THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

PIONEERS OF
SCIENCE IN AMERICA

Sfeetcbes of tbeir %i\>es anfc Scientific TKHorfe

REPRINTED WITH ADDITIONS
FROM THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

EDITED AND REVISED BY

WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS, M. D.

WITH PORTRAITS

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1896 •

COPYRIGHT, 1896,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

,!'

Y

PREFACE.

THE development of science during the last hundred years,
with its multiplied and ever-increasing contributions to the
welfare of man, is justly looked upon as the beginning of one
of the most marvellous periods of progress in the history of
the race. Though we are still in the early stages of this ad-j
vance, its effects are already abundantly apparent. It has
revolutionized the industries of the civilized world, has given
us new and more intimate commercial relations, has swept away
traditional educational standards, and by its stimulating influ-
ence is redirecting and extending the movement of human
thought.

In this country the men who took a prominent part in the
initiation of these wonderful changes were comparatively few,
while the disadvantages they had to contend with were many
and serious. Scattered over a large extent of undeveloped
territory, unable to secure the benefits of co-operation, poor in
pocket, and generally lacking the sympathy when they did not
meet the active opposition of their fellow-men, the work they
did as teachers and original investigators forms one of the
most creditable chapters of our early history, and unques-
tionably paved the way for those later scientific achievements
of which as a nation we may well be proud. Surely the ca-
reers of these men are quite as worthy the contemplation of
both young and old as are the doings of heroes of carnage
and political strife.

The purpose of the present volume is to point out, though
without any pretensions to completeness, the character and
scope of the work of these interesting scientific worthies, and
to give the reader, briefly in each instance, such accounts of
the men as will enable him to appreciate something of their
personal characteristics, and to know and admire their ea-
rn

IV

PREFACE.

thusiastic love of Nature, which carried them over every ob-
stacle in the pursuit of their chosen study.

Nearly all of the biographies appeared originally in the
Popular Science Monthly, in which magazine such accounts
have long been considered by many of its readers one of its
most interesting features. The accompanying portraits, as will
be seen, are in every instance well authenticated. In collecting
the materials for the Monthly no effort was spared to reach
the most trustworthy sources of information. Surviving rela-
tives when accessible, the records of educational institutions,
public documents, and published biographies in the few cases
where these existed, were freely consulted, especial care being
taken to verify names, dates, and other important facts. The
accuracy thus secured in the first instance has been made more
perfect by a thorough revision of the matter for this volume.

The number of biographies included in the book is limited
to fifty. Of course it is not claimed that these comprise all the
names in American science that are entitled to a like distinc-
tion ; but beginning with the time of Franklin, prior to which
we have found no record of the systematic pursuit of science
by any one in this country, the plan has been to present the
various personages in the order of their birth, making the list
as complete as possible as far as it went. This brings it down
to about the year 1810, the working period of many of those
included thus falling within the present century. Should the
book be found of sufficient interest to warrant the venture, a
second volume on a similar plan may follow.

I am indebted to Mr. W. H. Larrabee for the preparation of
the sketch which opens the volume. This involved a long and
painstaking search through a very considerable literature, and
so far as I know it is the first systematic account of what
Franklin did in science that has appeared. My acknowledg-
ments are also due to Mr. F. A. Fernald for valuable aid in the
work of revision and in seeing the book through the press.

W. J. Y.
NEW YORK, January 12, 1896.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN i

Portrait after the picture in pastel by Joseph S. Duplessis, 1783.
JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM 24

Portrait of William Bartram after an engraving in The Cabinet of

Natural History and American Rural Sports, Philadelphia, 1832.
JOHN WINTHROP 40

Portrait after a painting by Copley belonging to his family.
DAVID RITTENHOUSE 47

Portrait after a painting by C. W. Peale.
GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG 58

Portrait after a painting belonging to his family.
SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL 71 x

Portrait after an engraving loaned by Dr. Henry Carrington Bolton, a

kinsman.
BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON 81

Portrait after an engraving in the Biography of him by W. P. C. Barton.
ALEXANDER WILSON 90

Portrait after a steel engraving by W. J. Alais in Wilson's Poems and

Literary Prose.
DAVID HOSACK 100 —

Portrait after a painting belonging to Columbia College.
AMOS EATON in

Portrait after a steel engraving by A. H. Ritchie.
GERARD TROOST ' . .119

Portrait after a painting in the Hall of the Academy of Natural Sciences

of Philadelphia.
CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR 128

Portrait after a painting in the Hall of the Academy of Natural Sciences

of Philadelphia.
BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER 140 „

Portrait after a photograph coloured in oil belonging to his family.

v

vi CONTENTS.

PAGE

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 152

Portrait after a painting by George P. A. Healy, belonging to the Bos-
ton Society of Natural History.

LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ 167

Portrait after a miniature belonging to his family.

ROBERT HARE 176

Portrait after a painting belonging to Mr. Frederick Prime.

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE l82

Portrait after an engraving in his Analyse de la Nature.
JAMES POLLARD ESPY 196

Portrait after a painting in the Smithsonian Institution.
THOMAS NUTTALL 205

Portrait after a daguerreotype formerly belonging to Dr. Asa Gray.
THOMAS SAY 215

Portrait after a lithograph in the Hall of the Academy of Sciences of

Philadelphia.
WILLIAM CRANCH BOND .223

Portrait after an engraving in the Annals of Harvard College Observa-
tory, Volume VII.
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 234

Portrait from a photograph.
DENISON OLMSTED 250

Portrait after a steel engraving by A. H. Ritchie in the New Eng-

lander for August, 1859.
ISAAC LEA 260

Portrait after an etching by S. J. Ferris.
LARDNER VANUXEM 270

Portrait from a photograph loaned by his daughter.

ELISHA MITCHELL 279

Portrait after an engraving loaned by Dr. Henry Carrington Bolton, a
kinsman.

EDWARD HITCHCOCK 290

Portrait from a photograph furnished by his son.

HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT 300

Portrait after an engraving loaned by Gen. James Grant Wilson.

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA 311

Portrait from an albertype in a memorial pamphlet on the Dana
family.

ZADOC THOMPSON » 319

Portrait from a photograph procured by Prof. G. H. Perkins, of the
University of Vermont.

JOHN TORREY 327

Portrait after a painting belonging to Columbia College.

GEORGE CATLIN ..336

Portrait after a miniature by Watkins, of London.

CONTENTS. vij

PAGE

EBENEZER EMMONS 347

Portrait from a photograph loaned by his son.

JOSEPH HENRY 354

Portrait from a photograph.
JAMES BLYTHE ROGERS 368

Portrait from a photograph loaned by his daughter-in-law.
JOHN ERICSSON 374

Portrait from a photograph by M. B. Brady, Washington.
TIMOTHY ABBOTT CONRAD 385

Portrait from a photograph made by his nephew, Dr. Charles Conrad

Abbott.
WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT 394

Portrait after an ambrotype.
WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER . . 402

Portrait from a photograph furnished by his son.
WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS 410

Portrait made under the direction of Mrs. Rogers.
CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD 419

Portrait from a photograph furnished by his son.
SEARS COOK WALKER . . . 428

Portrait from a photograph furnished by his brother.
ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE 436

Portrait from a photograph by F. Gutekunst, Philadelphia.
JAMES HENRY COFFIN 447

Portrait from a photograph by F. Gutekunst, Philadelphia.
LEO LESQUEREUX 458

Portrait from a photograph by Baker, Columbus, O.
MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 464

Portrait after a photograph taken in 1871 by Miley & Co., Lexing-
ton, Va.

JEAN Louis RODOLPHE AGASSIZ 475

Portrait after a steel engraving by C. H. Jeens in Volume II of the
Life and Correspondence of Agassiz.

ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT 492

Portrait from a photograph by Pach Bros., New York and Princeton.

DAVID DALE OWEN 500

Portrait from a photograph loaned by his son.

viii CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.

FIG. PAGE

1. Bartram's House in 1887 25

2. Cypress Tree in Bartram Park 31

3. Nether Stone of John Bartram's Cider Mill 38

4. The Dana House. First Observatory of Harvard College . . . 229

5. Prof. Morse's First Telegraph Instrument 240

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

1706-1791.

No man in the eighteenth century gained a wider fame, or
one which has been less modified by the hundred years that
have intervened, than Benjamin Franklin. We might be led to
believe at first thought that the extraordinary repute into
which he rose was relative, and that the world's appreciation
of him, and particularly the feeling of his own countrymen, was
exaggerated by the surprise that the colonies, then so young
and primitive, should have produced so able and versatile a
man. But this would be an incorrect view. Franklin's fame
was a tribute to his real eminence. The more his life and
achievements are studied the more clearly does it appear that
Franklin's greatness was of the whole world and would have
been as prominent in any age ; and that in any group of
leaders of progress, from whatever time or nation they might
be selected, he would find his place near the head.

Franklin's history is so universally familiar that more than
a mere reference in this sketch to such of the personal and
political events of his life as constitute the staple of most of
the biographies of him would be superfluous. Giving the
briefest summary of the principal dates, our account will be de-
voted to that part of his work which contributed to the ad-
vancement of science.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, January 17, 1706,
" the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations,"
the fifteenth child of his father and the eighth of his mother,
who was a second wife, out of a family of seventeen. His
father was a Nonconformist emigrant from England, out of an

2 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

honourable family of the working class, " a man of strength and
prudence of character." His mother was the daughter of Peter
Folger, author of a volume of poems, A Looking Glass for the
Times, asserting liberty of conscience.

Franklin's earlier years were spent in the soap and candle
factory of his father till the age of twelve, when he became an
apprentice in the printing office of his brother James, and
began to cultivate his literary tastes and write for publica-
tion. On account of disagreements with his brother he stole
away from Boston and went to Philadelphia in 1723, and there
met that curious series of adventures the story of which has
been, and continues to be, so entertaining to American youth.
Here, too, his active life, so far as it directly affected the
world, began.

Franklin tells us in his autobiography that his father took
great pains to train his children to habits of honesty and
industry. One of the earliest lessons he taught the boy — it
was in the affair of appropriating the building stones to make
a fishing wharf — was, when he pleaded the usefulness of the
work, to convince him that nothing was useful which was not
honest. This father "was skilled a little in music," both with
the voice and on the violin, had a mechanical genius, and was
handy on occasion in the use of other trades than his own ;
" but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and
solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and
public affairs"; and he was frequently visited for consultation
in matters of both kinds. " At the table he liked to have, as
often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbour to con-
verse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or
useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the
minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention
to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life."
The father had intended to devote the boy, " as the tithe of
his sons," to the service of the Church, and was encouraged in
this design by his early readiness in learning to read, and the
opinion of his friends, who discerned signs of scholarly promise
in him; but, in view of the expense of a college education,
"and the mean living many so educated were afterward able
to obtain," changed his first intention and took him from the
grammar school, where he had been preparing, and sent him to
a school for writing and arithmetic. Franklin " acquired fair

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 3

writing pretty well," but failed in arithmetic. Then he
was placed in the chandler's shop, and gained the rest of
his education there, in the printing office, and in practical life.

Having developed a strong taste for reading, Franklin
eagerly devoured such books 'as came within his reach. He
adopted a vegetable diet and applied the money he saved there-
by to the purchase of books, while he devoted the time he
could gain from his meals to reading. His collection of books
was a miscellaneous one, but it included some works, like The
Spectator and others of its kind, that were remarkable for the
graces of their style, and some that were quickening to thought.
Perceiving the defects in his own style as a writer, he undertook
to cultivate it systematically.

The printer Keimer, Franklin's employer in Philadelphia,
loved argument and engaged in many disputations with his
journeyman. Franklin practised himself in the Socratic method
of discussion, and had much amusement, with great advantage to
himself in self-discipline, in drawing the old printer unawares into
quandaries by leading questions, begetting difficulties and contra-
dictions, till he became accustomed, before answering even com-
mon questions, to ask, " What do you intend to infer from that ? "

On his return from a visit to England in 1726, Franklin
formed a club or debating society among his friends, called the
Junto, and drew up its rules. Every member of this associa-
tion was required in turn to produce one or more queries on
some point of morals, politics, or natural philosophy for dis-
cussion by the company ; and once in three months to read an
essay of his own writing, on any subject he might select. The
debates were expected to be conducted in the sincere spirit of
inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, desire of vic-
tory, expression of positiveness in opinion, or direct contradic-
tion. Applicants for admission to this society were asked a list
of questions intended to determine that they were catholic in
spirit or free from bigotry or strong prepossession, culminating in
the interrogatory, " Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will
you endeavour impartially to find and receive it yourself, and
communicate it to others?"

A selection from the questions discussed in the Junto was
made by Dr. William Smith from a record which came into his
possession at the time the American Philosophical Society was
instituted. They indicate a desire for the real increase of

4 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

knowledge among the members that may very well have borne
fruit later in the formation of the larger and more learned
body, of which the Junto was the forerunner, if not the direct
parent. Certain of these questions pertain to the nature of
sound — is it an entity or a body ? to the origin of vapours; the
extent of the domain of self-interest ; the best form of govern-
ment and the first ; whether one form of government can suit
all mankind ; the reason for the tides being higher in the Bay
of Fundy than in the Delaware ; the safety of paper money ;
knowledge of happiness; the utilization of the lakes; the cause
of smoky chimneys ; why candle flames are spiral ; and sub-
jects relating to metaphysics and human nature.

Franklin's plan for the members of the Junto to bring their
books together and form a library for common consultation
did not work well in practice, and was given up after the end
of the first year; but the idea of the collection kept a-working
in Franklin's mind, and he started a subscription for a public
library. The institution was chartered and became, Franklin
says, " the mother of all the North American subscription libra-
ries . . . a great thing itself, and continually increasing." * Of
its immediate results, Franklin relates that it " soon manifested
its utility, was imitated by other towns and in other provinces.
The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became
fashionable; and our people, having no public amusements to
divert their attention from study, became better acquainted
with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers to
be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the
same rank generally are in other countries." To Franklin the
library afforded the means of improvement by constant study,
for which he set apart an hour or two each day, and thus, he
says, supplied in some degree the lack of the learned education
which his father had once intended for him.

The inscribed tablet on the front of the building of the
library bears record that it was instituted at the instance of
Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Penn, presenting the library with
an air pump in 1738, accredited the Library Company with being
"the first that encouraged knowledge and learning in the Prov-
ince of Pennsylvania." " The praise is not ill deserved," says
Duyckinck, as at the time of the foundation of the library

* The Philadelphia Library, on Fifth Street, facing the State House Square.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 5

" there was not even a good bookstore accessible nearer than
Boston."

