditions to the headwaters of the Mississippi, etc.,
commanded by Major Long. The same modesty which led him
to decline a professorship in an institution of learning on the
ground of inadequate scholarship led him to decline the position of

*The first edition is very rare. A copy is said to exist in the library of
the U. S. Naval Academy. The second edition occurs in the library of the
Boston AthencBum and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. The
original manuscript is in the archives of the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia.

100 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

historian of Long's expedition after the death of Dr. Baldwin, the
first appointee. This modesty led to habits of retirement, and
withdrew him from society, except that of his private friends,
among whom he was idolized. His domestic virtues were beyond
eulogy, and his disposition was so truly amiable, his manners so
charming, that no one, having once formed his acquaintance,
could cease to esteem him.

These qualities led him to be influenced by those whom he
admired, and whg possessed a more pushing and self-assertive
disposition. It is probable that the great mistake of his life was
due to influence thus exerted by his friend and patron, Wm.
Maclure.

About the year 1824 the recurrence of one of those waves of
sentiment, which, like spots on the sun, appear at intervals, with
a certain regularity, to obscure the common sense of the most be-
nevolent and enlightened of mankind, led to the disinterested,
though foolish, investment by Robert Owen of large sums in a
socialistic enterprise. At the village of New Harmony, in a
malarious situation on the Wabash river of Indiana, the sun of
righteousness, letters, and science was to rise and illuminate the
benighted Western world. Mr. Maclure became convinced of the
truth of the gospel according to Owen, and, in 1825, set out for the
New Jerusalem, involving in his train his friend Si'.y and several
other natui'alists. With them went several ladies of intelligence
and beauty, one of whom, Lucy Sistare, became the devoted wife
of Say, and long svu'vived him.* In a little more than a year the
community went to pieces, one founder retiring to Eui"ope, and
the other to Mexico, disgusted with the intractability of human
nature. It is sufficient to quote a criticism by the son, Robei't
Dale Owen, himself a member of the community, as given in his
autobiography fifty years later :f " I do not believe that any

*She died in 1SS6, according to Mr. Schwarz.

t Threading my Way, by Robert Dale Owen. 8vo. New York, Carleton
& Co., 1874; p. 290.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 101

industrial experiment can succeed which proposes equal remuner-
ation to all men, the diligent and the dilatory, the skilled artisan
and the common laborer, the genius and the drudge. What may
be safely predicted is that a plan which remunerates all alike
will, in the present condition of society, ultimately eliminate
from a co-operative association the skilled, efficient, and industri-
ous members, leaving an ineffective and sluggish residue, in whose
hands the experiment will fail, both socially and pecuniarily."

But Say had become involved for life. He had married, he
had accepted the agency of the property, the duties of which
compelled his presence on the spot ; he had no other means of
support, and therefore resigned himself with his usual philosophy
to await the course of events, appropriating all his moments of
leisure to his favorite pursuits, and preserving unruffled the
serenity of his mind. Mrs. Say prepared drawings and litho-
graphs, and on a little hand-press the early numbers of the
" American Conchology " were printed.

The malaria began to influence his health. Had he felt free to
follow his medical advice or the affectionate solicitation of his
friends, he would have returned to the more genial climate of his
native city. But a sense of duty predominated over the claims
of affection and the terrors of death, and he remained to become
a sacrifice to a fever, which carried him oft' on the loth of Octo-
ber, 1834.

I have seen no description of Mr. Say's personal appearance,
but his portrait* indicates that his face and expression were in
harmony with his amiable character.

♦National Portrait Gallery, vol. iv. Copied in Am. Journ. Conchology,
vol. i, 1865. Biography, by Ord, in LeConte's edition of Say's American
Entomology, and in Waldie's Select Circular Library, vol. v, 1S35, by B.
H. Coates, M. D. It seems evident from the hypercritical and patronizing
tone of Ord's biography that his old friendship for Say had been severely
wrenched, if not broken, by the personal controversies which raged so
violently at Philadelphia, and involved nearly all the scientific workers, or
those interested in the progress of science, of which Philadelphia was
then the American centre. A better biography of Say is greatly needed.

102 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

His conchological work was far above the average of its day,
and fully abreast of the knowledge of the time.

His monument,* erected in 1846 by Alexander, brother of

William Maclure, in the garden of the Maclure mansion at New

Harmony, bears the following appropriate lines :

Votary of Nature, even from a child,

He sought her presence in the trackless wild.

To him the shell, the insect, and the flower

Were bright and cherished emblems of her power;

In her he saw a spirit all divine,

And worshipped like a pilgrim at her shrine.

Charles Alexander Lesueur.

Second, in point of time, among those who published in
America on American and other mollusks, is Charles Alexander
Lesueur, t born at Havre-de-Grace, France, Jan. i, 1778.

He grew up with a love for natural history so great that in
order to accompany the scientific expedition of the " Geographe "
under Baudin in the year 1800 he enlisted as a landsman among
the crew. Another enthusiast who had, as it were, forced him-
self upon the expedition was Fran9ois Peron, who discovered the
unusual talents of Lesueur as an artist and succeeded in getting
him transferred to the position of zoological draughtsman, where
those talents could be put to their proper use. Henceforth the
two young men were inseparable friends. The commander of
the expedition turned out to be most unfit for his position. Be-
sides exhibiting great inhumanity to his subordinates, it is alleged
that he was no better than a thief and appropriated to his own
emolument the stores of the expedition. He died at last, with
many of the others, and finally of the scientific staff only Peron
and Lesueur returned to France in 1804. Six years later Peron

♦Recently described by Mr. E. A. Schwarz in Proc. Ent. Soc, Wash.,
vol. i, No. 2.

t See Memoir, by George Ord, in Silliman's Journal, second series, vol.
viii, p. 189, 1849.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. lOP)

died in the midst of his labors. Lesueur, inconsolable, was in-
duced to take a voyage to the Antilles and the United States to
remove the melancholy which oppressed him. He arrived in the
United States in 1816 and settled in Philadelphia the following
year, where he taught drawing and pursued his studies, being
very cordially received by the resident naturalists. After a resi-
dence of nine years in Philadelphia, where he was in a situation
most congenial to his tastes and useful to science, he was impelled,
through a mistaken sense of duty, to join the settlement of
Socialists at New Harmony, Indiana. The presence of Mr. Say
rendered the new situation endurable for a time, but with his
death in 1834 the delusive expectation that human virtue would
increase in the ratio that human individuality was stifled faded
completely away, and the position was no longer bearable. He
departed for New Orleans and for France, where his tastes and
acquirements found their opportunity of fruition at Paris, near
the Jardin des Plantes, and afterward at Havre, where a museum
was established, of which he was appointed curator in 1845. He
was attacked by sudden inflammation of the lungs, which carried
him off on the I3th of Dec, 1S46, in the 68th year of his age.

Lesueur was a man of unobtrusive and modest manners and
social and amicable disposition. Frugal himself, he was gen-
erous to others, even in cases where prudence would justify re-
serve. He suffered from robbery, perpetrated under the guise of
friendship, yet with the remnant he had left, and the infirmities
of age coming upon him, he shared with others whose necessities
were greater than his own.

Lesueur was more of an ichthyologist than a conchologist, but
his paper on Firola, in vol. i of the Journal of the Academy of
Natural Sciences, was the second paper on mollusks published
in the United States and the first on exotic mollusks which
appeared here.

104 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHHSTGTOlSr.

Daniel Henry Barnes.

The Rev. Daniel Henry Barnes, of the Baptist denomination,
was born in Canaan, N. Y., x^pril 25, 1785, and was killed by-
falling from a stage coach between Nassau and Troy, N. Y.,
October 37, 1828. He graduated at Union College in 1809, and
took charge for three years of the classical school there, at a later
time. Afterward he was professor of languages in the Baptist
Theological Seminary, and in 1824 wa^ associate principal of the
New York High School for Boys, an institution he is said to have
originated and conducted with great ability. He declined calls
to the Presidency of Waterville College, Maine, and the Colum-
bian University, of Washington, D. C. He was a man of high
reputation for character and culture, and one of the chief pro-
moters of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, now the
New York Academy of Sciences. He assisted Webster in the
prepai-ation of his dictionary, and published several early papers
on the Unionidce and Chitons, of which he described several
forms, while others have been named in his honor by several
naturalists.

Jacob Green.

Another of the earliest contributors to molluscan literature in
America was Dr. Jacob Green, who was born July 26, 1790,
at Philadelphia, and died there February i, 1S41. He was the
son of Ashbel Green, President of Princeton College in 1812, and
grandson of the Revolutionary patriot, the Rev. Jacob Green,
who was President of the College of New Jersey in i757* Owx
conchologist graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1806,
was professor of chemistry and natural history at Princeton 1818-
22, and then pi'ofessor of chemistry in the Jeflerson Medical Col-
lege, of Philadelphia, until his death. While his contributions
to conchology were not numerous they were of a high order of
merit, and on other subjects, such as chemistry, paleontology

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 105

(Trilobites), and botany, his work procured him a wide-spread
and excellent reputation.

John Warren.

It may not be amiss to mention here an old Englishman named
John Warren, who for many years dealt in shells and curiosities
in Boston. About 1S57 he was still extant. I have little per-
sonal information about him, but remember him as a stout, florid
old gentleman, who supplied Miss Sarah Pratt and other Boston
amateurs with handsome shells at high prices. In 1S34 he pub-
lished a small quarto edition of Lamarck's genera of shells,
illustrated with 17 plates, which he entitled " The Conchologist."

He did no original work, but, singularly enough, in Carus and
Englemann's Bibliography, he is confounded with Dr. J. C.
Warren, the distinguished surgeon of Boston, who published
some papers on molluscan anatomy.

Samuel George Morton.

Among those who have promoted the study of mollusca from
the paleontological side, one of the earliest and most distinguished
names is that of Samuel George Morton.* Born in Philadelphia
Jan. 26, 1799, of Irish ancestry and of a family in which the
gifts of education were highly prized and abundantly enjoyed, he
early lost his flither, and at the age of sixteen entered a counting-
room to be prepared for a mercantile career. His desire for study
monopolized his leisure, and in 181 7 he entered the medical
school of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in
1S20 with honors, and afterwards pursued his studies at Paris
and in Edinburgh. In 1826 he returned to Philadelphia, where
he practiced his profession and pursued his scientific studies, and
the following year he married Rebecca Pearsall. His career was
terminated on the 15th of May, i85i,by an attack of pneumonia,

♦See Silliman's Journal, 2d series, vol. xiii, p. 153, March, 1853.

106 BTOLOGICAi SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOIS^

but not until his name, through his scientific work, had become
familiar to scholars in both hemispheres. His synopsis of the
organic remains in the Cretaceous formation of the United States
gave him a high reputation and materially advanced the science.
Morton was enthusiastic and energetic, but neither vain nor arro-
gant. He was drawn into the early controversies which involved
the Philadelphian group of naturalists, and appears in them as
the especial champion of Say and Conrad. He had a literary
turn and strong I'eligious convictions, both of which are percep-
tible in his scientific publications.

Thomas Nuttall.

Although he was especially distinguished in the domain of
botany, yet by his shell collections in various parts of America,
and somewhat belated studies of this conchological material, it
becomes proper to include in this summary, a notice of Thomas
Nuttall. Born in Settle, Yorkshire, in 17S6, he was in very
humble circumstances, and as a journeyman printer had few
opportunities for mental development. Yet he was endowed
with a strong, clear intellect, the faculty of self-denial, and the
passion for study and for the investigation of nature. A hope of
improving his position in life and of finding opportunity for study
of the natural sciences brought him to the United States in 1S08,
when only 32 years of age. Through the influence of Barton,
the botanist, he was led to take up the study of plants, and a large
part of his life was thenceforth devoted to exploration and re-
search. In 1S17 he already had been admitted to several scientific
societies of high standing. In 1822 he succeeded Peck in chai-ge
of the botanic garden at Cambridge, Mass. In 1842 a small
estate near Liverpool was left him by a relative, on the condition
that he resided upon it at least nine months of every year. He
then returned to England, where he died at the age of seventy-
three, September 10, 1859. Durand says of him :* "He was a

♦Biographical Notice, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc, vii, p. 297, i860.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 107

remarkable looking man ; liis head was ver}' large, bald, and
bore marks of a vigorous intellect ; his forehead expansive, but
his features diminutive, with a small nose, thin lips, and round
chin, and with gray eyes under fleshy eyebrows. His height
was above the middle, his person stout, with a slight stoop ; and
his walk peculiar and mincing, resembling that of an Indian.
Nuttall was naturally shy and reserved in his manners in general
society, but not so with those who knew him well. If silent or
perhaps morose in the presence of those for whom he felt a sort
of antipathy, yet, when with congenial companions, he was
affable and courteous, communicative and agreeable." * * *
" I have frequently seen him in social circles when he was the
delight of the company, from his cheerful and natural replies to
all questions, and his voluntary details on the subject of his
travels and adventures." * * * "Nuttall was extremely
economical in his habits and careless about his dress. None of
his Philadelphia friends, I believe, ever knew where he resided,
or in what manner he lived." The profession of science is not a
very profitable one, yet. in spite of the few opportunities he had
for accumulating, he had succeeded, through the strictest saving,
in laying aside enough for his old age, even if he had not in-
herited the estate of Nut Grove, which was encumbered with
annuities and burdened with a heavy income tax.

Nuttall's adventures and privations while exploring among
hostile Indians, or during long voyages, were many and exciting,
but he declared to his friends that hardships were cheaply pur-
chased if they brought him the opportunity for travel and the
contemplation of nature, which he found a source of constant
delight.

108

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

J. p. COUTHOUY.

Joseph Pitty Couthouy.

Among the early papers on mollusca in the Journal of the
Boston Society of Natural History none are more finished and
satisfactory than those by Joseph Pitty Couthouy. Born in Bos-
ton January 6, 1808, of French extraction, I learn that he joined
the Boston Latin School with the class which entered in 1820.
His tastes were for a seafaring life ; he shipped on board his
father's vessel and rose rapidly in his profession. He married
Mary Greenwood Wild, March 9, 1833. He became a member
of the Boston Society of Natural History April 6. 1836, and in
the reference to his first paper, read October 5, 1836, I find him
styled Captain Couthouy. A year later the United States explor-
ing expedition under Wilkes was projected, and, full of enthusiasm,

PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 109

Couthouy came on in person and applied to President Andrew
Jackson for a position on the scientific corps. The President
said he could not seriously entertain the application as the list of
officers was already complete. To which the irrepressible young
sailor replied, "Well, General, I'll be hanged if I don't go, if I
have to go before the mast ! "* This pleased "Old Hickory,"
who told him, " Go back to Boston and I will see if anything can
be done for you." There, a few days after his return, his commis-
sion as Conchologist of the Scientific Corps was received. He
sailed with the expedition August i8, 183S. After leaving
vSamoa his health suffered. Wilkes, who was preparing a narra-
tive of the expedition, demanded that Couthouy should turn all
his notes and drawings over to his commander. Couthouy re-
fused, as he considered that his subsequent work would be
crippled by the absence of notes and drawings already made, and
that as a member of the scientific corps he was entitled to retain
his papers until the end of the voyage. He was thereupon sus-
pended by Wilkes and ordered home from Honolulu in 1S40,
" for disobedience of orders."

He had made many valuable drawings and notes, many of
which are preserved in the report on the Mollusca and Shells of
the expedition. He had numbered his notes with a serial num-
ber, and a tin tag, similarly numbered, was attached to the
specimen, which was preserved in spirits for future anatomical
study and identification. The authorities in "Washington had
appointed a reverend gentleman who knew nothing of science,
with a fat salary, to unpack and take care of the specimens sent
home by the expedition. This gentleman, finding that the pres-
ence of some lead in the tinfoil tags was whitening the alcohol,
carefully removed nil the tags and put them in a bottle by them-
selves without replacing them b)^ any other means of identifi-
cation. Twenty years ago 1 saw this bottle of tags on a shelf at

* /. c, as a common sailor.

110 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHIITGTOlSr.

the Smithsonian and heard its mournful history. Prominent con-
chologists resident in the United States were favored, for a con-
sideration, with many rare specimens before any of the expedition
naturalists had returned. Some of those contemporary with the
events have told me of the prizes secured in this immoral man-
ner, unworthy of a true naturalist, though doubtless the tempta-
tion was great.

The result of such proceedings may be imagined. Couthouy
found that the shells to which many of his notes related could
not be identified, and others had disappeared altogether. He
worked over the mass that remained until the return of the expe-
dition, when, to crown all his misfortunes, the pay of the natu-
ralists was reduced forty-four per cent., though low enough
previously. For Couthouy, who had a wife and two children to
support, it was the last straw. He declined to attempt the report,
and his papers and collections, after sundry vicissitudes, were put
into the hands of Dr. A. A. Gould, who bears willing testimony
to the value of Couthouy's work. After this he returned to his
profession as a master in the mercantile marine, visiting South
America and the Pacific. In 1S54 ^'^^ took command of an ex-
pedition to the Bay of Cumana, where he spent three years in
the unsuccessful search for the wreck of a Spanish treasure ship,
the San Pedro, lost there early in the century. Our next trace of
him is shortly after the outbreak of the rebellion. He volunteered
in the navy, and, August 26, 1861, was appointed acting volun-
teer lieutenant. Five days later he was ordered to command the
rj. S. bark Kingfisher ; December 31, 1862, to command U. S. S.
Coluifibia., which was wrecked, and Couthouy made prisoner.
After three months at Salisbury he was exchanged, and. May 29,
1863, ordered to the Mississippi squadron to command the moni-
tor Osage^ but was transferred to U. S. steamer ChillicotJic.
On the 3d of April, 1864, while off Grand Ecore, Louisiana,
on the turret of his vessel, he was shot from an ambush on the

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. Ill

shore, and died the following day. The dispatches announcing
his death bore testimony to his value as an officer. He was eulo-
gized by Admiral Porter and his fellow officers of the flotilla.

Those who knew Couthouy describe him as active and enthu-
siastic, with reminders of his French ancestry in his physiognomy
and manner; of middle height, dark complexion, and more trim
in his dress and refined in his ways than would have been ex-
pected from one who had always followed the sea. One friend
says of him : " As brave and gallant a soul as ever trod a deck,
and a lively and always entertaining companion."

I am informed that he left a son, Joseph P., and two daughters
in Boston, and the family is not extinct there. His signature to
some documents at the Navy Department is in a handsome flow-
ing hand. He was a good linguist, speaking Spanish, French,
Italian, and Portuguese with fluency, and had even mastered sev-
eral dialects used among the Pacific Islands.

I have not yet come on the track of any published portrait of
Couthouy, and none of the biographical dictionaries or cyclope-
dias refer to him. I have therefore gone into detail a little more
fully than I should otherwise have done to preserve from oblivion
the memory of a pati'iotic officer and a good conchologist.

The sketch portrait which accompanies these notes, in default
of a better, was derived from an unsatisfactory photograph, the
only thing available, taken between iS6i and 1863 and kindly
lent to the writer by a surviving relative.

John Gould Anthoisty.