In the scheme for the formation of the American Philosoph-
ical Society, which was drawn up in 1743 and brought forward
in that or the following year, Franklin observed that the hard-
est drudgery of the early settlement of the colonies having
been performed, there were many persons in every province in
circumstances that set them at ease and afforded them leisure
to cultivate the fine arts and improve the common stock of
knowledge. " To such of those who are men of speculation
many hints must from time to time arise, many observations
occur, which if well examined, pursued, and improved, might
produce discoveries to the advantage of some or all the British
plantations, or to the benefit of mankind in general." As a
remedy for the wide separation of such persons, whereby many
useful particulars might remain uncommunicated, die with the
discoverers, and be lost to mankind, it was suggested that one
society be formed of virtuosi or ingenious men, residing in the
several colonies, who should maintain constant correspondence ;
Philadelphia to be its headquarters, because it was the most
central place ; and that there should be always at least seven
members — a physician, a mechanician, a geographer, and a gen-
eral natural philosopher — who should meet once a month or
oftener, to exchange communications with one another, take
care and notice of the papers of correspondence, and distribute
copies of communications of value to more distant members
in order to get their opinions upon them. Among the subjects
to which the society should give attention were included the
recognised branches of science and the useful arts, and "all
philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things,
tend to increase the power of man over matter, and multiply
the conveniences and pleasures of life." The plan also made
provision for correspondence with the Royal Society of Lon-
don and the Dublin Society ; for the distribution of quarterly
abstracts of proceedings; and for the publication of annual
collections of experiments, discoveries, and improvements. On
the 5th of April, 1744, Franklin wrote to Cadwallader Golden
" that the society, so far as it relates to Philadelphia, is actually
formed, and has had several meetings, to mutual satisfaction."
Its meetings were kept up for about ten years and then discon-
tinued. Another society, called at first the Junto, was formed

6 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

in 1750, consisting, it is supposed, of members of the old Junto.
It enlarged its scope and its name in 1766, and again in 1768,
and became " the American Society, held at Philadelphia, for
Promoting Useful Knowledge." Franklin was made its presi-
dent. The original American Philosophical Society was resus-
citated in 1767 by six of the old members, to whom otrierswere
afterward added. In January, 1769, the two societies were
united as the American Philosophical Society and Franklin was
elected president, after an exciting contest with the Hon. James
Hamilton, president of the original society of that name. He
continued to be president till his death in 1791.

Franklin's useful activity as a citizen was visible every-
where during his life in Philadelphia. A paper on fires, which
he read in the Junto and published in 1736, gave rise to a proj-
ect for forming a fire company. Some thirty persons were
found to engage in the scheme. This act was the suggestion
for the formation of other fire companies.

When applied to for a subscription for the establishment of
a hospital he was told, to enlist his more active interest in the
scheme, that the people would not take hold unless he was in it.
He secured a charter and a grant for the institution from the
Legislature. Of his agency and course in this matter he char-
acteristically observes : " I do not remember any of my political
manoeuvres the success of which gave me at the time more
pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excused
myself for having made some use of cunning."

Again we find him pioneering in the improvement of the
street pavements. He had the street around Jersey Market
paved, and contracted with a man to keep it swept. A general
awakening on the subject followed, paving was done all over
the city, and shortly became the object of a law. Subsequent-
ly, on one of his visits to England, he published plans for
cleaning the streets of London and Westminster. The first
street lamps set up in Philadelphia were dim and smoky.
Franklin inquired into the causes of the inefficiency of their
light, and found that they were closed at the bottom so as to
cut off the draught. By his direction the bottom was opened;
the form of the lamp was changed from a globe to a lantern
of four flat panes, with a funnel above to draw up the smoke.
This form of lamp prevailed in our cities till recently, and may
still be found in many towns where gas lights are used.

*%• BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 7

Having published propositions relating to the education of
youth in Pennsylvania, Franklin started a subscription for an
academy that was opened in 1749. He was a member of the
building committee of the institution and of the board of
trustees. It was incorporated as " the College, Academy, and
Charitable School of Philadelphia " in 1755 ; its funds were in-
creased by contributions from Great Britain ; land was granted
to it by the proprietaries and other land was added by the
Assembly ; and the institution grew into the University of
Pennsylvania.

In 1742 Franklin invented the Franklin stove, with pro-
vision for warming the fresh air on its entering. The merits
and advantages of this new method of warming rooms, which
was claimed also to be superior in economy to the former
methods, were set forth in detail in his pamphlet on " The New-
invented Pennsylvania Freplaces." Franklin made a present
of* the model of the stove to his friend Robert Grace, who,
being the proprietor of an iron furnace, found the casting of
them profitable. Governor Thomas was so pleased with
Franklin's description of the stoves that he offered him a
patent upon them ; but this Franklin declined from a principle
which he says had ever weighed upon him on such occasions —
"that as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of
others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by
an invention of ours ; and this we should do freely and gener-
ously." An ironmonger of London, having made some small
changes in the stove, " which rather hurt its operation," pat-
ented it and made a little fortune out of it. " And this," says
Franklin, " is not the only instance of patents taken out for
my inventions by others, though not always with the same
success, which I never contested, having no desire to profit by
patents myself, and hating disputes."

In time Franklin yielded to his taste for investigation and
public discussions and retired from private business, flattering
himself, as he said, that by the sufficient though moderate for-
tune he had acquired he had secured leisure during the rest of
his life for philosophical studies and amusements. But the
public, he complained, now considering him a man of leisure,
laid hold of him for their purposes, every part of the civil
government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty
upon him.

8 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

One of the schemes from which he evidently anticipated
much enjoyment was the pursuit of his electrical experi-
ments, for which he purchased the apparatus of Dr. Spence,
who had come from England to lecture here. Franklin had
met Dr. Spence, then recently come over from Scotland, in
Boston, in 1746, and was shown some experiments which,
though imperfectly performed, were novel, and equally surpris-
ing and pleasing to him. Soon afterward the Library Com-
pany received from Mr. Peter Collinson, of the Royal Society,
an account of the new German experiments in electricity,
with a glass tube and directions for using it. Franklin at once
improved the opportunity to repeat the experiments he had wit-
nessed in Boston. He also practised upon others accounts of
which had been received from England, and added new ones.
So many persons were attracted to his house to see the wonders
he could perform that he was in danger of being overworked ;
so he had a number of the tubes blown and distributed among
his friends, who were thus enabled to divide with him the bur-
den of entertaining the sightseers. A Mr. Kinnersley, being
out of business, was furnished with instruments of a little finer
make, and charged with two lectures prepared by Franklin, "in
which the experiments were ranged in such order and accom-
panied by such explanations in such method as that the fore-
going should assist in comprehending the following"; and he
proceeded to show the experiments for money. In return for
Mr. Collinson's favours, Franklin sent him accounts of his ex-
periments, which were read in the Royal Society, but were not
thought there "worth so much notice as to be printed in the
Transactions." "One paper," says Franklin, " which I wrote
for Mr. Kinnersley, on the sameness of lightning with elec-
tricity, I sent to Dr. Mitchell, an acquaintance of mine and
one of the members also of that society, who wrote to me that
it had been read but was laughed at by the connoisseurs. The
papers, however, being shown to Dr. Fothergill, he thought
them of too much value to be stifled, and advised the printing
of them. Mr. Collinson then gave them to Mr. Cave for pub-
lication in his Gentleman's Magazine, but he chose to print
them separately in a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the
preface. Cave, it seems, judged rightly for his profit, for by
the additions that arrived afterward they swelled to a quarto
volume . . . and cost him nothing for copy money. It was

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 9

some tim'e, however, before the papers were much taken notice
of in England. A copy of them happening to fall into the
hands of the Count de Buffon ... he prevailed with M. Doli-
baud to translate them into French, and they were printed in
Paris. The publication offended the Abbe Nollet, preceptor in
natural philosophy to the royal family, and an able experi-
menter who had formed and published a theory of electricity
which then had general vogue. He could not at first believe
that such a work came from America, and said it must have
been fabricated by his enemies in Paris to decry his system.
Afterward, having been assured that there really existed such a
person as Franklin in Philadelphia, which he had doubted, he
wrote and published a volume of letters, chiefly addressed to
me, and denying the validity of my experiments and of the
positions deduced from them." Franklin thought at first of
answering the abbe, but he reflected that every one might re-
peat and verify the experiments, and that he was not obliged
to defend observations offered as conjectures and not dogmat-
ically, and that a controversy would not be worth while. The
abbe was refuted by M. le Roy, of the Royal Academy of
Sciences. Franklin's book was translated into other languages,
and the doctrine it contained was by degrees universally adopted
by philosophers.

A sudden and general celebrity was given to the book by
the success of one of the experiments proposed in it, in the
hands of MM. Dolibaud and De Lor at Marly, for drawing
lightning from the clouds. This engaged public attention
everywhere. M. De Lor's repetitions of the " Philadelphia ex-
periment," having been performed before the king and court,
was visited by all the curious of Paris. Franklin was greatly
pleased, and soon afterward made a similar one — his famous
kite experiment — in Philadelphia.

Dr. Wright, an English physician, then in Paris, took up
Franklin's case and wrote to a friend in the Royal Society,
which had neglected the philosopher, concerning the high
estate to which his experiments had risen among the learned
abroad, and expressing wonder that so little notice was taken
of them in England. Dr. Watson drew up an account of these
and others of Franklin's papers, and it was printed in the
Transactions. Some of the members of the Royal Society
themselves drew lightning from the clouds, and in the end

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Franklin was unanimously elected a member of that learned
body without application from him; and in recognition, as it
were, of the honour conferred upon the society rather than
upon him by the connection, he was excused from making the
customary payment.

Franklin's literary work was a part and a product of his un-
ceasing activity. Always doing or observing, he was always
thinking and learning; and what he thought and learned he
was ready to communicate at once to some one of his numer-
ous correspondents who would be interested by it or might
derive advantage from it. When his observations had borne
fruit in some discovery or practicable scheme, he embodied the
result in some essay or paper, which likewise, most usually,
took the form of a letter to a friend. The spirit of the hour, as
Mr. G. Brown Goode well said at the American Philosophical
Society's commemoration of the centennial of Franklin's death,
was his constant inspiration, " and his writings were a legiti-
mate result, the natural outgrowth of his activity in all matters
of public concern. Admirable in themselves, their chief inter-
est is nevertheless due to the fact that they form so complete
a record of the deeds and the personal character of their
author. Though he was a voluminous writer, and one of the
great masters of English expression, Franklin wrote habitually
with a single eye to immediate practical results. He never
posed for posterity."

One of the most salient features of his scientific writings is
the broadness of his interests in that field. Nothing that could
conduce to the advancement of knowledge or to the promo-
tion of the well-being of men — for which knowledge was to be
valued — escaped his attention. He was most deeply interested
in matters that concerned health and comfort; domestic econ-
omy, the art of getting along, of making life easier and more
profitable, of saving and of improving what one had, followed ;
related to this was interest in the introduction to his country-
men of new products and additional sources of revenue, con-
cerning which there are many letters; and from these he went
into all the fields of pure science in which the thought of the
day busied itself. If the subject were not one on which he had
himself experimented or a scheme on which he had some
definite plan, he could discuss the observations of others and
present speculations which were always sagacious respecting

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. ZI

the nature and causes of phenomena; though, in view of the
primitive condition of scientific knowledge in his day, it would
be too much to expect that they should always be correct.
They were, however, usually in advance of what was known.

His outline of the subjects which he thought should come
within the range of the discussions of the American Philosoph-
ical Society gives only a partial summary of the matters in
which he ultimately became interested. It embraces all newly
discovered plants, herbs, trees, roots, their virtues, uses, etc. ;
methods of propagating them, and making such as are useful,
but particular to some plantations, more general; improve-
ments of vegetable juices, such as ciders, wines, etc. ; methods
of curing or preventing diseases ; all new-discovered fossils in
different countries, as mines, minerals, and quarries; new and
useful improvements in any branch of mathematics; new dis-
coveries in chemistry, such as improvements in distillation,
brewing, and assaying of ores; new mechanical inventions for
saving labor, as mills and carriages, and for raising and con-
veying of waters, draining of meadows, etc. ; all new arts,
trades, and manufactures that may be proposed or thought of;
surveys, maps, and charts of particular parts of the seacoasts
or inland countries ; course and junction of rivers and great
roads, situation of lakes and mountains, nature of the soil and
productions; new methods of improving the breed of useful
animals; introducing other sorts from foreign countries ; new
improvements in planting, gardening, and clearing land; and
all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of
things, tend to increase the power of man over matter, and
multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life.

The most important among Franklin's contributions to
science were his experiments in electricity, which culminated
in the demonstration that lightning is an electrical phenome-
non, and in the introduction of lightning rods as a means of
protecting buildings. We have already referred to the begin-
ning of these experiments. They were continued through
Franklin's life, and were the subject of frequent correspond-
ence between him and such of his friends as were interested in
" philosophy," as he called it. In this correspondence a variety
of methods of experimenting and many novel experiences were
described. The investigators constructed their own machines —
frictional machines — and with them made new demonstrations of

12 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the properties and powers of frictional electricity, now familiar,
but in those days original and startling discoveries. The bril-
liancy of these experiments, said Dr. J. W. Holland, of Jefferson
Medical College, at the centennial commemoration, " depended
mainly on Franklin's discovery that the electricity of the Ley-
den jar was stored up on the glass, and that by increasing the
extent of excited surface the energy was proportionately multi-
plied. The power thus obtained made it appear highly prob-
able that the difference between the spark and the lightning
flash was one of degree " — as was ultimately proved. " In a
hundred years," Dr. Holland adds, " but little has been added to
what Franklin revealed concerning the electricity of friction."
In a paper read before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris,
in 1779, Franklin gave an explanation of the aurora borealis
as a phenomenon of atmospheric electricity which still holds
good as to its general principles, although the details have
been modified by recent discoveries ; but he does not seem to
have grasped the connection between electricity and magnet-
ism, for, in a letter written in 1773 to M. Dubourg, in Paris, he
gives it as his " real opinion that these two powers of Nature
have no real affinity with others, and that the apparent produc-
tion of magnetism [by electricity] is purely accidental "; and
he gives ten points in explanation and proof of this view.

The next most important of Franklin's labours in the field
of practical science is represented, perhaps, by his invention
of a stove and his study of the causes and cure of smoky
chimneys. The Franklin stove was not merely the porta-
ble open grate or fireplace with which the name is usually
associated, but was a philosophically constructed heating ap-
paratus, based upon a careful study of the properties of
warm air and the diffusion of heat, and embodied the principles
which have since been applied in endless variety in the con-
struction of stoves of every shape and of hot-air warming
apparatus. He further devised a stove in which all the
smoke was turned to account and operated as fuel in heating
the rooms, which, when tried, answered even beyond his ex-
pectations. His studies of smoky chimneys furnished a remedy
for what was in his day one of the most crying miseries of
domestic life. Connected with this subject is that of ventila-
tion to which he gave much attention ; and he is credited with
being the first person who observed that respiration communi-

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. j^

cated a noxious quality to the air, and that the atmosphere
was poisoned by effluvia emitted from the body.

Franklin's interest in matters of health and sanitation is
further illustrated in the provision made in his will in behalf of
a water supply for Philadelphia ; in his experiments in ventila-
tion and his efforts to improve our means of keeping ourselves
warm ; and by frequent references in his letters to matters of
health. He had very definite ideas in regard to disease and
its cause, which in many points went against the medical theo-
ries of the day. Some of these were emphatically expressed
in his paper on colds. In a letter on the treatment of hospital
patients* he recommended light covering and abundance of
fresh air, declared that the idea that perspiration was better
under thick clothes was fallacious ; and expressed himself con-
vinced from certain experiments of what he had before sus-
pected, that " the opinion of perspiration being checked by
cold is an error, as well as that of rheum being occasioned
by cold. But this is heresy here, and perhaps may be so with
you. I only whisper it, and expect you will keep my secret.
Our physicians have discovered that fresh air is good for
people in the smallpox and other fevers. I hope in time they
will find out that it does no harm to people in health."

With singular prevision of what science was to develop,
Franklin wrote to Priestley in 1774, almost at the date of the
birth of modern chemistry : " That the vegetable creation
should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of
it looks like a rational system, and seems to be of a piece
with the rest. We knew before that putrid animal substances
were converted into sweet vegetable when mixed with the
earth and applied as manure ; and now it seems that the same\
putrid substances, mixed with the air, have the same effect.
The strong thriving state of your mint in putrid air seems to
show that the air is mended by taking something from it, and
not by adding to it." To this he added — another heresy in
those times — that he did not believe the woods were unhealthy.

Another prophecy is embodied in Franklin's views on the
progress of storms. He ventured the theory in 1747 f that
though the course of the wind in storms is from northeast to

* To Mr. Leroy, from London, 1773.
f In a letter to Jared Eliot.

!4 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

southwest, the course of the storm is from southwest to north-
east— " that is, the air is in violent motion in Virginia before
it moves in Connecticut, and in Connecticut before it moves at
Cape Sable." In 1760 he wrote:* " Our northeast storms be-
gin in point of time in the southwest parts — that is to say, the
air in Georgia, the furthest of our colonies to the southwest,
begins to move southwesterly before the air of Carolina, which
is the next colony northeastward ; the air of Carolina has the
same motion before the air of Virginia, which lies still more
northeastward ; and so on, northeasterly through Pennsyl-
vania, New York, New England, etc."

Concerning the origin of springs Franklin wrote to Jared
Eliot, in 1747, agreeing in his view "that most springs arise
from rains, dews, or ponds on higher grounds; yet possibly
some, that break out near the tops of high, hollow mountains, may
proceed from the abyss, or from water in the caverns of the
earth, rarefied by its internal heat, and raised in vapour, till the
cold region near the tops of such mountains condenses the
vapour into water again, which comes forth as springs, and
rides down on the outside of the mountains as it ascended on
the inside."

The mention of mountains suggested an observation that
the great Appalachian Mountains "show in many places, even
the highest parts of them, strata of seashells ; in some places
the marks of them are in the solid rocks. It is certainly the
wreck of the world we live in ! I have specimens of these sea-
shell rocks, broken off near the tops of the mountains, brought
and deposited in our library as curiosities. If you have not
seen the like, I will send you a piece." An observation is men-
tioned of " the bluff side or end of a mountain which appeared
striped from top to bottom," divided by Nature, as Mr. Walker
had told him, into pillars, of which he would be glad to have a
partial account from his correspondent. It was somewhere
near New Haven.

The calming effect of oil on waves attracted his attention.
Describing some of his experiments to Dr. Brownrigg, he wrote
that one circumstance in them struck him with particular sur-
prise. This was " the sudden, wide, and forcible spreading of a
drop of oil on the face of the water, which I do not know that

* In a letter to Alexander Small.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. !5

anybody has hitherto considered. When put on water it spreads
many feet around, becoming so thin as to produce the prismatic
colours for a considerable space, and beyond them so much
thinner as to be invisible, except as to its effect in smoothing
the waves at a much greater distance. It seems as if a mutual
repulsion between its particles took place as soon as it touched
the water, and a repulsion so strong as to act on other bodies
swimming on the surface, . . . forcing them to recede every
way from the drop as from a centre, leaving a large clear space.
The quantity of this force, and the distance to which it will
operate, I have not yet ascertained ; but I think it is a curious
inquiry, and I wish to understand whence it arises." The con-
tinued study of this subject has given rise to many curious
observations, and has thrown considerable light on the prop-
erty of surface tension of liquids.

The nature of inflammable and uninflammable gases was not
yet understood, although Priestley was engaged, with his co-
workers, in Europe, in the experiments by which it was finally
elucidated; and to him Franklin wrote, in 1774, as a contribu-
tion to the list of phenomena to be accounted for, concerning a
river in New Jersey, that on stirring the bottom bubbles arose
which could be set on fire ; and he related an experiment made
upon this river by the Rev. Dr. Finley, president of the college
at Princeton. "The discoveries," he added, "you have lately
made of the manner in which inflammable air is in some cases
produced, may throw light on this experiment, and explain its
succeeding in some cases and not in others." In another letter
to Priestley, Franklin illustrated the pleasant relations he en-
joyed with that philosopher, and manifests his sympathy with
his work by saying : " I find that you have set all the philoso-
phers of Europe at work upon fixed air ; and it is with great
pleasure that I observe how high you stand in their opinion,
for I enjoy my friends' fame as my own."

How far Franklin and the world were still, however, from
understanding the true nature of chemical heat-producing
processes, is shown in a curious speculation in his hand-
writing found among the papers of Cadwallader Golden, in
which the heat of the blood and the cold and hot fits of some
fevers were explained by supposing that the heat is a matter of
friction, not of the liquid blood, for liquids have no friction,
and water cannot be warmed by shaking it, but by friction of

!6 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the solid parts of the blood, and that produced by the disten-
tion and contraction of the arteries, the resultant heat from
which is communicated to the blood. To account for the cold,
he supposed the blood to become so viscid that it could not pass
through the minute vessels at the extremities through which it
flowed freely when duly fluid ; hence, it bringing no more heat
to them, they grow cold.

Franklin's views concerning the nature of fire and of heat
in general appear to have been partly in harmony with the
theory of phlogiston then current, and partly a vague concep-
tion of the undulatory theory, with its ethereal medium. They
are further given in a letter written to Benjamin Vaughn, in
1784, in which he said that he had long been of the opinion that
fire exists everywhere as in the state of a subtle fluid ; that too
much of the fluid in our flesh gives us the sensation we call
heat ; too little, cold ; its vibrations, light ; that all solid and
fluid substances which are inflammable have been composed of
it; their dissolution in returning to their original fluid state
we call fire. This subtle fluid is attracted by plants and ani-
mals in their growth, and consolidated ; is attracted by other
substances, thermometers, etc., variously ; has a particular
affinity with water, and will quit many other bodies to attach
itself to water, and go off with it in evaporation.

To David Rittenhouse thus he wrote, in the same year, that
universal space, as far as we know of it, seems to be filled with
a subtle fluid, whose motion or vibration is called light. This
fluid may possibly be the same with that which, being attracted
by and entering into other more solid matter, dilates the sub-
stance by separating the constituent particles, and so rendering
some solids fluid and maintaining the fluidity of others.

Franklin's speculations as to the origin of the globe are given
in a letter to the Abbe Sonleire, which was read as a paper
before the American Philosophical Society, September 22, 1782.
In it he supposes that all the elements in separable particles
being originally mixed in confusion and occupying a great
space, they would (as soon as the Almighty fiat ordained gravity,
or the mutual attraction of certain parts and the mutual repul-
sion of others, to exist) all move to their common centre; and
the air being a fluid whose parts repel each other, though drawn
to the common centre by this gravity, would be densest to-
ward the centre and rarer as more remote ; consequently all

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. \j

matters lighter than the central parts of that air, and immersed
in it, would recede from their centre, and rise till they arrived
at that region of the air which was of the same specific gravity
with themselves, when they would rest, while other matter
mixed with the lighter air would descend, and the two meeting
would form the shell of the first earth, leaving the upper atmos-
phere nearly clear. The original movement of the parts toward
that common centre would naturally form a whirl then, which
would continue upon the turning of the new-formed globe upon
its axis, and the greatest diameter of the shell would be in its
equator. If by any accident afterward the axis should be
changed, the dense internal fluid, by altering its form, must
burst the shell and throw all its substance into the confusion in
which we find it — whereby the upturning and mingling of strata
so often found are explained.

A paper in the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Manchester, England, contains some meteorological
speculations and conjectures. It supposes a region high in the
air over most countries where frost exists continually. The
mass of the earth to the depth perhaps of thirty feet retains its
heat for some time. Hence the first snows are melted and the
beginning of the winter is slow. The cold of the winter of
i783~'84 was attributed, in accordance with this theory, to the
fogs that prevailed in the preceding summer, which prevented
the land being warmed as much as usual.

A letter from M. de Saussure, the eminent Alpine geologist,
found among Franklin's papers, exhibits Franklin as interested
in the experiment for determining the density of the earth by
measuring the attraction of a mountain. The letter, in answer to
a proposition on the subject from the Royal Society, mentions
the difficulty of performing the experiment in Switzerland, on
account of the confusion of the attractions of surrounding
mountains, and suggests that it be tried on some high, isolated
peak.

The alleged finding of some toads inclosed in solid stones at
Passy, near Paris, suggested a curious speculation as to the way
in which they could have lived under such conditions. " It is
observed," Franklin said, "that animals who perspire but little
can live long without food, such as tortoises, whose flesh is
covered with a thick shell, and snakes, who are covered with
scales which are of so close a substance as scarcely to admit

1 8 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the passage of perspirable matter through them. Animals that
have open pores all over the surface of their bodies and live in
air which takes off continually the perspirable part of their
substance naturally require a continual supply of food to main-
tain their health. Toads shut up in solid stone, which prevents
their losing anything of their substance, may perhaps for that
reason need no supply, and being guarded against all accidents
and all the inclemencies of the air and changes of seasons are,
it seems, subject to no diseases, and become, as it were, im-
mortal."

The length of the time that dead bodies will retain infection
after sepulture is discussed in one of the letters,* and cases are
cited of smallpox caught from bodies thirty years dead ; fever
from an Egyptian mummy ; cold from a mummy of Teneriffe
three hundred years old ; and fevers mentioned in a newspaper
account resulting in fifteen funerals, from the bodies of persons
who had died of the plague one hundred years before.

The early experiments with balloons were observed with
interest by Franklin. He was hopeful but not sanguine as to
the outcome, and he wrote, in 1784, that the beginning of the
art of flying would be a new epoch. The construction and
manner of filling balloons were improving daily. Remarking
that some of the artists had lately gone to England, he sug-
gested to his correspondent: "It will be well for you philoso-
phers to obtain from them what they know, or you will be
behindhand, which in mechanical operations is unusual for
Englishmen." He, however, discouraged one of his friends from
attempting to cross from France to England in a balloon, tell-
ing him that means had not yet been found to keep a balloon
up more than two hours. He saw the embryo of a steamboat,
of which more than one notice occurs, and which he introduced
to the attention of Dr. Ingenhousz in 1788, speaking of it as a
boat moved by a steam engine, that " rows itself against the
tide in a river — and it is apprehended that its construction may
be so simplified and improved as to become generally useful."

Franklin observed that the same convexity of glass in spec-
tacles through which a man sees clearest and best at the proper
distance for reading is not the best for greater distances, and
for a long time used two pairs of spectacles, which he changed

* To Felix Vicq d'Agyr.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. IC;

according to the use he wished to make of them. He finally
hit upon a more convenient plan and had his glasses cut, and
" half of each kind associated in the same circle," the upper
semicircle of one kind and the lower of the other, so that he
was able to wear the same spectacles constantly, having, as he
said, "only to move my eyes up or down as I want to see dis-
tinctly far or near, the proper glasses being always ready."
He wore these glasses with great comfort, and maintained that
he was even able to understand French better by their help ;
for when at table he could observe what he was eating with one
set of the glasses and look with the other into the faces of the
friends who spoke to him, reading the sounds which his foreign
ears heard only imperfectly, in the movements of their lips.

There is hardly a subject of knowledge, art, life, and econ-
omy that is not touched upon and illuminated in Franklin's
letters. We find in them observations concerning the prevail-
ing views of life and death as not showing sufficient under-
standing; a mode of rendering meat tender by electricity;
supplies of saltpetre and gunpowder for the war, with a wish
that pikes might be introduced, and bows and arrows, for the
use of which six reasons are given ; M. Volta's experiments
and the length of time for which the electric force may be kept
in the Leyden vial ; true science and its progress ; the discov-
ery of the great use of trees in producing wholesome air; a
slowly sensitive hygrometer, suggested by such incidents as
the shrinking in America so as to be tight, and the swelling in
Europe so as to afford ample room, of a mahogany magnet box
and a telescope box; the Indian languages; the antiquity of
the mariner's compass ; the route by which the Phoenicians
came to America, if they did come ; Lavoisier's experiment of
melting platinum in fine charcoal blown upon by dephlogisti-
cated air; a comet seen in Gibraltar, concerning which data
from Herschel are enclosed to Rittenhouse; the spots on the
sun ; the temperature of the water of the ocean ; the civil serv-
ice, in which the theory is declared to Henry Lawrence that
every place of honour should be made a place of burden : " The
malady [of government] consists in the enormous salaries,
emoluments, and patronage of great offices " ; the logographic
mode of printing ; thanks to Lavoisier for his Nomenclature
Chimique; a collection of songs and music of American com-
position, " the first of the kind that has appeared here"; a

20 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

remedy for moderate deafness by putting the thumb and fingers
behind the ear, pressing outward and enlarging it, as it were,
by the hollow of the hand, which he had tried with satisfaction ;
Noah Webster's labours on the English language, with a plea
for its purity and approval of a scheme for a reformed alpha-
bet; an instrument for taking books down from shelves; the
distillation of fresh from salt water, with a theory that the skin
has imbibing as well as discharging pores, and we might drink
by sitting or lying in the water, even in salt water ; the discov-
ery of an ancient sepulchre, perhaps of a Scythian king, on the
frontiers of Russia ; improvements in navigation, of which he
had made careful studies during his long voyages across the
ocean, and on which he has observations respecting sails, ca-
bles, models, power at sea, the course of the Gulf Stream, pre-
cautions, and general reflections on the subject, relating to
which a paper was read to the American Philosophical Society
in 1785; the evil effects of lead on the human system, to
which, although they had been known for years, not much
attention seems to have been paid ; building houses with ref-
erence to safety against fire; the Deluge as a possible result of
the internal fluidity of the earth ; the wonderful discoveries
made by Herschel and " the indefatigable ingenuity by which
he has been enabled to make them " ; and on the merits of the
Greek and Latin languages for general instruction, the time
spent in learning which, he thought, might be better employed
in the education suitable for such a country as ours.