A naturalist who has left his mark on the classification of our
fresh-water shells was John Gould Anthony, who was born in
Providence, Rhode Island, May 17, 1804, and died in Cambridge,
Alass., Oct. 16, 1S77. Mr. Anthony had few educational advan-
tages, leaving school at the age of twelve years, and, going to
Cincinnati, engaged in business, where he continued for thirty-

112 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINOTOX

five years. In 1863 he was placed in charge of the mollusk col-
lection at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge by
Prof. Louis Agassiz, whom he accompanied to Brazil on the
Thayer expedition in 1865. Mr. Anthony was a man of small
and delicate frame, with a well-shaped head, whose brilliant dark
eyes were a marked feature in his countenance. He suffered in
later years from an affection which impaired his sight, and at
times prevented him from doing any work. To this cause is due
the fact that some of his later work was occasionally wanting in
the precision and accuracy which characterized that of an earlier
time. He wrote a very beautiful, clear hand, and his labels were
as elegant as if engraved on copper. The attractiveness of the
Cambridge collection is largely due to his unwearied efforts. A
portrait of Mr. Anthony, though not a very good one, was pub-
lished in the American Journal of Conchology, vol. ii, part 2,
1866. His collection was added to that of the museum at Cam-
bridge.

Samuel Stehman Haldeman.

Samuel Stehman Haldeman was born at Locust Grove, Penn-
sylvania, Aug. 13, 181 3, and died at Chickies on the loth of
September, 1880.

He studied in a classical school at Harrisburg and for two years
at Dickinson College, but did not graduate. In 1836 he was
called to assist the late H. D. Rogers in the geological survey of
New Jersey, and from 1S37 ^^ 1843 was engaged in geological
work on the State Survey of Pennsylvania. In 185 1 he was pro-
fessor of natural science in the University or Pennsylvania, and
from 1869-80 professor of comparative philology in the same
institution. He was a member of the National Academy of
Sciences. His papers number over two hundred titles, and in-
clude such subjects as chess, thq natural sciences, and especially
philology. He was a distinguished philologist, but to American

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 1 K^

conchologists his memory \vill always be grateful, since he was
the first to illustrate a work on American mollusks with the beau-
tiful engravings on copper, which were the product of Lawson's
burin. These illustrations, though issued as early as 1S40, are
as fine as anything which can be found in the literature to the
present day. Haldeman was short and thickset, with a very
peculiar voice, piercing dark eyes, and a pleasant and unaffected
manner. He was in easv circumstances, and the freedom wdiich
this gave him resulted in a wide and somewhat desultory range
of study, and heightened some personal peculiarities of mind.

Timothy Abbott Conrad.

Distinguished among conchologists and paleontologists alike
was Timothy Abbott Conrad, born in New Jersey in 1S03, who
died at Trenton Aug. 9, 1877- Information in regard to him I
have found rather difficult to obtain, but it would seem that he
was always interested in the natural sciences, especially geology
and paleontology, and in 1S37 ^^'^'^ appointed one of the geolo-
gists to the State of New York, and pi"epared the report for that
year. He was paleontologist to the survey in 1S38-41. He pre-
pared paleontological reports on the collections of the U. vS.
exploring expedition under Wilkes, of Lynch's U. S. expedition
to the Dead Sea. the Mexican boundary survey, and some of the
Pacific Railway explorations. He never married, and during the
latter part of his life lived on a small property near Trenton,
coming into Philadelphia frequently to pursue his work at the
Academy. He was of spare proportions, rather shy and reserved,
wrote an abominable hand, and was very careless about his letters,
which were largely on scraps of paper without date or location.
He drew many of his own plates on stone, and his peculiar style
of illustration is very recognizable. Though his contributions to
science were multitudinous and long continued, his native care-
lessness, brief diagnoses, and errors of date and citation gave his

114 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

work among the more conservative conchologists a reputation
perhaps less than its deserts. His defects were chiefly constitu-
tional, rather than wilful ; he had an acute and ohservant eye, and
an excellent, if sometimes hasty, judgment on matters of geology
and classification. Wlien we consider his work with that of the
naturalists of the French " New School" of the present day, there
seems in comparison little to complain of in Conrad's methods.
Early in life he undertook several journevs to the South especially
for collecting purposes, and several naturalists contributed to his
expenses with the view of receiving series of the fossils. An
unfortunate controversv arose from the conflicting claims to the
right and priority of description of many of these species, to
which Conrad's extreme carelessness no doubt in a large part
contributed. At all events the conflict raged with great violence
for several years, and burdened the literature with many syno-
nyms. The matter was still further complicated by the fact that
some of his friends, among whom Morton and Say have been
mentioned, to preserve, as they supposed, Conrad's rights, wrote
and published certain descriptions from his material during his
absence and without his knowledge, of which he was obliged, for
their sake, to assume the responsibility on his return. To this
dav the dates of publication of the various parts of his '' Tertiary
Fossils" are unknown to the public, and were not remembered
by the author within a range of several years. Conrad dabbled
in literature, and printed a little volume of poems for distribution
among his friends. I have heard that all his invaluable docu-
ments and manuscripts were sold or destroyed as waste paper
shortly after his death through the ignorance of his heirs.

CONSTANTINE SaMUEL RafINKSQUE-ScHMALTZ.

One of the most singular figures in the portrait gallery of
scientific men, eccentric as many of them have always been con-
sidered, is that of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-.Schmaltz. Pie

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 115

was born in Galata, a suburb of Constantinople. Oct. 22, 17S3.
and died at Philadelphia. Sept. iS, 1840, of cancer of the
stomach. His father's name was Rafinesque. and he was of
French extraction, but during the hostilities between the French
and Neapolitans, which arose about the time he settled in Sicily,
he added the name of his mother to his own and represented
himself as an American. He arrived in the United States when
only nineteen years of age (iSo3),and returned to Europe in
1S05, after which, according to his own account, lie was engaged
in commercial pursuits and scientific studies at Palermo. He
travelled furiously, and collected wherever he went. In iSi^ he
returned to this country, but the vessel which brought him
was wrecked on the coast of Connecticut, and his collections and
property were lost, leaving him in a state of poverty from which
he never was able to emerge. He was. however, received by
American naturalists and others as became his acquirements, and,
in 1819, was appointed professor of botanv and natural historv in
Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, which remained
his headquarters, in spite of many pedestrian journeys, until 1826,
when he removed to Philadelphia, where he remained until his
death. His multitudinous writings have been reviewed by Gray,
Haldeman, and Trvon in the American Journal of Science,
and by Amos Binney in his Terrestrial Mollusks of the United
States.*

Rafinesque was a marked example of the adage, " Great wit to
madness nearly is allied," and the workings of a mind of unusual
acumen, brilliancy, and activity were alwavs clouded bv a cer-
tain incoherency due to his higlily excitable and versatile tem-
perament. He possessed talents which, properlv regulated,
would have carried him to the front rank of scientific workers.

* See Silliman's Journal, vof 40, ist series, p. 221, 1S41 ; also vol. 42, pp.
280-91, 1842, and vol. xxxiii, 2d series, p. 163, March, 1S62 ; and Terr.
Moll , I, pp. 41 54.

116 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

In 1836 we find him insisting, in his Flora Telluriana, that new
species and new genera are continually produced by deviation
from existing forms. Every variety is a deviation which becomes
a species as soon as it is fixed sutficiently to constantly reproduce
its kind. Many of the genera he suggested arc fully recognized
to-day. though by his contemporaries regarded as worthless. But
from about 1S19 a marked deterioration was noticed in his work,
which finally became tinged deeply with a sort of monomania.
Societies and journals were obliged to refuse his writings, which
poured forth in an ever-increasing flood. When he could obtain
means he printed for himself, in shabby and miserable form it is
true, but still he printed and projected journals and works which
died still-born or never saw the lieht. His madness seems to have
culminated in one of his publications where he describes twelve
new species of thunder and lightning.

Of his personal appearance we have the following amusing
notes from Audubon's journal :

'' A long, loose coat of yellow nankeen, on which the inroads
of time were plainly visible, stained as it was with the juice ot
many a plant, hung aliout him like a sack. A waistcoat of the
same, with enormous pockets and buttoned up to the chin, reached
below over a pair of tight pantaloons, the lower parts of which
were buttoned down to the ankles. The dignity he acquired
from the broad and prominent brow which ornamented his coun-
tenance was somewhat diminished by the forlorn appearance of
his long beard and the mass of lank black hair which fell from
his shoulders." After relating the distance he had walked he
expressed his regret that his apparel should ha-ve suffered, but at
the same time he eagerly refused the offer of any clean clothes,
and it was with evident reluctance he accepted an invitation for
ablution. The surprise of the ladies of Audubon's family was
involuntarily manifested in the exchange of glances which spoke
volumes. Soon, however, their astonishment was converted into

PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 117

admiration at the ease and enlightenment of his conversation.
Plants and animals with which he was unfamiliar aroused in him
a sort of delirium or ecstacy. At night Audubon was surprised
bv an uproar in the naturalist's apartment. On reaching it to
ascertain the cause, he found his guest divested of all clothing,
rushing about the room engaged in a sanguinary contest with the
bats which had entered by the open window. His weapon was the
handle of Audubon's favorite violin, which had been demolished
in the fray. Without noticing the entrance of his host he con-
tinued his extraordinarv gvrations until he was so exhausted that
he could hardly use his A'oice to request that Audubon would ob-
tain a specimen for him, as he was convinced they were of a new
species.

Notwithstanding this unpromising beginning, Rafinesque re-
mained three weeks in Audubon's family, who became perfectly
reconciled to his oddities and found him a most agreeable and in-
telligent companion. One evening, however, he suddenly dis-
appeared, without a word to anyone, and it was only after some
weeks that a letter was received which assured his entertainers of
his gratitude and his safety.

In contrast to his carelessness about his personal appearance,
the older Silliman speaks of his beautiful and exact chirography,
and says that his communications were always in the neatest pos-
sible form. Even in his direst poverty he always retained friends
and admirers. It is certain that he must have possessed many
lovable cjualities.

In this connection we mav call to mind a friend, Charles A.
Poulsen, of Philadelphia, who was devoted to conchology and had
a fine collection. Mr. Poulsen translated Rafinesque's " Mono-
graph of the Bivalve shells of the river Ohio " in 1S32, and for
years his cabinet was resorted to in the vain hope of positively
determining some of Rafinesque's ill-defined species. Air. Poulsen
died in Philadelphia in 1S66. and I have heard that his collection

118 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

was dispersed, many specimens being acquired by the late well-
known conchologist, C. M. Wheatley, of Phoenixville, Penn-
sylvania.

Isaac Lea.

Dr. Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia, whose long and active life
gave him among the younger generation the title of the Nestor
of American Naturalists, was born in Wilmington, Delaware,
March 4, 1792, and died at his home in Philadelphia in his ninety-
fifth year, Dec. 8, 1886. His ancestors came from Gloucester-
shire, England, accompanying William Penn on his second visit.
His taste for natural history manifested itself at an early age, and
was fostered by his mother, who was fond of botany, and by his
association with Vanuxem, tlien a youth, who was devoted to
mineralogy and geology, then hardly organized as sciences.
Their studies were undirected ; but. in 181^, they became mem-
bers of the Academy of Natural Sciences, then about three years
old. Though engaged in business, young Lea became an active
member of the Academy, and published a mineralogical paper in
its journal in 1S17. This was followed by a very long series of
contributions to mineralogy and conchology, recent and fossil,
which have made his name familiar to naturalists all over the
world.

He married, in 1S21, Miss Frances A. Carey, daughter of Mat-
thew Carey, the well-known economist, and became a member of
the publishing house of Carey & Sons, from which he retired in
1S51. Mr. Lea's married life was exceptionally long and happy,
lasting fifty-two years, and blessed with a daughter and two sons,
who still survive. One of these sons is the wfell-known student
of ecclesiastical history, while the other has long stood at the head
of iVmerican photographic chemists.

In 1825 began those studies of fresh-water and land shells,
especially the Unios, with which Dr. Lea's name will always be
associated. In 1836 he published his first " Synopsis " of the

.^

^^^>^'5v*^^^l''y /ll

•A

f'

mvt. '

Dr. ISAAC LEA.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 1 1 9

genus, :i thin octavo of fifty-nine pages. The fourth edition of
this work appeared in 1S70, when it had grown to 214 pages
quarto.

Dr. Lea was a member of most American and many foreign
scientific societies. He visited Europe and studied his favorite
mollusks at all the museums. There he made the acc|uaintance of
Ferussac, Brogniart, Gay, Kiener, and other distinguished men,
whose names now sound like echoes from a past epoch. Up to
1S74 he continued ever busy on the Unionidte, and the number of
new forms, recent and fossil, made known by him amounts to
nearlv 2,000. Not content with ficruring: and describing the
shells alone, he figured the embryonic forms of thirtv-eight
species of Unio, and described the soft parts of more than 300.
He also investigated physiological questions, such as the sensi-
tiveness of these mollusks to sunlight and the differences due to
sex. His observations on the genus Unio form 13 quarto vol-
umes, magnificently illustrated. Dr. Lea was president of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1S60;
he* presided over the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadel-
phia for several terms, and was given the degree of LL. D. by
Harvard College in 1853.

His scientific activity extended over more than sixtv years.
He was active in affairs and vigorously participated in those con-
troversies in which Say, Conrad, Morton, and others were en-
gaged half a century ago. Of these the echoes only have come
down to us, but there is plenty of evidence that the battle was
often hot and the victory energetically contested.

Dr. Lea had an intellectual and, in later years, a most vener-
able presence. ' He was ever anxious to interest the young in
scientific pursuits, and was notably active in charitable and relig-
ious enterprises. In his youth he manifested more than ordinary
artistic talent, much like his distinguished contemporary, Alvan
Clark.

120 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

It is impossible to do Justice to such a life as Dr. Lea's in the
proper limits of an address of this sort. It is of the less impor-
tance in the present case, because an excellent bibliography of his
works, preceded by a biographical sketch and an admirably
etched portrait, has been published by the U. S. National
Museum,* to whom Dr. Lea bequeathed his invaluable collec-
tion of minerals and shells.

Augustus Addison Gould.

Among those, next to vSay, who have beneficially influenced
the study of mollusca in this country, and interested young
people in that pursuit, no name stands higher than that of
Augustus Addison Gould. He was born in New Ipswich, New
Hampshire, April 33, 1S05, and died of cholera in Boston on the
15th of September, 1S66. His father was originally named
Nathaniel Gould Duren, but, on account of an inheritance, re-
versed the order of his surnames. The father was a musician,
artist, and engraver, noted for his elegant penmanship, and of a
good Chelmsford famil}' ; but not in affluent circumstances.
From him Dr. Gould probably derived his facility as a delineator
of shells. In early life voung Gould knew privation, but he per-
severed in his endeavors for an education, and succeeded in car-
rying himself through college, graduating at Harvard in 1825,
and in medicine in 1830.

He devoted his energies largely to his profession, which he
regarded as the work of his life, and in which he soon rose to
deserved eminence. But natural science claimed his leisure
hours, and to increase them he often robbed himself of sleep. He
taught botany and zoology at Harvard for two years, was one of
the founders and earnest supporters of the Boston Society of
Natural History, and original member of the National Academy,

♦Bulletin No. 23, compiled by N. P. Scudder.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 121

and president of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1865, and
until his death. A brother was a member of the well-known
firm of Gould & Lincoln, publishers, and through them a number
of Dr. Gould's works were republished during his lifetime. It is
unnecessary to enumerate his works — the mollusca of the Wilkes
exploring expedition, and the magnificent posthumous work on
American land shells, edited by Dr. Gould for the executors of
Amos Binney, would have given him lasting fame. But the work
which was most useful to American science was his classical
Report on the Invertebrata of Massachusetts, published bv the
State in 1S41. and adorned with fine copper-plates from his own
drawings. This was practically devoted to the mollusks, and
served as a manual for New England shells, excellent in every
way, and free from unnecessary technicality or pedantic expres-
sions. The speaker well remembers the value this book had for
him in his boyish days, and it is said that to it Stimpson
owed the impulse which led him. in spite of obstacles, to devote
himself to science.

Dr. Gould was tall, spare, with dark gray eves, and hair orig-
inally dark, but gray at the time I first knew him. He was the
ideal of the •' Good Physician," with a winning, sympathetic
manner ; quiet, and slightly reserved to strangers, but with a
living spring of gentle humor for his friends. Full of kindliness,
true piety, self-denial, and noble impulses, no one could know
him, in the midst of his interesting family, without loving and
honoring the man as well as admiring the scientist. The clear,
straightforward and exact quality of his work made it easy of
comprehension, and there is no knowing how many persons were
inspired by it to a study of the animals he described. He was
particularly able in his study of the smaller forms of land shells,
which he drew with wonderful accuracy and artistic taste. A
good portrait of Dr. Gould was published in the Annual of
Scientific Discovery for 1S61 and afterward reprinted in the

122 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHHSTGTOlSr.

American Journal of Conchology, vol. i, part 4, 1865.* This
picture, thouj^h well executed, wants the winning expression
which was characteristic of his face.

Amos Binney.

The first to project and illustrate in the highest style of the art
a work on the Helicidae of the United States, doing for the land-
shells what Haldeman had attempted for the fresh-water gastro-
pods, was Amos Binney, of Boston, born October 18, 1803, who
died at Rome, Italy, February iS, 1847, leaving his work still
incomplete. He graduated at Brown University in 1S21, and in
medicine at Harvard in 1836, but his health proving precarious
he devoted himself to commercial pursuits with remarkable suc-
cess, reserving his leisure for science and art, of which he was
passionately fond. He was one of the founders and a liberal
giver to the Boston Society of Natural History, which elected
him its president from 1S43 until his death. He was active in
establishing the American Association of Naturalists and Geolo-
gists, which has since developed into the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.

As a member of the Massachusetts General Courtf he was
instrumental in securing the organization of the zoological and
botanical commissions to which we owe the classical Massachu-
setts Reports by Harris, Emerson, Storer, and Gould.

At his death his work on the Terrestrial Moll'usks of the United
States was unfinished, but he provided in his will for its comple-
tion, a work for which his executors designated his friend and
townsman. Dr. Gould, as editor. This work -is unsurpassed in
elegance of execution by any similar publication to the present

* A brief notice of Dr. Gould's life appeared in those copies of the second
edition of tlie " Invertebrata " which were distributed by his family.
There is a notice by Dr. Jacob Bigelow in tlie transactions of the Suffolk
County Medical Society in 1S66.

t So the legislature is styled in that State.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 123

dav. The premature death by pneumonia of Dr. Binney cut off
many promising plans for the promotion of science ajid art in
America. Those interested in land shells, however, do not need
to be told that his son, Mr. William G. Binney, has well sus-
tained his father's reputation in the same field. Dr. Binney was
above the average height, robust, well formed i\nd refined in
appearance. His hair and eyes were very dark, and his expres-
sion grave and reserved. This and the somewhat severe tone of
his voice was apt to convey to those who did not know him an
impression of hatttetiry which did not correspond to the real feel-
ings of the man. An excellent biographical sketch is given by
Dr. Gould in the first volume of the Terrestrial Mollusks. which
was published in iS^i. Dr. Binnev was buried at Mount Au-
burn, where the monument which commemorates him is one of
those to which the stranger's attention is always attracted.