Among Franklin's economical papers is one on the nature
and necessity of a paper currency, in which the sound prin-
ciples are declared that "money as bullion or as land is valu-
able by so much labour as it costs to procure that bullion or
that land ; money as a currency has an additional value by so
much time and labour as it saves in the exchange of commod-
ities." In his letter on customs duties he squarely avows the
principle of freedom of commerce, but apologizes for the tariff
imposed by the colonies on the ground of their necessity to
raise money to pay their debt, and that by the most convenient
means. " We are not ignorant," he wrote to M. de Veilard,
" that the duties paid at the custom-house on the importation
of foreign goods are finally reimbursed by the consumer, but
we impose them as the easiest way of levying a tax from those
consumers" ; and to M. Dupont de Nemours, "You appear to

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 21

be possessed of a truth which few governments are possessed
of — that A must take some of B's produce, otherwise B will
not be able to pay for what he would take of A."

The reprint of Franklin's scientific writings by Sparks in-
cludes sixty-three papers on electricity, and one hundred and
fifty-seven on philosophical subjects, making in all two hun-
dred and twenty letters, filling eight hundred and eighty pages.

Franklin was made a Foreign Associate in the French Acad-
emy of Sciences in 1772, and was esteemed in France during
his residence there as one of the foremost men of the time. In
1782 the Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts of Padua
expressed a desire, through Chevalier Deprin, to add Frank-
lin's name to its list of members. Its diploma recited that
the particular act of electing into a learned society per-
sons who had been zealous in promoting the increase of all
kinds of knowledge was " properly but an acknowledgment of
the original titles of their relationship. Among them, Dr.
Franklin, having distinguished himself eminently, and having
rendered himself equally memorable in natural philosophy and
in politics, the Academy . . . considers it to be honouring them-
selves when they number him among the twenty-four strangers
who, by the constitution, are to be associated into their body."

In 1784 he was elected a member of the Spanish Royal
Academy of Sciences, and the publication of a Spanish transla-
tion of some of his writings was announced. A few days after-
ward the Count de Capomenes wrote him from Madrid :
" Nature, which you have profoundly studied, is indebted to
you for investigating and explaining phenomena which wise
men had not before been able to understand ; and the great
American philosopher, at the same time he discovers these
phenomena, suggests useful methods for guarding against
their dangers."

The feelings of his own countrymen toward him were equal-
ly enthusiastic. When he came home, in 1785, from his long
service abroad, the Provost of the University of Pennsylvania
addressed him, recognising him as the projector of the institu-
tion, and acknowledging that " not contented with enriching the
world with the most important discoveries in natural philoso-
phy, your benevolence and liberality of sentiment early engaged
you to make provision for exciting a spirit of inquiry into the
nicest operations of Nature, for exalting and refining the

22 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

genius of America by the propagation of useful learning, and
for qualifying many of her sons to make that illustrious figure
which has commanded the esteem and admiration of the most
polished nations of Europe." The address of the American
Philosophical Society welcomed him to his native country, for
which he had done the most essential service, and to the presi-
dential chair, his occupation of which added to the institution
much lustre in the eyes of all the world. " Sir," the address
continues, " it reflects honour on philosophy when one distin-
guished for his deep investigations and many valuable im-
provements in it, is known to be equally distinguished for his
philanthropy, patriotism, and liberal attachment to the rights
of human nature."

Franklin's death was announced in the French National
Assembly, June 14, 1790, by Mirabeau, who said : "The genius
that gave freedom to America, and shed torrents of light upon
Europe, is returned to the bosom of the Divinity. The sage
whom two worlds claim ; the man, disputed by the history of
the sciences and the history of empires, holds, most undoubt-
edly, an elevated rank among the human species." Then,
having spoken of the month's mourning recommended by our
Congress, and suggested that a similar recognition would be
proper in France, the orator added : " Antiquity would have
elevated altars to that mortal who,, for the advantage of the
human race, embracing both heaven and earth in his vast and
extensive hand, knew how to subdue thunder and tyranny.
Enlightened and free, Europe at least owes its remembrance
and its regret to one of the greatest men who has ever served
the cause of philosophy and of liberty." His motion that the
Assembly wear mourning for three days was seconded by La
Rochefoucauld and Lafayette, and adopted by acclamation ;
and a letter of condolence was addressed to the Congress of
the United States. In 1791 a street in Paris was named
Franklin, in perpetual remembrance of his long sojourn there.

It would be hard to imagine a more pleasing picture of the
quiet closing of an honoured and useful life than is given of
him by the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, who found him in July,
1787, sitting in his garden surrounded by his grandchjldren
and a few friends, interested in a two-headed snake, a device
for showing the circulation of the blood, a copying press, his
book-handling apparatus, and an immense volume on botany;

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 23

and in the letters to friends in which he touches upon his
advancing age and the prospect of death. He had always
avoided controversy in defence of his philosophical opinions,
trusting that if they were right time and experience would sup-
port them, and if wrong they ought to be refuted and rejected.
Although he had a few enemies in England and at home, as an
American and because of what he had done for America, he
was able to thank God that there were not in the whole world
any who were his enemies as a man ; for by His grace through
a long life he had been enabled so to conduct himself that
there did not exist a human being who could justly say, "Ben
Franklin has wronged me."

JOHN BARTRAM,

1699-1777, AND

WILLIAM BARTRAM,

1739-1823.

DURING the century which preceded the American Revolu-
tion the science of the colonies, like their commerce, was tribu-
tary to that of the Old World. Fabulous reports in regard to
the natural resources of America had been brought home by
European voyagers, and the cultivators of all sciences and arts
were looking to that vast unexplored region for products which
should increase the knowledge of the naturalist, the resources
of the physician and the agriculturist, the profits of the mer-
chant, and the enjoyment of the man of leisure. The function
of those colonists who inclined to natural history was that of
explorers and collectors, and among the earliest and most no-
table of these American collectors were the subjects of this
sketch.

The grandfather of the elder Bartram, also named John,
came from Derbyshire, England, to Pennsylvania in 1682. He
brought his wife, three sons, and one daughter, and settled
near Darby, in Delaware (then Chester) County. The third
son, William, was the only one who married, his wife being
Elizabeth, daughter of James Hunt. Both families belonged
to the Society of Friends. The children of William were John
(the botanist), James, William, and a daughter who died young.
The second William went to North Carolina and settled near
Cape Fear; John and James remained in Pennsylvania.

The date of John Bartram's birth was March 23, 1699. But
little is on record concerning his early years. Like the ma-
jority of boys in the colonies, he was brought up to a farming
life, and his education was only such as the country schools of
the time afforded. After reaching adult years he studied Latin

24

WILLIAM BARTRAM.

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 25

a little, so as to be able to pick out the descriptions of plants
in the Latin works of European botanists. In a sketch of John
Bartram, written by his son William, it is stated that he had an
inclination to the study of physic and surgery and did much
toward relieving the ailments of his poor neighbours. In
January, 1723, he married Mary, daughter of Richard Morris,
of Chester Meeting, by whom he had two sons — Richard, who

FIG. i. — BARTRAM'S HOUSE IN 1887.*

died young; and Isaac, who lived to old age. His wife Mary
died in 1727, and in September, 1729, he married Ann Menden-
hall, of Concord Meeting, who survived him. John and Ann
Bartram had nine children, five boys and four girls. Of these
the third son was William, he and his twin sister, Elizabeth,
being born February 9, 1739. The ground on which John
Bartram laid out the first botanic garden in America was on

* The pictures in the text are from photographs furnished by Mr. Thomas
Meehan.

3

26 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the west bank of the Schuylkill River, at Kingsessing, near
Gray's Ferry (now within the limits of Philadelphia), and was
bought by him September 30, 1728. "Here he built with his
own hands," says William, " a large and comfortable house of
hewn stone, and laid out a garden containing about five acres."
A view of this house, which is still standing, is given herewith.
The year of its erection is shown by a stone in the wall on
which is cut " JOHN ?{c ANN BARTRAM, 1731." Another inscrip-
tion on a stone over the front window of his study reads :

11 'Tis God alone, Almighty Lord,
The Holy One, by me adored.

"JOHN BARTRAM, 1770."

That the building was a labour of love is attested by the care
bestowed upon the carved stonework around the windows and
doors and the pillar under the porch. John Bartram must have
been a good stonecutter and mason, for this is one of four
stone houses that he built in his lifetime.

Nearly all the extant information concerning the lives of
the two Bartrams has been embodied in the Memorial of John
Bartram, by William Darlington, published in 1849. This vol-
ume contains the sketch of John Bartram by his son William,
with some additions by the editor, and over four hundred
pages of correspondence. About a fourth of these letters are
from his friend Peter Collinson ; the others are from eminent
botanists in Europe and America, and from Bartram to these
various correspondents. Darlington also reprinted a sketch of
John Bartram, which appeared in the Letters from an American
Farmer, by J. Hector St. John, published in London soon after
Bartram's death. The " letter " describing Bartram purports
to be written by a Russian traveller, who is evidently a myth,
although in all important respects the account represents the
botanist as he was. As to how Bartram's interest in botany
was aroused, the " Russian gentleman " has a very pretty story,
telling of a sudden awakening after the botanist had married;
but Bartram himself is better authority, and he writes to Col-
linson, May i, 1764, "I had always since ten years old a great
inclination to plants, and knew all that I once observed by
sight, though not their proper names, having no person nor
books to instruct me."

He was encouraged to study systematically by James Logan

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 27

(founder of the Loganian Library, in Philadelphia), who gave
him several botanical works. In order that his explorations,
begun at his own expense, might be extended, Bartram's friends
prompted him to seek the patronage of some wealthy and in-
fluential person in the mother country. Accordingly, a quan-
tity of his specimens and a record of some of his observations
were sent to Peter Collinson, a Quaker merchant in England,
who was greatly interested in horticulture. Bartram's consign-
ment secured his interest, and led to a correspondence, which
lasted nearly fifty years. The first letter in Darlington's col-
lection is from Collinson, under the date January 20, i734-'35,
and refers to letters from Bartram of the preceding November;
hence this correspondence probably began when Bartram was
about thirty-five years of age. In his early letters Collinson
makes many inquiries about American plants and requests for
specimens. He sends Bartram seeds, roots, cuttings of trees,
vegetables, and flowering plants cultivated in England, pack-
ages of paper in which to preserve specimens, and gives him
directions for collecting and drying plants. From time to time
he sends presents of cloth and other articles for the use of the
botanist or his family. For Bartram's " improvement in the
knowledge of plants "he early offers, if duplicate collections
are sent, to "get them named by our most knowing botanists,
and then return them again, which will improve thee more than
books." In this way the learning of Dillenius, Gronovius, and
other eminent men was brought to the aid of the humble colo-
nist. Collinson obtained for Bartram many orders for seeds
and roots of American plants, and early secured for him the
patronage of Lord Petre, whose gardens and hothouses were
probably the most extensive in the kingdom. This noble ama-
teur ordered quantities of seeds from time to time, and when
Bartram asked for a yearly allowance to enable him to extend
his explorations, Lord Petre agreed to contribute ten guineas
toward it. As much more was obtained from the Duke of
Richmond and Philip Miller, and the twenty guineas were paid
each year till 1742, when Lord Petre died. The first expedi-
tion that Bartram made with this assistance was an exploration
of the Schuylkill River. He transmitted his journal of the trip
and a map of the river to his patrons, and with both of these
Collinson reported Lord Petre to be much pleased.

Besides plants, Collinson asks Bartram at various times to

28 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

send insects, birds, and their eggs and nests, terrapin and
other turtles, snakes, shells, wasps' and hornets' nests, and
fossils, which last were then regarded as " evidences of the
Deluge." " My inclination and fondness to natural produc-
tions of all kinds," he writes, " is agreeable to the old proverb,
4 Like the parsons barn — refuses nothing'" During the second
year of his allowance Bartram complains that it does not recom-
pense him for his labours, and he also finds fault with Collin-
son for giving him seeds and cuttings that he has already, and
for not having answered some of his letters. Collinson, in a
businesslike reply, shows that Bartram's complaints are due to
his ignorance of commercial affairs, the difficulty of transat-
lantic communication, and to his exceeding the commissions of
his patrons — whereupon the botanist promptly apologizes.

In 1738 Bartram made a journey of five weeks through
Maryland and Virginia to Williamsburg, then up the James
River, and over the Blue Ridge Mountains, travelling in all
about eleven hundred miles. Most of his expeditions were
made without any scientific companion. " Our Americans," he
writes to a correspondent, " have very little taste for these
amusements. I can't find one that will bear the fatigue to
accompany me in my peregrinations."

In an undated letter, written probably in 1739, to Colonel
Byrd, of Virginia, Bartram reports that he had been making
" microscopical observations upon the male and female parts
in vegetables." He had also made, he says, " several successful
experiments of joining several species of the same genus,
whereby I have obtained curious mixed colours in flowers, never
known before." To this he adds : " I hope by these practical
observations to open a gate into a very large field of experi-
mental knowledge, which, if judiciously improved, may be a
considerable addition to the beauty of the florist's garden."
It was in this " field of experimental knowledge " — namely,
cross fertilization — that Darwin afterward won a share of his
fame. Bartram evidently discussed this subject with Collinson,
for the latter writes in 1742 : "That some variegations may be
occasioned by insects is certain ; but then these are only annual,
and cease with the year." Permanent variegations, he says,
are produced by budding — a sort of inoculation.

That Bartram had a hostility to superstition, tempered with
much considerateness for persons, is shown by a letter in which

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 29

he tells of a visit to Dr. Witt, of Germantown, another of Col-
linson's correspondents. He says : " When we are upon the
topic of astrology, magic, and mystic divinity, I am apt to be a
little troublesome, by inquiring into the foundation and reasona-
bleness of these notions — which, thee knows, will not bear to be
searched and examined into : though I handle these fancies
with more tenderness with him than I should with many others
that are so superstitiously inclined."

One of the botanists whom Collinson had enlisted in identi-
fying Bartram's specimens was Prof. Dillenius, of Oxford, and
in 1740 Collinson writes for some mosses for him, saying, " He
defers completing his work till he sees what comes from thee,
Clayton, and Dr. Mitchell." In the same year a list of speci-
mens which had been named by Dr. J. F. Gronovius, of Leyden,
was returned, and contained this entry : " Cortustz sive Verbasci,
Fl. Virg., pp. 74, 75. This being a new genus, may be called
BARTRAMIA." The name Bartramia is now borne by a different
plant — a moss growing in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

Bartram's correspondence with Gronovius began about 1743,
and extends over a dozen years or more. Gronovius writes
at length, very appreciatively, and makes many requests. He
sends his books as they appear, and before the publication of
his Index Lapidse, sends a transcript of the passage, in Latin,
in which he is to give Bartram credit for his finds of fossils.

Among the European scientists whom Collinson made ac-
quainted with Bartram's work was Sir Hans Sloane, physician
and naturalist, who succeeded Newton as President of the
Royal Society. At his request Bartram sends him, in 1741,
some " petrified representations of seashells." The next year
Sloane sends to Bartram a silver cup inscribed :

" The gift of Sr Hans Sloane, Bart.
To his Frd John Bartram.
Anno 1742."