Charles Baker Adams.

Charles Baker Adams, one of the most industrious and best
known American conchologists, was born in Dorchester, Massa-
chusetts, on the eleventh of January. 1S14. Of a family of six
children he was the only one spared to his parents. When four
years old his father, Mr. Charles J. Adams, removed permanently
to Boston, where he engaged in business. At an early age the
boy showed great interest in chemistry and natural history, in
which he was encouraged by his parents, who gave him the use
of a room for a laboratory and furnished the means for procuring
chemicals and apparatus. The time usually given to play by
most lads of his age was largely occupied by young Adams in
experimenting with reagents or studying and arranging the vari-
ous objects of natural history which he collected in excursions
with his father or received from friends. He studied in the Bos-
ton' schools, at Phillips Academy, Andover, and entered Yale
College in October. 1830. In September, 1S31, he removed to

124 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Amherst, and joined the sophomore class, graduating in 1834
with the highest honors. Shortly afterward he entered the Theo-
logical Seminary at Andover, but in 1836 he left his studies of
divinity to join Professor Hitchcock in prosecuting the geological
survey of the State of New York. This work being terminated
by the illness of Professor Hitchcock he returned to Amherst and
busied himself, for several years, partly as a tutor at Amherst and
partly by delivering lectures on geology at various educational
institutions. In September, 183S, he became professor of chem-
istry and natural history at Middlebury College, Vermont, and
the following February married Mary, daughter of the Rev.
Sylvester Holmes, of New Bedford, Mass.

In 1845 he became State Geologist of Vermont, and continued
the operations incident to that office for three years. Under his
unremitting labors as a popular teacher in the college and his
geological work in the field his natui'ally delicate constitution
suffered, and he was obliged to seek a less rigorous climate. He
visited the island of Jamaica in the winter of 1843-4, and in 1847
resigned his professorship at Middlebury to accept that of zoology
and astronomy at Amherst. In the winter of 1848-49 he again
visited Jamaica, and in November, 1S50, he went to Panama, re-
turning by way of Jamaica the following spring. Anxious to
pursue further his investigations on the moUusk-fauna of the West
Indian islands, Prof. Adams left for St. Thomas by way of Ber-
muda in December, 1852, arriving on the 27th, but in his weak
condition became a victim of the pernicious malaria of that island,
and. though tended with solicitude by his St. Thomas friends, died
the i8th of January, 1853. A tablet was placed over his grave
by the residents of St. Thomas as a memorial of their esteem and
admiration for his character. The Professor's widow, four sons,
and a daughter survived him.

Prof. Adams was of middle height, slender and delicate in ap-
pearance, with fine expressive eyes and a winning countenance.

PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 125

In his domestic relations he was gentle and affectionate ; in his
friendships, faithful and generous. His earnestness and ability as
a teacher gave him popularity and success in his college duties,
while liis private character was above reproach. He was quiet
and studious in his habits, but had the true New England genius
tor hard work ; having in his laboratory at the college an old
green lounge, where it is said he sought repose in the early morn-
ing hours after manv a night devoted to original research. Indeed,
it is commonlv reported among those who knew him that he re-
linquished to Nature only so much of his time as she imperatively
demanded and fairlv burned his candle at both ends. Notwith-
standing his quiet ways, he was not a man to be imposed upon,
and among the college legends, still passed from class to class
at Amherst, are several which relate the signal discomfiture of
would-be shirkers of their duties, which made him the terror
of the lazv men in his classes.

Professor Adams' work was distinguished by care and accu-
racy, by a philosophical grasp unusual at that day. and which,
had he been unhampered by the current theories of the creation
and immutabilitv of species, would have given him an even
higher rank among naturalists. He monographed the mollusk-
fauna of Panama, and did more than any other single naturalist
toward making known the riches of the West Indian region. He
emphasized the study of the geographical distribution of animals,
and as a collector was unparalleled both in enthusiasm and suc-
cess.

His remarkable collection (probably even now standing third
or fourth in the United States in point of interest and value, and
its numl:)er of contained types) he left under liberal conditions to
Amherst College, where it still remains. His publications are
among; the classics of American conchologv, and well bear com-
parison with many more pretentious works. Like most Amer-
ican naturalists Prof. Adams was never in affluent circumstances.

126 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

.and the success of his labors was largely due to unremitting self-
denial.*

Philip Pearsall Carpenter.

Philip Pearsall Carpenter, who. b}' his valuable labors on
American mollusks and his residence in America, is fairly to be
enrolled on the list of American conchologists. was born in
Bristol, England. Nov. 4. 1S19. and died at Montreal. Canada,
May 24, 1877- He belonged to a famil}' whose members have
been renowned for their devotion to science, education, liberalism
in all good things, and works of benevolence and charity. He
described himself as a born teacher, but a naturalist bv chance.
But his interest in his favorite study developed earlv. When only
twelve vears old he had accumulated a larsre cabinet and mas-
tered the classification of the day. He studied at the University
of Edinburgh and at Manchester College, York, which became
affiliated with London University, from which he received his de-
gree in 1S41. In 1S46-58 he labored in the ministry at Warring-
ton, and during this period prepared his classic Alemoir on the
Mazatlan Shells', and his report to the British Association on the
state of our knowledge of the moUusk-fauna of the western coast
of America. In December, 1S58, he visited the United States
and traveled extensively. In the winter of 1S59-60 he came to
the Smithsonian Institution, where he spent some five months at
work upon the shell collections and delivered the lectures on Mol-
lusca which were afterward printed in the Smithsonian Report.
In i860 he returned to England, where he married Miss Minna
Meyer, of Hamburg. This union, though entered into somewhat
late in life, was most happy. In 1S63 he prepared a supplement
to his British Association Report of 18^6, which has been most
useful to students of our west coast shells.

* His portrait and an appreciative biogiaphical sketch bj Thomas Bland,
of which I have made unsparing use, may be found in the American Jonr-
nal of Conchology-, vol. i, pp. 191-204, 1865.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 127

In October, 1865, he left England for Montreal, which was
thenceforth his home, and where his valuable collection, pre-
sented bv him to McGill University, is suitably housed in the
Peter Redpath Museum of that institution. During the period of
his activity in Montreal he devoted himself largely to a mono-
graphic study of the CJiitouidcv^ with results of the utmost im-
portance to their proper classification, but of which only a concise
abstract has yet been published, though a large mass of MSS.
had been prepared at the time of his death.

Dr. Carpenter received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
from the New York State University in 1S60. He was a man of
slight frame, below the middle height, and of striking personal
appearance. He was brimful of enthusiasm not only in his
studies, but in all that related to good health, morals, and practi-
cal religion. His audacity in confronting and attacking abuses
was unparalleled, and, like most reformers, he met with much op-
position and made many active opponents. But the rich charity
of his nature, his single-minded devotion to what he believed to
be right, and his disregard of his personal interests in all that
concerned the promotion of reforms, made even the bitterest op-
ponents concede him elements of character of which anv man or
communitv might be justlv proud.*

Thomas Bi.and.

Thomas Bland, one of our best known naturalists, was born
October 4. 1S09. in Newark, Nottinghamshire, England. His
father was a physician and his mother related to Shepard, the
naturalist. He was educated at the famous Charter-House school,
London, and was a classmate of Thackeray. Subsequently he
studied and practiced law. He went to Barbados, West Indies,

* An excellent memoir of Dr. P. P. Carpenter, accompanied by a good
portrait, was prepared bv his brother, the Rev. Russell Lant Carpenter,
^nd published bj C. Kegan Paul & Co., London, in iSSo.

12H BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON,

in 1S43, and later to Jamaica; visited England in 1850, and in
the same year accepted the superintendency of a gold mine at
Marmato, New Granada. While a resident of Jamaica, it was
visited in 1S49 ^Y Pi'of- C. B. Adams, with whom Mr. Bland
cultivated a warm friendship. Stimulated by the enthusiasm of
Adams, Bland began those investigations of the land shells for
which he afterward became so distinguished. In iS^3 he came
to New York, which for most of his subsequent life became his
home. Here his business lay chiefly in the direction of the affairs
of mining companies, with several of which he was connected.
He was a man of rather dark complexion, with brilliant dark
eyes ; somewhat bowed by ill health, induced by his long resi-
dence in the tropics, he seemed rather below the middle height.
He was of a studious and rather grave demeanor, but notably
courteous, and always ready to assist young students or others
intei'ested in his favorite pursuit. He avoided controversy, and
in spite of his extreme modesty was several times called to posts
of honor and responsibility. By those privileged to know him
he was held in high esteem, which was not lessened by his bear-
insf under the adversitv which unfortunatelv clouded his later
years. Mr. Bland was the author of more than seventy papers
treating of the Mollusks, especialh^ of the United States and of
the Antilles. His work was not confined to the description of
species, but comprised, valuable contributions to their anatomy,
classification, geographical distribution, and the philosophy of
their development. No American conchologist has shown a
more philosophic grasp of the subject, and his discussion of the
distribution of the land shells of the West Indies, published in
1861, gave him a wide reputation. He several times returned to
this subject in later years, and always with marked success.
Since 3869 Mr. Bland was associated with Mr. W. G. Binney
in several important works on the terrestrial mollusks of North
America. Mr. Bland was a fellow of the Geological Societv,

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 129

and for many years an active member of the New York Lyceum
of Natural History. He died after an illness of several years'
duration in Brooklyn, N. Y., August 20, 1885. A convenient
bibliography of his papers was prepared by Mr. Arthur F. Gray
in 18S4, and his portrait is to be found in the American Journal
of Conchology, vol. ii, pt. 4, 1866.