A figure of this cup is given by Darlington. Sloane also
sent Bartram his Natural History of Jamaica, in two ponderous
folio volumes.

About this time a correspondence began between Bartram
and Dr. John Fothergill, a wealthy physician and naturalist,
who, like Sloane, had first received some of Bartram's speci-
mens from Collinson. Dr. Fothergill wishes to know what

30 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

mineral springs there are in America, and Bartram sends him
what information he has and can get from others.

Bartram also exchanged letters with Philip Miller, author of
the Gardener's Dictionary; with George Edwards, who in 1766
sends his book, containing descriptions of birds that the Penn-
sylvanian had sent him; with Prof. John Hope, of Edinburgh;
and with the ablest observers of Nature in the colonies, among
whom were Dr. John Mitchell, Rev. Jared Eliot, John Clayton,
Cadwallader Golden, and Dr. Alexander Garden.

In 1744 he writes, "Dr. Gronovius hath sent me his Index
Lapidae, and Linnaeus the second edition of his Characteres.
Plantarum, with a very loving letter desiring my correspond-
ence, and to furnish him with some natural curiosities of our
country." The same year he sends to England his Journal of
the Five Nations and the Lake Ontario, describing a journey
he had made the preceding fall. It contained an account of
the "soil, productions, mountains, and lakes " of those parts of
Pennsylvania and New York through which the route lay ; and
gave the proceedings of a great assembly of Indian chiefs held
to treat with the agent of the Province of Pennsylvania, whom
Bartram accompanied. This journal was afterward published
in London.

The visit of Peter Kalm to America took place in 1748 to
1751. He travelled through Canada, New York, Pennsylvania,
and adjoining provinces; made the acquaintance of the Gray's
Ferry botanist, and obtained much assistance from him. It
has been alleged that Kalm took to himself the credit of some
discoveries which rightfully belonged to Bartram. This would
not be suspected from reading Kalm's Travels, in which he
gives Bartram a page and a half of hearty commendation, say-
ing among other things: "We owe to him the knowledge of
many scarce plants, which he first found, and which were never
known before. ... I likewise owe him many things, for he
possessed that great quality of communicating everything he
knew. I shall, therefore, in the sequel frequently mention this
gentleman." On nearly every one of the next twenty pages
credit is given to Bartram for information.

In 1751 Benjamin Franklin and D. Hall published at Phila-
delphia an American edition of Dr. Thomas Short's Medicina
Britannica, " with a Preface by Mr. John Bartram, Botanist, of
Pennsylvania, and his Notes throughout the work ; . . . and

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 3!

an Appendix, containing a description of a number of Plants
peculiar to America, their uses, virtues, etc." The notes told

FIG. 2. — CYPRESS TREE IN BARTRAM PARK.
Circumference at base, 27 feet 6 inches.

where the plants were found in America, and how they differed
from the English varieties.

John Bartram's son William begins to figure in his father's
correspondence when about fifteen years old. At that time
Bartram sent some of William's drawings of natural objects to

32 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Collinson, and took him on a trip to the Catskills. In 1755
Bartram writes: " I design to set Billy to draw all our turtles
with remarks, as he has time, which is only on Seventh days in
the afternoon, and First-day mornings; for he is constantly
kept to school to learn Latin and French." This attention to
the languages indicates that Bartram was determined that his
son should not suffer from the lack of knowledge by which his
own reading of works on natural history had been limited.
William was then attending the old college in Philadelphia.

The same passage shows also that Bartram's ideas about
Sunday occupations was somewhat unusual for that generation,
and in fact it is stated that he was excommunicated by his
brother Quakers about this time for his independent religious
views. The question of an occupation for William now came
up, and in the letter just quoted his father asks Collinson's
advice in the matter. "My son William," he writes, "is just
turned of sixteen. It is now time to propose some way for
him to get his living by. 1 don't want him to be what is com-
monly called a gentleman. I want to put him to some busi-
ness by which he may, with care and industry, get a temperate,
reasonable living. I am afraid that botany and drawing will
not afford him one, and hard labour don't agree with him. I
have designed several years to put him to a doctor, to learn
physic and surgery ; but that will take him from his drawing,
which he takes particular delight in. Pray, my dear friend
Peter, let me have thy opinion about it." Franklin offered to
teach William the printing trade, but Bartram was not quite
satisfied with the prospects for printers in Pennsylvania, and
Franklin then suggested engraving. But William became
neither printer nor engraver. At the age of eighteen he was
placed with a Philadelphia merchant, Mr. Child, where he re-
mained about four years.

Bartram's science was largely practical. He wrote to Dr.
Alexander Garden, of Charleston, in 1755, suggesting a series
of borings on a large scale, to search for valuable mineral
products. He gives as another reason the satisfaction to be
derived from knowing the composition of the earth, and adds,
" By this method we may compose a curious subterranean
map." " This scheme of John Bartram's," says Darlington —
" if original with him — would indicate that he had formed a
pretty good notion of the nature and importance of a geo-

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 33

logical survey and map, more than half a century before
such undertakings were attempted in our country, or even
thought of by those whose province it was to authorize them."

Bartram was evidently much interested in geological sub-
jects; thus, in 1756 he writes, "My dear worthy friend, thee
can't bang me out of the notion that limestone and marble
were originally mud, impregnated by a marine salt, which I
take to be the original of all our terrestrial soils."

In 1760 he makes a trip through the Carolinas, his Journal
of which he wrote out and sent to England. The following
summer, William, then twenty-two years old, went to North
Carolina and set up as a trader at Cape Fear, where his uncle
William had settled when a young man. That year John Bar-
tram makes a journey to Pittsburg and some way down the
Ohio River, keeping a journal, as usual, which is sent to his
English friends. Nearly all of these trips were made in
autumn, so as to get ripe seeds of desirable trees and plants.

Bartram had too tender a feeling toward animal life to be
much of a zoologist. He says on this score : " As for the ani-
mals and insects, it is very few that I touch of choice, and most
with uneasiness. Neither can I behold any of them, that have
not done me a manifest injury, in their agonizing mortal pains
without pity. I also am of opinion that the creatures com-
monly called brutes possess higher qualifications, and more
exalted ideas, than our traditional mystery-mongers are willing
to allow them." His ideas concerning animal psychology were
thus clearly in advance of his time.

The war with France, known to Americans as the French
and Indian War, resulted in extending the British possessions
in America as far west as the Mississippi River. Immediately
a desire was expressed in England for a thorough exploration
of this great accession of territory. Bartram writes in 1763
that this could not be made without great danger from the
Indians. His own expeditions had been very short during the
hostilities. The late war had shown the colonists what atroci-
ties the savages were capable of, and the prevailing feelings
toward the red men had become dread and hatred. " Many
years past in our most peaceable times," writes Bartram, " far
beyond the mountains, as I was walking in a path with an
Indian guide, hired for two dollars, an Indian man met me and
pulled off my hat in a great passion, and chawed it all round —

34 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

I suppose to show me that they would eat me if I came in that
country again." In two other letters he declares that the only
way to make peace with the Indians "is to bang them stoutly."
The question arises whether the combative disposition of the
botanist thus revealed might not have been one of the reasons
for his exclusion from the Society of Friends.

In 1764 Bartram sends to England his Journal to Carolina
and New River. In this year, one Young, of Pennsylvania,
managed to gain the favour of the new king, George III, by
sending him some American plants, and obtained sudden pre-
ferment. It was said that all the plants had been sent to
England before — many of them by Bartram. The friends of
our botanist, feeling that he was much more deserving of such
favour, urged him to send some specimens to the king, which
he does through Collinson, desiring that he may be given a
commission for botanical exploration in the Floridas. April 9,
1765, Collinson writes, " My repeated solicitations have not
been in vain," and reports that the king has appointed Bartram
his botanist for the Floridas, with a salary of fifty pounds a
year. This appointment continued till the death of the
botanist, twelve years after. Bartram accordingly made an
expedition in the South the next fall. He was then sixty-six
years old ; and, although his eagerness for exploring was un-
diminished, he felt the need of a companion on this trip, and got
William tc go with him, the latter closing out his not very suc-
cessful business at Cape Fear in order to do so. In his sketch
of his father, William states that he had been ordered to search
for the sources of the river San Juan (St. John's), and that he
ascended the river its whole length, nearly four hundred miles,
by one bank, and descended by the other. He explored and
made a survey of both the main stream and its branches and
connected lakes, and made a draught showing widths, depths,
and distances. He also noted the lay of the land, quality of
the soil, the vegetable and animal productions, etc. His report
was approved by the governor of the province, and was sent
to the Board of Trade and Plantations in England, by which it
was ordered published "for the benefit of the new colony."
Bartram collected a fine lot of plants, fossils, and other objects
of interest on this trip, which were forwarded to the king, who
was reported to be much pleased with them. His journal is
still extant, in a volume with an Account of East Florida, by

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 35

William Stork, published in England. It is evident from this
production that the botanist was not a ready writer. His ob-
servations are minute and sagacious, and his language is
simple, but his sentences are loosely strung out, and the record
is the barest statement of facts. His Journal to the Five
Nations, however, is much more readable.

William seems to have been much taken with Florida, and
accordingly his father helped to establish him as an indigo-
planter on the St. John's River. After about a year of disas-
trous experience he returned to his father's home and went to
work on a farm in the vicinity. Collinson had been watching
for an opening for William in England, but so far nothing had
come of it. The next year he writes that the Duchess of Port-
land, a " great virtuoso in shells and all marine productions,"
had just dined at his house, and, having seen William's draw-
ings, " she desires to bestow twenty guineas on his perform-
ances for a trial" The kind of objects she wants drawn are
told. The same month, July 18, 1768, Collinson writes to
William that he had also secured an order from Dr. Fothergill
for drawings of shells, turtles, terrapin, etc. This was prob-
ably the last letter of Collinson to the Bartrams, as he died on
the nth of the following month. During his long friendship
with John Bartram the two men had never met.

William now began to send drawings and descriptions to
Dr. Fothergill from time to time. In 1772 he began explora-
tions in the Floridas, Carolina, and Georgia, the expense of
which for nearly five years was borne by Dr. Fothergill, and to
him William's collections and drawings were turned over.
William made many contributions to the natural history of the
country through which he travelled, and in 1791 published his
Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and
West Florida, together with an account of the Creek, Cherokee,
Choctaw, and other tribes of Indians which he visited. His
opinion of the red men is much more favourable than that of
his father. The volume contains many engravings of plants
and birds from the author's own drawings. Of this book Cole-
ridge said : " The latest book of travels I know written in the
spirit of the old travellers is Bartram's account of his tour in
the Floridas. It is a work of high merit every way."

Among the influential friends of the elder Bartram was
Benjamin Franklin. While in England Franklin writes to him

36 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

and sends him seeds of garden vegetables at various times ;
and when the Revolution had stopped Bartram's sending seeds
to England for sale, Franklin offers to sell them for him in
France.

Among the testimonials to his botanical achievements that
Bartram received was a gold medal, weighing 487 grains, from
a society in Edinburgh, founded in 1764, for obtaining seeds
of useful trees and shrubs from other countries. This medal
is inscribed, " To Mr. John Bartram, from a Society of Gentle-
men at Edinburgh, 1772"; and on the reverse, " MERENTI," in
a wreath. The medal is figured in Darlington's Memorials,
and when that book was published was in the possession of a
Mrs. Jones, a descendant of the botanist. April 26, 1769, the
Royal Academy of Sciences, of Stockholm, on the proposal of
Professor Bergius, elected Bartram to membership. Another
honour that he received from the same country was a letter
from Queen Ulrica, and with this may be mentioned the opinion
passed upon him by Linnaeus, who called Bartram the greatest
natural botanist in the world. Bartram was one of the original
members of the American Philosophical Society, and con-
tributed many papers to its Transactions.

The closing years of John Bartram's life were the opening
years of the Revolution. He was living when independence
'Was declared in the neighbouring city of Philadelphia, but died
the following year, September 22, 1777, at the age of seventy-
eight. A granddaughter, who remembered him distinctly,
has stated that he was exceedingly agitated by the approach
of the British army after the battle of Brandywine, and that
his days were probably shortened in consequence. The royal
troops had been ravaging the country, and he was apprehen-
sive lest they should lay waste his darling garden.

His son William describes him as " a man of modest and
gentle manners, frank, cheerful, and of great good nature; a
lover of justice, truth, and charity. . . . During the whole
course of his life there was not a single instance of his engag-
ing in a litigious contest with any of his neighbours or others.
He zealously testified against slavery, and, that his philan-
thropic precepts on this subject might have their due weight
and force, he gave liberty to a most valuable male slave, then
in the prime of his life, who had been bred up in the family
almost from infancy." He was of an active temperament, and

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 37

often expressed the wish that he might not live to be helpless.
This desire was gratified, for he died after only a short illness.

No picture of him is known to exist. In regard to his phys-
ical appearance William states : " His stature was rather above
the middle size, and upright. His visage was long, and his
countenance expressive of a degree of dignity with a happy
mixture of animation and sensibility." Concerning Bartram's
ability as a naturalist there are enthusiastic opinions extant
in letters by Franklin, Collinson, Golden, and others well quali-
fied to judge.

William Bartram, after the death of his father, continued in
the pursuit of natural history. The Botanic Garden was in-
herited by his brother John, who took William into a partner-
ship which lasted many years. After this arrangement termi-
nated, William continued to assist his brother till the death
of the latter, in 1812. The garden then descended to John's
daughter Anne, the wife of Colonel Robert Carr, in whose
family William resided from that time until his death. He
was never married. In 1782 William Bartram was elected
Professor of Botany in the University of Pennsylvania, but
declined the position on account of ill health. He became a
member of the American Philosophical Society in 1786, and
was elected to other learned societies in both Europe and
America. He was an ingenious mechanic, and, as before inti-
mated, was skilful in drawing and painting. Most of the illus-
trations in Prof. Barton's Elements of Botany were from
his drawings. His botanical labours brought to light many
interesting plants not previously known. But this was not
his only field. He made the most complete and correct list of
American birds before Wilson's Ornithology, and, in fact, his
encouragement and assistance were largely instrumental in
making that work possible. Among William Bartram's scien-
tific correspondents were the Rev. Henry Muhlenberg and F.
A. Michaux, to whom he furnished seeds. A manuscript diary
kept by him, which was presented to the Academy of Natu-
ral Sciences of Philadelphia in 1885, by Mr. Thomas Meehan,
is rich in ornithological, botanical, and meteorological notes,
also records of personal experiences, all of which are of great
interest. His death occurred suddenly from the rupture of a
blood vessel in the lungs, July 22, 1823, in the eighty-fifth year
of his age. Besides his Travels, William Bartram was the

38 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

author of Anecdotes of a Cro**T md Description of Certhia. In
1789 he wrote Observatio!' ' on the Creek and Cherokee In-
dians, which was published in 1851, in the Transactions of the
American Ethnological Society, Vol. III. Our portrait of him
is from an engraving which formed the frontispiece to the sec-
ond volume of the Cabinet of Natural History and American
Rural Sports, published in Philadelphia in 1832 by J. & T.
Dougherty. Concerning its authenticity the statement is made
in the accompanying biographical sketch that " the portrait is a

FIG. 3.— NETHER STONE OF JOHN BARTRAM'S CIDER MILL.

correct likeness of Mr. Bartram, and the only engraved one
ever given to the American public." It will be observed that
the date of the publication of this portrait was only nine years
after William Bartram's death.