William Stimpson.

In the case of William Stimpson we have a good instance of
how not merely disadvantageous circumstances may be defied
but positive opposition conquered by what may be called an in-
nate devotion to the study of nature. He was born in Roxbury,
now within the charter limits of Boston, Feb. 14, 1S32. His
parents were Herbert H. Stimpson, who, I am informed, was of
Virginian origin, and Mary Ann Brewster, of a good New Eng-
land family. Mr. Stimpson dealt in stoves and ranges, in part-
nership with his brother Frederick, at Congress and Water
streets, Boston, for many years. He was a successful business
man, though not liberally educated, and introduced certain im-
provements into cooking ranges, of which one kind was long
familiar to Boston housewives under the name of the •' Stimp-
son range." The early education of the son was in the com-
mon schools, and in his sixteenth year he seems to have
shown unusual mental powers, as we find him entering the
upper class of the Boston High School in September, 1S47,
from which he graduated the following July. Even before this
time he had become deeply interested in natural history. A
copy of Gould's Invertebrata of Massachusetts having fallen into
his hands his attention was directed towards these animals. He
presented himself to the author of the work to find out if it were
possible for a copy to be had for his very own. Dr. Gould, with
his never-varying kindness, gave him an order on the State libra-
rian for one of the books, and the exulting joy with which the

130 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

boy marched out of the State House with the coveted volume
under his arm was never forgotten by him and often related in
after years. But Dr. Gould's kindness did not stop here ; he
brought young Stimpson to the notice of Agassiz, then in the
fii-st flush of successful teaching at Cambridge, and introduced
him to the Boston Society of Natural History. His relatives
were anxious that the boy should go into business ; his excursions
to the sea-shore and the dredging work which, unaided, he had
already begun, were looked on with no favorable eye, and only
the urgent representations of some of those who had become in-
terested in the boy and saw in him a capacity for better things,
saved him from a fate he detested. As a compi'omise he was sent
out with a civil engineer to learn that profession, but his em-
ployer declared he was too fond of hunting for land shells to
make a good surveyor, and advised that he be allowed to follow
the career which his inclinations so strongly declared for. He was
allowed to enter the Latin School in 1848. The following sum-
mer he managed by some means to get oft' on a fishing smack
bound for Grand Manan, and devoted his whole energies to the
collection and study of the marine animals of that vicinity. Still,
in the face of strong opposition, he succeeded in joining the work-
ers at Agassiz' laboratory in October, i8'^o. Wherever he went
his enthusiasm and lovable qualities raised up friends, and through
their aid an appointment was secured to him as naturalist to
the North Pacific exploring expedition under Ringgold (later com-
manded by Captain John Rodgers, U. S. N.), which was sent
out by the United States in 1852. With a paid appointment in
Government service, those who had persistently opposed his
ambition began to give way and confess that there might be some-
thing in it after all, though doubtless laying greater stress on that
" something" for which Stimpson cared least.

He joined the expedition Nov. 33, 1S52. and was absent four
years, during which he visited Japan, Bering Strait, and many

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 131

other localities of the greatest interest to the naturalist. No gen-
eral report on the voyage has yet appeared, and Stimpson's report
on the Crustacea with its beautiful illustrations still remains in
manuscript.

He began to work up his materials at Washington, and for pur-
poses of study visited Europe, dredged on the British coast, and
made hosts of friends across the Atlantic.

His preliminary studies of the radiates and Crustacea of the ex-
pedition ensured his place among the most promising of the
young naturalists of the day, and were expressed in elegant Latin.
He prepared and published the investigations into marine life
made at Grand Manan, and was the leader of an enthusiastic
band of students who gathered in the museum of the Smithsonian
Institution for work under the influence of Henry and Baird, kept
bachelor's hall together under the sobriquet of the Megatherium
Club, and instituted the first biological society in Washington
under the name of the Potomac-side Naturalists' Club. Most of
them subsequently reached distinction m the pursuit of science.

About iS6o, Stimpson received the honorary degree of M. D.
from the Columbian University. He was afterwards a member
of the National Academy of Sciences, instituted while the country
was in the midst of its fiercest military struggle. On the twenty-
eighth of July, 1864, he married Miss Annie Gordon, of Ilchester,
Maryland.

Robert Kennicott, of Illinois, whose name rouses affectionate
remembrance in the minds of all who knew him, was Director of
the Chicago Academy of Sciences, whose establishment and pro-
gress wxre for the most part due to his enthusiasm, ability, and
persistence. He had been a member of the Megatherium Club,
and was a devoted friend of Stimpson. He was about to under-
take those explorations in Alaska from which he never returned.
He knew that his undertaking was arduous, and its outcome un-
certain. His child, the Academy, must be provided for, and its

132 BIOLOGHCAL SOCIETY OF WASHHSTGTON.

fate not left to accident. Stimpson was the man for the post and
was selected. The institution was thriving, with a large mem-
bership, an excellent collection, and the nucleus of a library. In
June, iS66, the building and nearly all its contents became a prey
to fire. But the trustees had suitably insured the collection and,
with the growing prosperity of the Society, due largely to Stimp-
son's social tact and attractive personality, the Academy purchased
ground, put up a fire-proof building, and rose like a Phanix with
new vigor from the ashes.

Here Stimpson assembled as in a sure harbor the manuscripts,
collections, engravings, and drawings of a lifetime.

He had the finest and most complete collection of East Amer-
ican invertebrates which had ever been brought together, with a
vast amount of illustrative material from Europe, the Arctic re-
gions, and other parts of the world. Books and specimens which
he did not own were freely lent to him by the Smithsonian and
by Eastern naturalists, for was he not a scientific missionary, a
biological bishop, in partibus Injideliiun^ in the land where the
almighty dollar reigned supreme.'' And more important still, the
Academy was fire-proof.

A manual of marine invertebrates of the coast from Maine to
Georgia was in preparation for the Smithsonian Institution ; there
was already much manuscript and many beautiful engravings.

All the Smithsonian shell-fish in alcohol were there ; Pourtales
sent his unspeakable treasures newly ravished from the depths of
ocean. On every hand a wealth of material, a host of indulgent
friends and correspondents, a prospect of good work for science,
education, patriotism.

On the 8th of October, 1S71, a small fire broke out in South
Chicago, which was not extinguished. In forty-eight hours the
Qiieen City of the Northwest was practically in ashes.

The temple of religion, the refuge of the sick and destitute,
the palace of the millionaire, the shanty of the day-laborer, the

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 133

sanctuary of trade, the gambler's hell, the hospital, the home, and
the grog-shop — withered, crumbled, or evaporated into thin air,
before a power stronger than tlieni all.

After this universal destruction, when granite became flour,
bricks ran to glass, iron shrunk like wax before the roaring and
devouring element, all that was left of Stimpson's lifework, of the
building and its treasures of art and nature, was a heap of ashes,
the calcined foundations, and the clay pipkin of a mound builder,
once rescued from a western tumulus to illustrate the arts of bar-
barism, and now, in this hour of universal wreck, surviving
every product of civilization.

The blow was too heavy. The spirit indeed was valiant, but
the body was frail. He had long suffered from weakness of the
lungs, with periods of low spirits characteristic of the ailment.
After an attempt to work on the Gulf vStream with the Coast
Survey in the winter of 1871-3, he returned broken down, and
died at Ilchester on the 26th of May, 1872.*

Dr. Stimpson was of middle height, slender, with brown, curly
hair, and merry eyes, whose expression was rather heightened
than impaired by the glasses he habitually wore. His bearing
was that of a scholar, rather retiring, except with friends, when
the boyish exuberance of his spirits had full sway. Those who
had the privilege of his companionship will carrv an abiding
memory of his abilities as a naturalist, and his noble and lovable
characteristics as a man.

The number of persons brought under review in the preceding
pages (omitting Poulsen and Warren) is eighteen, a number too
small to afford many statistical generalizations.

Eight of the men were college bi"ed, ten of them acquired their
education in the common schools, or had even fewer early advan-

*See memorial notice by J. W. Foster in Chicago Tribune of June 12,
1872. Reported from the proceedings of the Academy.

134 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

tages. Two were wealthy by inheritance, two became so by
business enterprises, fourteen liad a modest or insufficient in-
come, and were obliged to work their way through life ; of these
five were college bred. Seven were devoted to science among
other interests ; with eleven science was the mainspring of their
lives. The average age attained was sixty years ; of those de-
pendent on their own industry about 58 years. Divided accord-
ing to their absorption in scientific pursuits we find those who
devoted all their energies to science averaged 62.37 y^'^iSi the
others 55.7 years of life.

The only lesson which may be said to be absolutely clear is,
that naturalists are born, and not made ; that the sacred fire can-
not be extinguished by poverty nor lighted from a college taper.
That the men whose work is now classical, and whose devotion
it is our privilege to honor, owed less to education in any sense
than they did to self-denial, steadfastness, energy, a passion for
seeking out the truth, and an innate love of nature. These are
the qualities which enabled them to gather fruit of the tree of
knowledge. Let us see to it that their successors, while profit-
ing by that harvest, fail not in the virtues which made it possible.

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW FOX FROM SOUTHERN

CALIFORNIA.

Vtilpes mac rot is sp. nov.

LONG-EARED FOX.

By Dk. C. Hart Merriam.

(Read Feb. ii, 1888.;

The fox which is the subject of the present communication
was killed at Riverside, San Bernardino county, California,
November i, 1SS5. It differs so strikingly from the other North
American foxes that detailed comparison is unnecessary. It is a
small animal, the single specimen before me being a little lesf-
in size than the Kit Fox ( V^ulpes velox) , agreeing in this respec:
with the California Island Fox ( Urocyon littoralis) , from which
latter animal, however, it differs generically. Its most notice-
able external peculiarity consists in its large ears, which character
alone suffices to distinguish it from its North American congeners.