In the old stone house the great fireplace has been filled
up, although but few other changes have been made. The
building is full of curious turns and cubby-holes. Connected
with a cupboard in the sitting room is a recess running behind
the chimney, which furnished a safe depository in winter for
specimens that frost could injure. Back of the sitting room,
in the wing of the building, is an apartment with large windows
looking toward the south, which was the botanist's conserva-

JOHN BARTRAM AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 39

tory. Here were reared such ^:--nts as could not stand a Penn-
sylvania winter — gathered in Fie :&la or the Carolinas, or sent
from Europe. In the grounds close to the river is a great im-
bedded rock, hewn flat, in which is cut a wide, deep groove.
This is the nether stone of John Bartram's cider mill. The
Botanic Garden remained in the possession of Colonel Carr till
about 1850, when it became the property of Mr. A. M. East-
wick. This gentleman had derived much pleasure from visit-
ing it as a boy, and was resolved to preserve it without the
sacrifice of a tree or a shrub. In 1853 a Handbook of Or-
namental Trees, by Mr. Thomas Meehan, was published, the
main purpose of which, as stated in its preface, was to de-
scribe the trees then in the Bartram garden. After Mr. East-
wick's death, the fate of the garden was for some time dubious.
His executors saw no duty but to get as much money out of
the estate as possible. About 1880 Prof. C. S. Sargent, of
Harvard University, obtained the promise of a private sub-
scription to buy the old garden, and a price was agreed upon,
but the executors withdrew from the agreement. In 1882 Mr.
Thomas Meehan became a member of the Common Council of
Philadelphia and at once introduced a scheme for small parks
for the city, in which the Bartram place was included. Re-
peated re-elections enabled him to follow the matter up, and
finally, in the spring of 1891, the city took possession of the
property, and put a superintendent in charge of it. The
great gale of September, 1875, and some fifteen years of
neglect had had their effect among the trees, but many planted
by the botanist's own hands yet remain. It should be a source
of gratification to all cuitivators of science that this relic of
the beginnings of botany in America is now assured of preser-
vation.

JOHN WINTHROP.

1714-1779.

THE name of Winthrop has always been an honoured one
in New England, in the domain of public affairs, and one mem-
ber of the family, at least, has placed it high on the rolls of
science. Several of the Winthrops of colonial times were
cultivators of the sciences, but none employed such high talents
so exclusively in this field of activity as did the subject of the
present sketch.

John Winthrop, one of many Johns in that family, was
born in Boston, December 8, 1714. His family history is a
part of the history of Massachusetts. His father, Judge
Adam Winthrop, was a great-grandson of the first Governor of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony ; a graduate of Harvard ; chief
justice of the Court of Common Pleas; colonel of the Boston
regiment; and a lay member of the Provincial Council. John
Winthrop was graduated from Harvard College in 1732. Six
years later, being then twenty-four years old, he was elected
to the Hollis professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philos-
ophy by the corporation of the college. The choice being
submitted to the overseers of the college, that body appointed
a committee " to examine the professor-elect as to his knowl-
edge of the mathematics," which soon reported favourably.
Certain of the overseers, who were especially anxious to pro-
tect the college from any possible contamination of heresy or
schism, tried to have a committee appointed " to examine Mr.
Winthrop about his principles of religion." This matter was
debated at several meetings, but finally voted down, and Win-
throp's election was thereupon approved. He was formally in-
augurated, as was then the custom, January 2, i738-'39. The
ceremonies included two Latin orations, the reading of the
rules to govern the professor, prescribed by the founder of the

JOHN WINTHROP.

JOHN WINTHROP. 4!

professorship, and the singing of a psalm, after which came a
dinner.

Soon after entering upon his professorship, in 1740, Win-
throp observed a transit of Mercury over the sun, and sent a
report of his observations to the Royal Society. This paper
was printed in the society's Transactions, and was favoura-
bly mentioned in the Memoirs of the French Academy. Prof.
Winthrop was thanked by the society, and was asked to con-
tinue his communications. Winthrop was now launched upon
a long and useful career, during which he was held in high
esteem as a teacher of science at home, while his investiga-
tions won him much credit abroad. There is sufficient evi-
dence as to his success as an instructor to justify the words of
President Quincy, who, in his History of Harvard University,
says of Winthrop : " The zeal, activity, and talent with which
he applied himself to the advancement of these sciences [i. e.,
physics and astronomy] justified the expectations which his
early promise had raised. As a lecturer he was skilful and
attractive, and during forty years he fulfilled the duties of the
professor's chair to universal acceptance." Many of his papers
on astronomical subjects are to be found in the volumes issued
by the Royal Society during his lifetime, among these being
an essay on comets, in Latin, entitled Cogitate de Cometis,
which he transmitted to the society in 1765, on the occasion of
his becoming a member of that body.

On November 18, 1755, an earthquake occurred which terri-
fied the superstitious people of all New England, who regarded
it as a Direct expression of the wrath of God. To calm the
popular terror, Prof. Winthrop read a public lecture on the
earthquake in the college chapel. He accounted for such dis-
turbances as being produced by the expansive action of heat
upon vapours contained in underground cavities, and argued
ably in support of this theory. He also stated that earth-
quakes had occurred at intervals in New England from the
time the first settlers landed, but that not a single life had
ever been lost, nor had any great damage ever been done by
them. In conclusion, he maintained that earthquakes are
"neither objections against the order of Providence nor
tokens of God's displeasure, according to the views of skep-
tical or superstitious minds, but that they are the necessary
consequences of general laws." This lecture was published by
4

42 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

request of the college authorities, and an account of the
earthquake which Winthrop sent to the Royal Society was also
printed.

At that time lightning rods had been invented about three
years, and a Boston minister published an essay in which he
suggested that the use of Franklin's "iron points" might
have caused the earthquake by drawing the electric fluid from
the clouds and concentrating it on that part of the earth.
This led Prof. Winthrop to add an appendix to his lecture in
which he defends the discoveries of his friend Franklin, and
shows the unreasonableness of attributing the earthquake to
the action of the rods. He concludes with the hope that he
has " fully vindicated the character of those innocent and
injured iron points." Some years after, in 1770, he seized
another opportunity to defend Franklin's invention, by pub-
lishing an essay against the notion that there was great im-
piety in using lightning rods, since they prevented the "tokens
of Divine displeasure " from " doing their full execution."
Under date of October 26, 1770, he writes to Franklin, who
was then in London, acknowledging the execution of several
commissions concerning books and instruments, and says in
regard to the rods : " I have on all occasions encouraged them
in this country, and have the satisfaction to find that it has
not been without effect. A little piece I inserted in our news-
papers last summer induced the people of Waltham (a town a
few miles from hence) to fix rods upon their steeple, which had
just before been much shattered and set on fire by lightning."*

Prof. Winthrop had a clearer understanding of earthquake
movements than the generality of scientific men of his time,
and was one of the earliest, if not the first, to apply computa-
tion to these phenomena. The chimney of his house was thirty-
two feet high, and, observing that bricks were thrown from it
so that they fell thirty feet from its foot, he calculated the
speed of their motion and found it to be twenty-one feet a
second. He perceived also the resemblance between the vibra-
tions of the earth and those of the strings of a musical i^istru-
ment.

The fullest published account of the scientific work of Prof.
Winthrop is contained in the chapter on Boston and Science,

* Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings, vol. xv, p. 13.

JOHN WINTHROP. 43

contributed to the Memorial History of Boston by Prof. Joseph
Lovering, who for over fifty years occupied the same pro-
fessorship that Winthrop held. " Prof. Winthrop was fortu-
nate," says Prof. Lovering, " in living at a time when he could
be a witness of three celestial occurrences of transcendent
importance to the progress of astronomy — namely, the first
predicted return of Halley's comet in 1759, after an absence of
twenty-seven years, and the transits of Venus across the sun in
1761 and 1769. In 1759 the accuracy of astronomical predic-
tion was on its trial, and months before the time of the expected
visit astronomers were at their posts and looking; but they
were all anticipated by a Saxon peasant, who first saw the
comet on December 25, 1758. Winthrop saw it on April 3,
1759." He delivered two lectures on comets at this time,
which were printed the same year, and reprinted in 1811. Prof.
Winthrop also observed the comets of 1769 and of 1770, "one
remarkable for its brilliancy and the other for the disturbances
which Jupiter inflicted upon its orbit," and contributed accounts
of the phenomena to the Boston newspapers.

Like the earthquake already mentioned, the comet of 1759
aroused considerable popular apprehension, and the following
passage from one of Winthrop's lectures, in which he essayed
to calm this feeling, will serve as a good sample of his style :
" It may not be unseasonable to remark, for a conclusion, that
as, on the one hand, it argues a temerity unworthy a philo-
sophic mind, to explode every apprehension of danger from
comets, as if it were impossible that any damage could ever be
occasioned by any of them, because some idle and superstitious
fancies have in times of ignorance prevailed concerning them ;
so on the other, to be thrown into a panic whenever a comet
appears, on account of the ill effects which some few of these
bodies might possibly produce, if they were not under a proper
direction, betrays a weakness equally unbecoming a reasonable
being."

The transits of Venus, which were not to occur again until
1874 and 1882, were precious opportunities for astronomical
work, and preparations were widely made to take advantage of
them. The governor of the province, Francis Bernard, was
interested in the matter by Prof. Winthrop, and sent a message
to the House of Representatives, stating that the King of
England had sent " a Man-of-War with Mathematicians to be

44 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

stationed in different Parts of the East Indies, etc.," to observe
the transit; that the French king and other powers had taken
similar action, the comparison of observations taken in different
parts of the earth being important ; that Prof. Winthrop had
offered to go to Newfoundland for the same purpose ; and he
therefore recommended that the House furnish the professor
transportation on the province sloop, which would be sent to
Penobscot a little before the time of the transit. The Hous*e
of Representatives immediately passed a vote in accordance
with this suggestion.

The sloop with Prof. Winthrop on board sailed from Boston
May 9th, and reached St. John's thirteen days later. The pro-
fessor took with him the college instruments and two members
of the senior class. Some difficulty was met with in finding a
suitable station, but at last a position was taken on a consider-
able elevation, which was afterward named Venus Hill. The
work of setting up the clock and other instruments was made
arduous by persecution from swarms of bloodthirsty insects,
which had possession of the hill. June 6th was the day of the
transit, and the weather proved favourable. In every part of
America except Labrador the phenomenon began before sun-
rise. At St. John's the sun rose at 4 h. 18 m., with Venus upon
its disk, from which the planet passed off at 5 h. 6 m. On his
return Prof. Winthrop published an account of his voyage and
his observations.

When the transit of June 3, 1769, was approaching he de-
livered two lectures on the coming phenomenon, which were
published. Dr. Maskelyne, then astronomer royal of England,
desired that Prof. Winthrop should go to the neighbourhood
of Lake Superior, where the whole of this transit would be
visible, but his health would not admit of this. Accordingly,
he saw only the beginning of the passage, as at Cambridge the
sun set before it was finished. Prof. Winthrop observed the
transit of Mercury January 20, 1763, and prepared an account
of it for the Memoirs of the American Academy of Sciences
(vol. i, p. 57), of which society he was one of the founders.

As a mathematician and astronomer Prof. Winthrop had
no equal in the American colonies, and his fellowship of the
Royal Society, together with the degree of LL. D. which he
received from the University of Edinburgh in 1771, attests his
reputation in the mother country. Prof. Levering states that

JOHN WINTHROP. 45

his views of the nature of heat were greatly in advance of
the science of his day. His scholarship, moreover, was not
limited to his specialty. He wrote Latin with purity and ele-
gance, studied the Scriptures critically in their original lan-
guages, and was well versed in the tongues of modern Europe.
" He is, perhaps," says Quincy, " better entitled to the char-
acter of a universal scholar than any individual of his time in
this country." Rev. Charles Chauncy, D. D., in A Sketch of
Eminent Men in New England, written in 1768, says: "Mr.
Winthrop, Hollisian professor, I have been very free and inti-
mate with. He is by far the greatest man at the college in
Cambridge. Had he been of a pushing genius and a disposi-
tion to make a figure in the world, he might have done it to
his own honour, as well as the honour of the college." *

The office of a professor in Harvard College during the last
century was not a lucrative one. The salaries obtained were
fluctuating and always small. From about the middle of the
century the Professor of Mathematics and Physics received
;£8o a year. In reply to inquiries made by a committee of the
Provincial Legislature, Winthrop wrote a letter in which he
stated that his salary had been far from adequate, and that he
had run in debt for the support of his family.

Prof. Winthrop married, August 22, 1746, Rebecca, daugh-
ter of James Townsend, of Boston, and by this marriage had
five sons. His wife died after seven years, and he married
again in 1756. His second wife was Hannah, daughter of
Thomas Fayerweather, and widow of Farr Tolman, of Boston.
She was the well-known correspondent of Mrs. John Adams.

Four of Prof. Winthrop's sons lived to adult age. Of these
John became a merchant in Boston and was a member of
the Massachusetts Legislature. Adam was a sea captain, and
was lost at sea in 1774. James was Librarian of Harvard Col-
lege, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and one of the
founders of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He was in
the battle of Bunker Hill and was wounded. William was an
active member of several learned societies.

The first vacancy in the presidency of Harvard College that
occurred during Prof. Winthrop's professorship was made
by the death of President Holyoke in June, 1769. Winthrop

* Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, Series I, vol. x, p. 159.

46 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

presided at commencement that year, and had he been a few
years younger (he was then fifty-five) would doubtless have
become president of the college. In a letter to Mr. Thomas
Hollis, in England, under date of July 10, 1769, Dr. Andrew
Eliot, a member of the corporation, remarks : " It is difficult to
find one every way qualified to undertake such a task. Mr.
Winthrop, Hollis Professor of Mathematics, will probably be
the successor to Mr. Holyoke. His learning and abilities are
unquestionable. He is older than we could wish, and is fre-
quently taken off from business by bodily infirmities." The
office was tendered to Prof. Winthrop, but he declined it. In
1774, when the chair was again vacant, it was offered to Win-
throp a second time, and again declined.