It is not a little surprising that so large a mammal as a fox,
inhabiting so well explored a region as California, should have
escaped notice till the present time ; and the fact is still more
remarkable from the circumstance that the animal here described
differs so notably from its nearest relatives. For these reasons,
and others derived from a study of the specimen with a view to
the known laws of geographical variation, I am led to the belief
that it is a Mexican species, finding its northern limit in southern
California. The place where the present specimen was killed
(Riverside, San Bernardino county) is only a hundred miles
from the Mexican boundary.

135

LSfi BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

The following diagnosis is sufficient for purposes of identifi-
cation :

VULPES MACROTIS sp. nov.

Type No. ' — , male, young adult, Merriam Collection.
2324

Riverside, California, November i, 1885. F. Stephens.

External Characters. — Size, small, equalling or a little
less than that of I'ulpes velox ; ears long and broad, relatively
much larger than in any other North American fox, and well
haired on both sides ; muzzle, legs, and tail long and slender,
the latter a little longer than the body, and aliout as slender as
in Urocyon virginianus. Soles w^ell haired, tlie plantar tuber-
cles being entirely concealed.

Color. — Upper parts grizzled-gray, palest on the head and
darkest on the back; terminal fourth of tail ncarlv black ; sides,
upper surface of legs, and pectoral band pale fulvous ; under
parts white mixed with pale ochraceous-bufT. In the only speci-
men at hand the general color is almost as pale as that of V. velox.
This is due to the fact that the pure white sub-apical zone of each
hair is much enlarged, while the black terminal portion tapers
rapidly into a much attenuated, awn-shaped point, the result
being that the white predominates over the black. The dorsal
hairs are short for a fox, and the pale buff of the under fur shows
through, thus completing the combination which gives to the
back its grizzled-gray appearance. There is no indication of a
dorsal stripe on either back or tail. The convex surface of the
ear is well covered with short fur which is pale fulvous in color,
and mixed with iron gray, except at the base posteriorly where
the gray is nearly absent. The margin of the ear is white, as
are the long hairs bordering it inside. Between the white border
and the grizzled fulvous of the upper surface of the ear there is
an indistinct dark line. The base of the ear in front is covered
by a dense growth of fur and hair which completely hides the

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW FOX, 137

meatus. The lower lip is bordered by a narrow margin of
blackish hair, which curves upward around the commissure, and
extends forward about one-fourth the length of the upper lip.
The chin and throat are entirely white. The whiskers are
black, and the hair about their bases is darker than on other
parts of the face.

Measurements from the dry Skin.

{A/l measurements in millimeters).

Total length, ......

Head and body, ....

Tail to end of vertebrae.

Tail to end of hairs, ....

Hind foot, ......

Height of ear tVoin crown,

850.
510.
290.

340-

no.

68

Cranial Characters. — The skull is that of a young adult,
and probably is not quite full grown ; the zygomatic breadth,
therefore, is less than it would be in a more aged specimen.
Unfortunately, a considerable portion of the occipital region,
including both condyles, is broken away ; hence the basilar
length and several important ratios cannot be taken. The facial
part of the skull is much produced and attenuated, the muzzle
being relatively longer and more slender than in any other North
American fox, and the palata, region correspondingly narrowed.
The anterior palatal foramen extends posteriorly to a point op-
posite the interspace between the canine and first molar. The
palatine bones are truncated anteriorly at the post-palatal for-
amma. The zygoniit arch upward more strongly than usual in
the genus, and the audital bulljE are conspicuously larger, deeper,
and more rounded, which condition, doubtless, is correlated with
the great development of the external ears.

138

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Cranial Measurements .

Basilar length, ....

Occipito-nasal length,
Greatest zygomatic breadth,

" breadth across parietals,

" " between mastoids, .

Least breadth at interorbital constriction,

" " " postorbital notch,

Distance between postorbital processes,
Palatal length, ....

Greatest length of nasals,
Breadth of muzzle at canines,

" " " midwav between canines and root
Length of lateral series of teeth (on alveolae).
Breadth of palate between canines,

" " " " 1st premolars,

" " " 4th premolars,

" " " 2d molars,

Length of mandible, ....

Height of coronoid process from angle.
Length of lateral series of teeth (on alveolje).
Length of molariform series.

of zygomae

103.

S8^
42

38.

19
20.

26,

55
40.

15

51

9

9'

17

16

83
^7
57-
47-

* Cannot be ascertained because the condyles are broken off.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

A.

Page.

Address, seventh presidential xiii, 9-94

Address, eighth presidential xxii, 95-134

Alaska, travels in xi

Alciue cemetery xx

Almiqui (Solenodon cubanus) x

Ambly stoma, description of larval form x

Amendment to constitution xi

Amphiuma, vertebrae of ix

Ant-decapitating parasite xviii

Ant nests and their inhabitants ix

Anti-pyretics, remarks on viii

Aplodontia, a new species of vii

Aramus xxi

Araujia albans as a butterfly catcher xiv

Arvieola (Ghilotus) pallidas xxi

Autumnal hues of the Columbian flora xi

B.

Bacteria, parasitic, and their relation to Sapro-
phytes xii

Bacteria, peptonizing ferments among xx

Baird, announcement of death of xviii

Baird memorial meeting xxiii

Baker, Dr. Frank, the foi-amen of Magendie xii

Some unusual musciilar variations in

the human body xv

Baker, Dr. Frank, and J. L. Wortmau, recent
investigations iuto the mechanism of the

elbow joint viii

Barnard, Dr. W. S., effects of kerosene ou ani-
mal and vegetable life viii

Barrows, Walter B., does the flying fish fly ?... xviii

Freshet notes on the Rio Uruguay xix

Shape of bill in snail-eating birds xxi

Bat, new species from western states xii, 1-4

Bean, Dr. Tarleton H., the trout of North

America ix

American and European work in deep-
sea ichthyology compared xv

The young forms of some of our food

fishes xix

A new species of Thyrsitops from the

New England fishing banks xix

Beginnings of American science, the third cen-
tury 9-94

Beyer, Dr. H. G. , remarks ou anti-pjTetics viii

An alleged method of instructing the

memory xi

The preservation of bottled museum

specimens xv

Action of caffeine upon the kidneys xvi

Page.

Bill, shajje of, in snail-eating birds xxi

Biological notes on southern California xvii

Bird, new to Japan xvii

Birds, new species from Sandwich Islands xiv

Bird rocks of the gulf of St. Lawrence xviii

Blackflsh of our southern waters xvi

Bobolink, ravages of, in rice fields xvii

Botanical section xxiv

Botanical terms, some xix

Bufi'alo, the last of xiii

c,

Cafi'eine, action of, ou the kidneys xvi

Carrier Shell, protective devices in xviii

Cervidse, rapid disappearance of the shed an-
tlers of XX

Oetacea, the phylogeuy of xx

Cetaceans, works published on, since 1886 xx

Chickering, Prof. J. W., Jr., travels in Alaska xi

Civilization as an exterminator of savage races..xvii

Codfish, novcl facts in natural history of xvi

Collins, Capt. J. W., novel facts in the nat-
ural history of the codfish xvi

Contagious Diseases, new method of producing

immunity from vii

Cope, Prof. E. D., a new species of snake

from the District of Columbia xiv

Hyoid ai^paratus in urodele batrachians...xiv

Corea, the country and the people xv

Crozier, A. A., on some botanical terms xix

Crustacean tracks on strata of upper Cambrian

(Potsdam) age xii

Curtice, Dr. Cooper, the timber line of Pike's
Peak XX

Dall, William H., exhibition of Lingula pyra-

niidata ix

Superficial anatomy of species of pecten ix

Amendment to constitution xi

Historical notes on the department of

molluscs of the National Museum xi

Recent geological explorations in south-
western Florida xvi

A genus of bivalve molluscs (Cyrenella)

new to North America xvii

Some American conchologists (presi-
dential address) 95-134

Date Palm, exhibition of cluster of fruit of. xx

Deltoids, peculiar sexual characters Ariil

139

140

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Page.

Diospyros kaki, Japanese persimmon xix

Does the flying fish fly ? xviii

Dynastes tityus, abnormal abundance of x

E.

Eggleston, Dr. Edward, queries concerning
certain plants and animals known to the first

colonists of North America xvi

Elbow joint, recent investigations into mecha-
nism of viii

Eudoceras, fossil over eight feet in length xxi

Eskimo art, representations of animal life in xvi

Evotomys caroliuensis xv

F.

Fasciation in Ranunculus and Riidbcckia x

Fauna and flora of the Great Smoky Mountains..xix

Fenesica tarquineus vii

Fish fauna of the south temperate or notalian

realm xix

Fish, explanation of past failures in the crdture

of the Salmonidae xix

Fish, new species of Thyrsitops from the New

England fishing banks xix

Fishes, Japanese chromolithographs of xviii

Fishes, young forms of some of oiu- food xix

Flora Columbiana, additions and changes for 1885

viii

Florida, recent geological exijlorations in xvi

Flying Fish, does it fly ? xviii

Foramen of Mageudie xii

Fox, description of a new species from Califor-
nia 135-138

Freshet notes on the Uruguay xix

G.