The tide of discontent with the mother country was now
running high in the colonies, and Winthrop was clearly iden-
tified with the patriot cause. The Massachusetts Historical
Society's Collections (Series V, vol. iv) contain a correspond-
ence between the professor and John Adams. The letters
cover a period within which occurred the battle of Bunker
Hill, the evacuation of Boston, and the Declaration of Inde-
pendence ; and they show that Winthrop had a thorough under-
standing of public affairs, a fearless patriotism, and an eager
desire for American independence. In 1773 he was elected to
the Governor's Council, but, together with two other members,
all having been opponents of the Government, he was nega-
tived by Governor Gage, in compliance with a special mandate
from the English ministry. Prof. Winthrop was chosen a
delegate to the Provincial Congress in 1774, and in 1775 was
finally admitted to a seat in the Council. About this time he
was appointed Judge of Probate for Middlesex County, and
held the office for the remaining years of his life. His death
occurred in Cambridge, before the Revolutionary struggle was
decided, on May 3, 1779.

The portrait which accompanies this sketch has been en-
graved from a photograph, furnished by Mr. Robert C. Win-
throp, of a painting by Copley, which belonged to the late
Colonel John Winthrop, of Louisiana, a great-grandson of the
professor, and his last descendant in the male line.

DAVID RITTENHOUSE.

DAVID RITTENHOUSE.
1732-1796.

" As a citizen of Pennsylvania," says William Barton, in
the preface to his Memoirs of the Life of David Ritten-
house; "as an inestimable public and private character; as
a distinguished son of science, of great probity and extensive
usefulness in society — in all these points of view, the history
of Dr. Rittenhouse may be contemplated as holding a rela-
tionship with almost every object connected with science and
art in his day that could in any way contribute to the well-
being of mankind in general and his native country in particu-
lar." He, in fact, acquired a fame in the period of the infancy
of American science, the nature and extent of which can
hardly be realized in this day ; and his gifts, then regarded as
extraordinary, were always freely placed at the service of the
public.

David Rittenhouse was born in Roxborough Township,
near Germantown, Pa., April 8, 1732, and died in Philadelphia,
June 26, 1796. He was descended from a family of paper-
makers residing at Arnheim, Guelderland. His great-grand-
father, Wilhelm Rittinghuysen, came from Holland with his
family in i687-'88; he was the first Mennonite minister in
Pennsylvania ; and established the first paper mill in this coun-
try, at the spot where David was born. David's grandfather,
Nicholas, continued in the hereditary industry of his family,
and his father, Matthias, was brought up in it. Matthias Rit-
tenhouse, in 1727, married Elizabeth, daughter of Evan Wil-
liam, a native of Wales. Barton, who was her grandson,
credits her with " a cheerful temper," and " a mind uncom-
monly vigorous and comprehensive," but states she had re-
ceived very little education, owing to her having been left an
orphan at an early age.

David was the third child and the eldest of four sons in a

47

48 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

family of ten children. When he was a few months old, his
father quit paper-making and went to farming at Norriton,
about twenty miles from Philadelphia. David was early put
to work on the farm, and was ploughing at fourteen years of
age. An uncle dying had left him a chest of tools and a few
books on arithmetic and geometry, with some manuscript
mathematical calculations. These furnished palatable food to
his mind, and his biographers tell of his having covered the
handle of his plough and the fences around the field with his
workings of the problems which they set before him. As the
uncle mentioned above was his mother's brother, it is inferred
that he inherited his genius from his mother's side. His
mechanical talent was shown in his construction of a complete
water wheel in miniature when eight years old, a wooden clock
when seventeen, and a clock with metallic works at a later
age. His father was not disposed at first to favour the youth's
tastes, but eventually he furnished him with money enough to
buy a set of clock-making tools; and David built a workshop
at Norriton, where he carried on the clock-making business for
several years. He at the same time pursued his studies so
diligently that he impaired his constitution, and contracted an
internal pain that afflicted him all his life. Astronomy ap-
peared to be his favourite study; and he was interested in
optics and mechanical science. He discovered himself, inde-
pendently, the method of fluxions, of .which, in his imperfect
knowledge of what Newton and Leibnitz had done, he believed
himself to be the originator; and mastered the English trans-
lation by Motte of Newton's Principia.

The acquaintance which he formed in 1751 with Thomas
Barton, who afterward married his sister, had an important in-
fluence in shaping his career. Rittenhouse, according to Wil-
liam Barton, "possessed a sublime native genius; which, how-
ever, was yet but very imperfectly cultivated for want of indis-
pensable means of extending the bounds of natural knowl-
edge." Barton had enjoyed these means, and had acquired
the reputation of being a man of learning. He found Ritten-
house's society profitable, and Rittenhouse found his equally
so. Barton aided Rittenhouse greatly by helping him to the
books he needed. Partly through his instrumentality a cir-
culating library was established at Norriton ; and he bought
books for Rittenhouse when he went to Europe.

DAVID RITTENHOUSE.

49

The life of Rittenhouse came near being cut short in 1756
by a discharge of lightning which struck a poplar tree growing
before his father's door. David was standing between the
tree and the house and suffered a severe shock.

Mr. Rittenhouse was called upon in 1763 to determine the
initial of the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Mary-
land, his particular duty being defined to be to ascertain and fix
the "circle to be drawn at twelve miles' distance from New
Castle, northward and westward, with the beginning of the
fortieth degree of north latitude," etc. The work was an ar-
duous one, and involved going through a number of tedious
and intricate calculations. It was performed in a satisfactory
manner — for which acknowledgment was made in the shape
of extra compensation — and with instruments largely of Rit-
tenhouse's own making; and his observations were accepted
without change by the official astronomers, Mason and Dixon,
when they took charge of the work. He was afterward ap-
pointed to a similar work in 1769, by the commission to settle
the boundary between New York and Pennsylvania. Among
his scientific studies at this period were the investigation of
variations in the oscillations of the pendulum under changes
of temperature, with the device of a plan for compensation,
and the construction of what he called a metalline thermome-
ter. This instrument was so made — on the principle of the
expansion and contraction of metals under variations of tem-
perature— that the degrees of heat and cold were indicated
by the movements of an index moving along a graduated semi-
circle. It was adapted, in form and size, to be carried in the
pocket. He discussed the compressibility of water in the light
of an experiment that had been reported to the Royal Society,
and observed, in a letter to Mr. Barton, that, although the
experiment did not please him, he did not doubt the fact;
for, " if the particles of water were in actual contact, it
would be difficult to conceive how any body could much
exceed it in specific gravity ; yet we find that gold does, more
than eighteen times." We find him also at this time (1/67)
indulging in some amusing speculations on the possibility of
a man moving the world. Some one having published the
result of calculations he had made respecting the fulfil-
ment of Archimedes's famous dictum on the subject, Mr. Rit-
tenhouse gave the result of his own computations, which was

50 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

that " the force wherewith a man acts when he lifts a weight
of two hundred pounds, if applied without intermission for
the space of one hundred and five years, is sufficient, without
any machinery, to move the earth one inch in that time ;
and it must, from the velocity received by that force alone,
continue forever after to move at the rate of one inch in fifty
years." The first calculator had computed that twenty-seven
billions of years would be required to accomplish the move-
ment.

Rittenhouse married, February 20, 1766, Eleanor, daughter
of Bernard Colston, by whom he had two daughters.

Mr. Rittenhouse's reputation as an astronomer became con-
spicuous, and his name, according to Mr. Barton, acquired a
celebrity even in the Old World, " of which his early but now
much-increased fame in his native country was a sure presage."
A great bound was given to his fame by his construction of an
orrery, or apparatus for illustrating the planetary motions, and
by the conspicuous part which he took in the observations of
the transit of Venus of 1769.

The design of the orrery is indicated in the correspondence
with Mr. Barton in 1767, in the course of which Mr. Rittenhouse
says : " I did not design a machine which should give the igno-
rant in astronomy a just view of the solar system; but would
rather astonish the skilful and curious examiner by a most
accurate correspondence between the situations and motions of
our little representatives of the heavenly bodies and the situ-
ations and motions of those bodies themselves. I would have
my orrery really useful by making it capable of informing us
truly of astronomical phenomena for any particular point
of time, which I do not find that any orrery yet made
can do."

This instrument was bought before it was finished for
Princeton College. The trustees of the College of Philadel-
phia had also been bargaining for it, and were disappointed
over the turn the affair had taken. Mr. Rittenhouse had
made a saving clause in his bargain in favour of the Col-
lege of Philadelphia, in agreement with which he began an-
other orrery for that institution. " This," he said, " I am not
sorry for, since the making of the second will be but an
amusement compared with the first ; and who knows but that
the rest of the colonies may catch the contagion ? " The

DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 51

sum of two hundred pounds was obtained toward paying for
the instrument by means of lectures on astronomy delivered
by Rittenhouse's friend, the Rev. Dr. Smith, Provost of the
College of Philadelphia, concerning which the Rev. Dr.
Peters wrote, " The doctor in his introductory lecture was
honoured with the principal men of all denominations, who
swallowed every word he said with the pleasure that attends
the eating of the choicest viands, and in the close, when he
came to mention the orrery, he overexcelled his very self."
The members of the Assembly of Pennsylvania took a view
of the orrery, and, " being of the opinion that it greatly ex-
ceeds all others hitherto constructed, in demonstrating the
true Situations of the celestial Bodies, their Magnitudes, Mo-
tions, Distances, Periods, Eclipses, and Order, upon the prin-
ciples of the Newtonian System," voted the constructor three
hundred pounds in consideration of his mathematical genius
and mechanical abilities, and appointed a committee to agree
with him for a new orrery for the use of the public. This
purpose was not carried out. Mr. Rittenhouse became engaged
in public enterprises, which occupied his time till the begin-
ning of the Revolution, when all other interests were sus-
pended.

The praises which were bestowed upon Mr. Rittenhouse for
his orrery were extravagant, and seem now even absurd ; but
nothing, perhaps, can more clearly illustrate the infantine con-
dition of American science at the time.

Mr. Barton, by way of emphasizing the assertion that the
skill and accuracy he displayed in the construction of his mathe-
matical and astronomical instruments were not surpassed by
similar works of the most celebrated British mathematicians,
remarks that "his profoundness in. astronomical science and
his wonderful ingenuity, manifested in the construction of his
orrery, leave him without a rival in the twofold character of an
astronomer and mechanic." Dr. Jedediah Morse, in his Geog-
raphy (1789), noticing some of the more prominent produc-
tions of scientific ingenuity and skill in America, observed that
"every combination of machinery may be expected from a
country a native son of which, reaching this inestimable object
in its highest point, has epitomized the motions of the spheres
that roll throughout the universe." Mr. Thomas Penn, of
London, was surprised that the instrument could have been

52 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

executed in Pennsylvania. Joel Barlow wrote, in the Vision
of Columbus :

" See the sage Rittenhouse, with ardent eye,
Lift the long tube and pierce the starry sky ;
Clear in his view the circling systems roll,
And broader splendours gild the central pole ;
He marks what laws th' eccentric wand'rers bind,
Copies Creation in his forming mind,
And bids beneath his hand in semblance rise,
With mimic orbs, the labours of the skies."

Thomas Jefferson, successor of Mr. Rittenhouse as Presi-
dent of the American Philosophical Society, wrote, in his Notes
on Virginia, in refutation of the Abbe* Reynal's assertion that
America had " not produced one able mathematician, one man
of genius in a single art or science": "We have supposed Mr.
Rittenhouse second to no astronomer living; that in genius he
must be the first, because he is self-taught. As an artist he
has exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as the
world has ever produced. He has not, indeed, made a world ;
but he has by imitation approached nearer its Maker than any
man who has lived from the creation to this day."

A committee of thirteen persons was appointed by the
American Philosophical Society early in 1769 to view the
transit of Venus, which was to occur on the 3d of June — a
phenomenon which had been scientifically observed only twice
before. This committee was divided into three, for observa-
tion at three stations — Philadelphia, Mr. Rittenhouse's home
at Norriton, and the lighthouse near Cape Henlopen. Three
other observers were associated with Mr. Rittenhouse at Norri-
ton. An observatory was furnished, and the preparations and
calculations preliminary to taking the observations were made
by Mr. Rittenhouse. Some instruments were bought for the
other stations. For Norriton a reflecting telescope was fur-
nished by Mr. Maskelyne, astronomer royal at Greenwich,
which was afterward given to the Philadelphia College ; an
astronomical quadrant by the Earl of Stirling, of East Jersey ;
and an equal-altitude instrument, a transit telescope, and a
timepiece were made by Mr. Rittenhouse. The results of the
observations were communicated to the American Philosophical
Society, and a report of them was furnished to Mr. Maskelyne,
who 'declared that they seemed excellent and complete, and

DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 53

did honour to the gentlemen who made them and to those who
promoted the undertaking. The whole affair, in fact, gave the
observers great credit abroad, and was regarded as promising
well for the future of American science. The importance of
the observation may be judged from the fact that it furnished
one of the elements for verifying the great astronomical unit
— the earth's distance from the sun.

On the 9th of November following this observation a
transit of Mercury — the fourth ever witnessed — was observed
at Norriton by Mr. Rittenhouse and his fellow-astronomers,
and a report on the subject was filed with the Philosophical
Society. Shortly after this the difference of the meridians of
Norriton and Philadelphia was determined by a committee, of
which Mr. Rittenhouse was one, at the request of Mr. Maske-
lyne, who wished to connect the observations of the longitude
of Norriton with those made by Messrs. Mason and Dixon in
the course of measuring the degree of latitude.

About this time a scheme was started by Dr. Smith to
induce Mr. Rittenhouse to remove to Philadelphia. Recom-
mending him for appointment as a trustee of the Loan Office,
then before the Assembly, Mr. Smith represented to the
Speaker that he "ought to be encouraged to come to town, to
take a lead in a manufacture, optical and mathematical, which
never had been attempted in America, and drew thousands of
pounds to England for instruments, often ill finished; and it
would redound to the honour of Philadelphia to take a lead in
this, and of the Assembly to encourage it." The proposition
was received enthusiastically, and the whole house rose to vote
for Mr. Rittenhouse, one of the members exclaiming, " Our
name is legion for this vote." The Assembly adjourned, how-
ever, without passing the bill, although Mr. Rittenhouse was
afterward appointed to the position for which he was named
in it. He removed to Philadelphia, on his own account, in
the fall of 1770. The next scientific investigation in which he
appears to have been engaged was the observation of the
comet of 1770, of which he calculated the elements, and com-
municated the results to the American Philosophical Society.
We afterward find him, with several other gentlemen, making
experiments on the electric eel for the purpose of ascertain-
ing the origin of the shock which the animal emits on being
touched.

54

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

From this time on, Rittenhouse was to a considerable extent
engaged in works in the service of the public, to some of which
he was called in consequence of his scientific ability and me-
chanical skill, to others commended by his character as a
citizen and his integrity. He was given charge of the State
House clock ; appointed to survey the lands between the Sus-
quehanna and Delaware Rivers ; to superintend the improve-
ment of the Schuylkill; and to determine the northwestern
extremity of the boundary between New York and Pennsyl-
vania.