Geological horizon of unplaced faunas xviii

Gill, Pi'of. Theodore, characteristics and fam-
ilies of Iniomous fishes viii

Tseniosmous fishes x

The fish fauna of the south temperate

or notalian realm xix

The phylogeny of the Cetacea xx

Goode, G. Brown, exhibition of Japanese

chromolithogi-aijhs of fishes xviii

The beginnings of natural history in

America; the third century 9-94

Grasses, new species of vii

Grasses, recent collection of Mexican xiv

Grasses, notes on Western xviii

Gray Squirrel, new subspecies from Minnesota, viii

Great Auk xx

Great Smoky Moimtains, fauna and flora of xix

Page.

H.

Hallock, Charles, hyper-instinct in animals vii

The transcontinental range of the moose. ..xv
The gi'eat Roseau swamp in north-western

Minnesota xx

Hesperomys anthouyi (a new mouse) xvi, 5-8

Hill, R. T., the true geological horizon of
some hitherto unplaced faimas, with special

reference to the Cretaceous of Texas xviii

Hopkins, C. L., notes relative to the sense of

snjell in the turkey buzzard xx

Hornaday, William T., the last of the buffalo ...xiii
Civilization as an exterminator of savage

races xvii

How the great northern sea cow (Rhytina) be-
came exterminated xxi

Howard, L. 0., a Rock Creek philanthi-opist xv

An ant-decapitating parasite xviii

Hydropsyche xv

Hyoid apparatus in Urodele Batrachians xiv

Hyper-instinct in animals vii

Ichthyology, American and European work in

deep sea, compared. xv

Iniomous fishes, characteristics and families of, viii
Insects, some geographical variations in xix

J-

Japanese persimmon xix

Joint Commission vl

Jouy, P. Jj., Corea ; the country and the peo-
ple XV

A bird new to Japan (Pitta oreas) xvii

K.

Kerosene, effects of on animal and vegetable

life viii

Kidder, Dr. J. H., exhibition of concretions

and grass balls. .^ xvii

Knowlton, F. H., additions to, and changes in,

the flora columbiaua for 1885 viii

Fasciation in Ranunculus and Rud-

beckia x

The recent shower of pollen in Washing-
ton, the so-called "sulphur shower "....xvii

Lagenorhynchus, revision of genus x

Lepidoptera. occurrence of nocturnal, at sea xv

Lingula, a fossil preserving the cast of the ped-
uncle XX

ALPHABETICAL ESTDEX.

141

Page.

Liug^ila pyramidata ix

Lucas, Frederick A., notes on the vertebrae of

Aniphinma, Siren, and Menopoma ix

Osteology of the spotted Tinamou, No-

thiira maculosa xii

Occurrence of nocturnal Lepidoptera at

sea XV

The os-proniinens in birds xvii

The Bird Rocks of the gulf of St. Law-
rence m 1887 xviii

An alcine cemetery, the resting place of

the Great Auk on FTiuk Island xx

Lynx, some distinctive cranial characters ix

M.

Marsilia quadrifolia xi

Mason, Prof. Otis T., representations of animal

life in Eskimo art xvi

McDonald, Col. Marshall, Explanations of past

failures in the culture of Salmonidse xix

McGee, W. J., the ovei'lapping habitats of

Stirrnella magna and S. neglecta in Iowa xxi

Menopoma, vertebrse of ix

Merriam, Dr. C. Hart, a new bat (Vespertilio

ciliolabrum) from the West xii, 1-4

Description of a new pocket gopher from

California xii

A new species of wood rat (Neotoma bry-
anti) from Gerros Island, Lower Cali-
fornia xiv

A new species of wood mouse (Evoto-
mys carolinensis) from the mountains

of North Carolina xv

A new species of mouse from New Mex-
ico (Hesperomys anthouyi) xvi, 5-8

Ravages of the bobolink in the rice fields

of the south xvii

Fauna and flora of the Great Smoky
Mountains, in North Carolina and Ten-
nessee xix

Description of a new field mouse (Ai-vicola
pallidus) from the Bad Lauds of north-
western Dakota xxi

A new species of Aplodontia from Cali-
fornia vii

A new sub-species of gray squirrel from

central Minnesota viii

A new species of fox from California, 135-138
Molluscs, historical notes on department of, in

National Muswim xi

Molluscs, a genus of bivalve new to North i

America xvii |

Moose, transcontinental range of xv

Mouse, descriiitiou of a new (Arvlcola palli-
dus), from Dakota xxi

Mouse, new species from New Mexico (Hesper-
omys anthonyi) xvi, 5-8

Page.
Mouse, new species from North Carolina (Evo-

tomys carolinensis) xv

Mouse, period of gestation in caged white xix

Musical Sounds, effects on animals ix

Muybridge, E. , photographs of animals in

motion xiv

N.

Neotoma bryanti, a new wood rat xiv

Norris, Dr. Basil, U. S. A., description of

larval form of an Amblystoma x

Nothura maculosa, osteology of xii

Occurrence of nocturnal lepidoptera at sea xv

Officers for 1887 iv, xii

Officers for 1888 v, xxi,xxii

Os-prominens in bii'ds xvii

Palo La Cruz (wood of the cross) x

Pecten, superficial anatomy of species of ix

Photographs of animals in motion. xiv

Pitta oreas, a bird new to Japan xvii

Placenta, evoUition of, in mammalia xix

Plane ti'ee and its ancestors vii

Pollen, recent shower of, in Washington xvii

Pocket gopher, new sub-species xii

Potomac drinking water, biological analyses of. viii
Potomac water, quantitative variations in the

germ life of in 1886 xvi

Preservation of bottled museum specimens xii

Protective devices in carrier shell xviii

R.

Raptores, feeding habits of young xxi

Rathbun, Richard, temperature charts of At-
lantic coast siu"face water xiii

Rau, Dr. Charles, announcement of death of ...xviii

Rhytina, how exterminated xxi

Riley, Prof. C. V., a carnivorous butterfly

larva, Fenesica tarquineus vii

Biological notes from southern Califor-
nia xvii

Rock Creek philanthropist xv

Roddy, H. Justin, feeding habits of some young

raptores xxi

Roseau Swamp, the gi-eat xx

Rostrhamus sociabilis xxi

Ryder, John A., the evolution of the mamma-
lian placenta '. ix

142

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.

Page.

Salmon, Dr. D. E., and Dr. Theobald Smith.
A new method of producing immunity

from contagious diseases vii

Notes on some biological analyses of

Potomac drinking-water viii

Saturday lectures, 1886 xxii

Saturday lectures, 1887 xxiii

Scudder, N. P., the period of gestation in the

common caged white mouse xix

Seaman, Prof. W. H., notes on Marsilia quad-

rifolia xi

Sexual characters in the Deltoids viii

Siren, vertebrte of ix

Shufeldt, Dr. R. W., some early, and as yet

unpublished, drawings of Audubon viii

Smith, .John B., some peculiar secondary sex-
ual characters in the Deltoids and

their supposed functions viii

Ant's nests and their inhabitants ix

Abnormal abundance of Dyuastes tityus x

Some geographical variations of insects .... xix
Smith, Dr. Theobald, parasitic bacteria and

their relation to Saprophytes xii

Quantitive variations in the germ life of

Potomac water during 1886 xvi

Peptonizing ferments among bacteria xx

Smith, Dr. Theobald, and Dr. D. E. Salmon,
a new method of producing immunity

from contagious disease vii

Notes on some biological analyses of Po-
tomac drinking-water viii

Snake, new species from District of CoUimbia, xiv
Solenodon cubanus, exhibition of a living

specimen of x

Stearns, Prof. K. E. C, instances of the ef-
fects of musical sounds on animals ix

The asclepiad plant (Araujia albans) as a

butterfly catcher xiv

The protective devices of the carrier shell,

Xenophora xviii

Stejneger, Leonhard, new birds froni the

Sandwich Islands xiv

How the gi-eat northern sea cow (Rhytina)

became exterminated.. xxi

Sturnella magna and S. neglecta, overlapping

habitats in Iowa xxi

" Sulphur shower" xvii

Sweden, recent progress of zoology in xi

T.

Tseniosomous fishes x

Temperature charts of Atlantic coast surface
water.. xiii

Paj
Thyrsitops, new species from the New England

fishing banks 3

Timber Inie of Pike's Peak..

Tropidonotus bisectus 3

Trout of North America

True, F. W., some distinctive cranial char-
acters of the Canadian lynx

A revision of the genus Lagenorhynchus...
Exhibition of a living Solenodon cu-
banus

The blackfish of our southern waters 3

Review of some of the more important
works on cetaceans piiblished since 1886.
Trybom, Dr. Filip, on recent progre.ss of zool-
ogy in Sweden

Turkey buzzard, sense of smell in

V.

Van Diemen, H. E., the Japanese persimmon

(Diospyros kaki) 3

Exhibition of cluster of fruit of the date

palm (Phcenix dactylifera)

Vasey, Dr. George, new and recent species of

North American grasses

A recent collection of Mexican grasses

made by Dr. E. Palmer :

Notes on western grasses xi

Vespertilio ciliolabrum xii, ]

w.

Walcott, C. D., crustacean tracks found on
strata of upper Cambrian (Potsdam) age.
A fossil lingula preserving the cast of
the peduncle, from the Hudson Ter-

rane, near Rome, N. Y

Exhibition of section of fossil endoceros

over eight feet in length 1

Ward, Prof. Lester F., the plane tree and its

ancestors

Exhibition of specimen of the Palo la

Cruz, or wood of the cross

Autumnal hues of the Columbian flora

White, Dr. C. A., the rapid disappearance of

the shed antlers of the Cervidse

Wortman, J. L. , and Dr. Frank Baker on recent
investigations into the mechanism of the el-
bow joint ■^

X.

Xenophora, protective devices in x^

:<:•■!

»|ii:!ilit!!i;iiiilil!li|ll!i!ii|!!!!i!i!iii!i!i|i§