In 1775 the American Philosophical Society presented to
the Pennsylvania Assembly a plan for the erection of an ob-
servatory under State control, with Mr. Rittenhouse as " public
astronomical observer " ; describing him as " a gentleman
whose abilities, speculative as well as practical, would do
honour to any country. . . . Under his auspices the work
could now be undertaken with the greatest advantages ; and
others may be bred up by him, to prosecute it in future times ;
but, if the present opportunity is neglected, perhaps whole
centuries may not afford another. To rescue such a man from
the drudgery of manual labour, and give him an occasion of
indulging the bent of his genius with advantage to his country,
is an honour which crowned heads might glory in ; but it is an
honour also, which it is hoped, in the case of a native, Penn-
sylvania would not yield to the greatest prince or people on
earth." The Revolution came on, and the scheme was not
carried out.

In view of that crisis, Mr. Rittenhouse was commissioned to
prepare moulds and have iron clock weights cast, to be ex-
changed with the people for their leaden ones; as engineer to
the Committee of Safety, to arrange for casting cannon ; to
view a site for the erection of a Continental powder mill ; to
conduct experiments for rifling cannon and musket balls ; to
devise a method of fastening a chain for the protection of the
river; to superintend the manufacture of saltpetre, and to
locate a magazine for military stores. He was a member of
the Committee of Safety in April, its vice-president in August,
and its presiding officer in November, 1776. In the same
year he was a member of the Assembly from Philadelphia,
and a member of the first Constitutional Convention of Penn-
sylvania; a member of the Board of War; and one of the

DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 55

Council of Safety, which had absolute powers. He was the
first State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, from 1777 to 1789, when
he declined to serve any longer. He was the first Direct-
or of the United States Mint, serving for three years from
1792; and was called upon on several occasions to serve on
commissions for the adjustment of boundaries. In connection
with these public employments we find a curious letter from
Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Rittenhouse, written in 1778, protesting
against his wasting his abilities on affairs of state. " I am
satisfied," he says, " that there is an order of geniuses above
that obligation [to conduct government], and therefore exempt
from it. No one can conceive that Nature ever intended to
throw away a Newton upon the occupations of a crown. It
would have been a prodigality for which even the conduct of
Providence might have been arraigned had he been by birth
annexed to what was so far below him. ... I doubt not there
are in your country many persons equal to the task of con-
ducting government ; but you should consider that the world
has but one Rittenhouse, and that it never had one be-
fore."

Mr. Rittenhouse was Professor of Astronomy in the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania from 1779 till 1782, and was a trustee
of the institution, continuing in that office after its reorganiza-
tion in 1791. He was made one of the secretaries of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society in 1771 ; became its vice-president in
1786; and succeeded Benjamin Franklin as president, on his
death in 1790. He was elected a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1782, and an Honorary Fel-
low of the Royal Society in 1795. He received degrees from
the College of Philadelphia, William and Mary College, and
Princeton College.

He was tall and slender, quick in gait, had a countenance
" indicative of intelligence, complacency, and goodness," and a
disposition and manners that secured him friends and kept
them. He bore testimony against the slave trade, and sympa-
thized with the original motives of the French Revolution to
such an extent that he assisted in the organization of the
Democratic Society, and was made its president — but this was
before the excesses of the Revolution were committed. While
he might be called self-educated, he was not, as Mr. Barton
shows, wholly without assistance in pursuing his studies, al-

56 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

though some writers had mistakenly affirmed this, but that
assistance was small. Dr. Rush asserted, in the eulogy he
pronounced upon him, that the eminence he attained was to
be ascribed " chiefly to his having escaped the pernicious in-
fluence of monkish learning upon his mind in early life " ;
otherwise, " instead of revolving through life in a planetary
orbit," he might have spent his time " in composing syllogisms,
or in measuring the feet of Greek and Latin poetry." He
understood the German and Low Dutch languages, acquired a
reading knowledge of French, and " overcame in a great degree
the difficulties of the Latin tongue." He was a firm believer
in the Christian religion, though he was not attached to any
church. That speculative disquisitions were of little interest
to him is shown by his remark concerning a conversation with
a clerical gentleman, that it was " not, perhaps, greatly to the
satisfaction of either of us ; for he appears to be a mystical
philosopher, and I, you know, care not a farthing for anything
but sober certainty in philosophy." He published but little,
because, as his biographer believes, he was too busy with work
to give his time to the composition of formal papers. The
list of his contributions to the American Philosophical Society
includes twenty-two titles of papers relating to his orrery ;
the transits of Venus and Mercury; the comet of 1770; a
method of deducing the true time of the sun's passing the
meridian ; the difference of longitude between the observa-
tions of Norriton and Philadelphia; an explanation of an op-
tical deception ; experiments on magnetism ; a remarkable me-
teor seen in 1779; a comet observed in 1784; a new method
of placing the meridian mark ; an optical problem ; astro-
nomical observations (on the Georgium Sidus and a transit
of Mercury) ; an account of several houses struck with light-
ning; another account of the effects of a stroke of lightning;
several astronomical observations described in a single
paper; a mathematical problem ; a comet observed in 1793;
the improvement of time-keepers; the expansion of wood
by heat ; a problem in logarithms ; and the mode of de-
termining the true place of a planet in an elliptical orbit
— his last paper, read February 5, 1796. To these is add-
ed his oration on " Astronomy," delivered before the
American Philosophical Society, on the 24th of February,
1775, and inscribed "To the delegates of the thirteen

DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 57

United Colonies." In this oration, three years before the
announcement of Mayer's discovery of the proper motion
of certain stars, and six years before Herschel's discovery
of Uranus, the author put forth the suggestion, which has
since proved a presage, that the fixed stars, and particu-
larly the Milky Way, would afford fruitful fields of obser-
vation.

GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG.

THE late Prof. J. M. Maisch, in his memorial oration on
Muhlenberg as a Botanist,* laid stress upon the frequency
with which his name is met in works of descriptive botany as
that of the person who first recognized as separate and scien-
tifically designated some particular genus or species. Waiving
all considerations of credit for priority or of personal fame,
the leading aim in all Muhlenberg's botanical work seems to
have been to assure the precise and accurate definition of the
plant with which he was for the moment dealing.

Names of the Muhlenberg family are conspicuous in the
history of this country. Its founder in America, Pastor Hein-
rich Melchior Muhlenberg, who came to Philadelphia by way
of Charleston, S. C., in 1742, was known as the patriarch of
the Lutheran Church in the United States. His eldest son,
Johann Peter Gabriel, also a minister in his earlier life, was a
major-general in the Revolutionary War, Vice-President of
Pennsylvania, for six years a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives of the United States, a United States Senator, and
an officer of the revenue. Another son, Friedrich August, who
also began his career in the pulpit, was a member of the Con-
tinental Congress, a member and Speaker of the Pennsylvania
Legislature, and a member of the House of Representatives
of the first four Congresses, during two of which he was
Speaker.

The third son, Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, the
subject of the present sketch, was born in New Providence,

* Delivered before the Pioneerverein of Philadelphia, May 6, 1886, and
published in Dr. Fr. Hoffmann's Pharmaceutische Rundschau, June, 1886 ;
also separately. It is the principal source whence we have drawn the matter
of this sketch.

58

GOTTHILF H. E. MUHLENBERG.

GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG.

59

Montgomery County, Pa., November 17, 1753, and died in
Lancaster, Pa., May 23, 1815. He attended schools in his
native place and in Philadelphia, whither his family removed
in 1761. At the age of ten years he was sent with his elder
brothers to Halle, in order to finish his academic studies
and to prepare for the ministry. Arrived in Holland, the
brothers proceeded directly to Halle, while young Henry set
out in the care of an attendant for Einbeck, his father's native
place, where many of his relatives still lived. Deserted on the
journey by the man to whose protection he had been confided,
this boy, left without money in a strange land, bravely pushed
forward on foot and thus finally reached his destination.
After his visit to Einbeck he entered a school in Halle, in
which he continued about six years. He spent a longer time
in the higher classes than was necessary, awaiting the age at
which he could be admitted to the university. This he en-
tered in 1769, but remained in attendance only about a year.
He returned to Pennsylvania in 1770, and was ordained by the
synod of his church and appointed assistant to his father in the
pastoral work " at Philadelphia, Barren Hill, and on the Rari-
tan." In 1774 he was called to be the third preacher in Phila-
delphia. The prominence of his brothers in the Revolution-
ary councils exposed him to dangers from the British, as they
approached the scene of his labours, and he was twice obliged
to leave the city, in 1776 and 1777. On the second occasion
he escaped with difficulty, disguised as an Indian. In the
course of the war the property which belonged to his wife
was sacrificed, and a large portion of his own estate was
lost in the Loan Office. Yet he was constantly active with
voice and pen in urging his fellow-citizens to stand up in
defence of their common country. In 1780 he became pastor
of the Lutheran church at Lancaster, where he spent the rest
of his life. Mr. Muhlenberg was married, in 1774, to Cath-
erine, daughter of Philip Hall, of Philadelphia. He had two
sons; one of them, Henry Augustus, won a high reputation,
first as clergyman, and afterward in public affairs. The other
son, Frederick Augustus, became an able physician in Lanc-
aster, Pa.

His work in botany began during his residence in the
country following his flight from Philadelphia. He resumed
the study earnestly after his return to the city, and becarne

6o PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

deeply interested in the less conspicuous flowering plants and
the cryptogams. Botanists had not been idle in the study of
North American plants. The field of the present Middle
Atlantic States had been explored with considerable energy
before Muhlenberg's time. New species of plants had been
discovered and additional information had been gained con-
cerning species already known. The scientific value of these
observations, attested by the herbariums which still exist, and
by what Muhlenberg furnished for publication, is enhanced
and interest is added to them by a careful perusal of Muhlen-
berg's correspondence, a part of which he kept and is now pre-
served by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. These let-
ters— some from European naturalists and others from Ameri-
can— were written in the last sixteen years of the eighteenth
century and the first and part of the second decades of the nine-
teenth, and are often annotated with Muhlenberg's remarks.
Of his own letters only a few copies are present, chiefly those
which he wrote between 1791 and 1794 to Dr. Manasseh Cut-
ler, of Ipswich, Mass. Further, a number of letters from
various students, together with notebooks, botanical notices,
descriptions, and outlines in Muhlenberg's handwriting are in
the possession of his descendants, or have been handed over
by them to scientific societies ; while in the works of Pursh
(1814), Schecut (1806), Le Conte (1811), and Bigelow (1814)
is incorporated matter borrowed from the results of his re-
searches.

The notebooks bear witness to the earnestness with which
Muhlenberg took up and pursued his botanical studies from
the beginning. During the year 1778 may be found numerous
descriptions of plants like that of Eupatorium purpureum,
trumpetseed or gravel root; to which are added such notes
as " is probably Eupatorium (altissimuni)" Doubtful remarks
of the kind abound. " It is probably Actea ? " " It may be
Azalea?" "Perhaps it is Convallaria ? " It is evident from
such notes that Muhlenberg had not advanced far in acquaint-
ance with the wild plants in the summer of 1778. In the same
year he seems to have drawn up a plan of studies by the sys-
tematic execution of which he could hardly fail to acquire the
desired knowledge.

It was not long before Muhlenberg became engaged in
correspondence with other botanists. Dr. Johann David

GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG. 6l

Schopf, an officer of the Hessian troops stationed in New York
during the Revolutionary War, who traveled through the
Eastern States to Florida, after the conclusion of peace, in
search of medicinal plants, became acquainted with Muhlen-
berg and was assisted by him. After his return to Germany
he was the occasion of a correspondence between Muhlenberg
and Prof. Schreber, of Erlangen, and this was followed by ex-
changes of letters with other eminent botanists in Germany,
England, France, and Sweden, as well as with Americans.

Like a true naturalist, Muhlenberg continued to exercise
the greatest care and thoroughness in observation and research.
A botanical excursion and note book of 1/85 contains the fol-
lowing plan of work :

" This year I shall again keep a calendar of all plants as I
may observe them, especially when in bloom. When I am
quite certain, I shall set down only the Linnaean name; when
not quite certain, I shall make a full description. Especially
shall I try to complete the descriptions of 1/89 in those kinds
of plants in which many species are most exact. As I very
carefully explored this region last year, I shall this year visit
other regions, namely: i. The mountains on the Susquehanna,
in May and July. 2. The mountains called Chestnut Moun-
tains, also twice, etc. I must further call upon apothecaries
and take other pains to learn the officinal plants, their virtues
and their common names. I must this year pay particular at-
tention to the seeds, and especially to describe all herbs as
completely and exactly as possible, especially when I am not
wholly certain. I shall give particular attention to those of
which there are many species, such as asclepias, convolvulus,
serratula, aster, solidago, and all the ferns. . . . The seed ves-
sels and seeds are very important for the genus and species,
and I must therefore give careful attention to them." He also
indicates here as one of his purposes, besides the native plants,
to observe all the exotics, whether they need protection in win-
ter or are completely acclimated.

In the spring of 1791 he was able to inform Dr. Cutler that
he had collected more than eleven hundred different plants in a
circuit of about three miles from Lancaster, and that he was
devoting himself to the collection of material concerning their
medicinal and economic applications. In a later letter, Novem-
ber 8, 1/91, he wrote: "If the medicinal application seems to

62 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

be sufficiently confirmed from different sides, and agrees with
the character of the plant, I either try it on myself or com-
mend it to my friends. I raise most of the grasses in my
garden, and experiment how often they can be cut, .and
whether they are readily eaten by horses or cattle." These
grasses numbered at the beginning of 1798 one hundred and
fifty-six species, including many introduced ones, and among
them were a large number of new species and at least one new
genus. This collecting and testing of grasses is mentioned in
other letters. An exchange seems to have been arranged with
Prof. Schreber, of American plants for foreign grasses ; and,
besides mosses, grasses of New England were obtained from
Dr. Cutler, especially such as grew near the sea.

Some of these notes on the medicinal properties of plants,
Muhlenberg says, were furnished to Dr. Schopf for use in his
contemplated work on American Materia Medica. Although the
author of that work, which was published in 1787, acknowledged
indebtedness for information to several other American bota-
nists, he does not give Muhlenberg's name — a most ungrateful
omission. A similar case occurred in connection with an Ameri-
can book. When Muhlenberg first saw a copy of Bigelow's
Medical Botany, he could not help remarking to his son, after
looking through it, " This gentleman has appropriated to him-
self all my explanations, without making any acknowledg-
ment." But he never called public attention to this, and there
were other such trespasses which were also let pass unnoticed.

In July, 1785, Muhlenberg communicated to the American
Philosophical Society an outline of a Flora Lancastriensis con-
taining the results of his own observations on the plants and
their habits. At the same time he presented a manuscript
Calendar of Flowers. In February, 1/91, he communicated
the Index Flora Lancastriensis. This was published in the third
volume of the first series of the Transactions of the society.
It is arranged according to the Linnsean system, and contains
four hundred and fifty-four genera with nearly eleven hundred
species, including both wild and cultivated plants. Of the
naming of these plants, Muhlenberg remarked in a note:
"When I found no name in Linnaeus's system, I took a name
from other recently published works, or from the letters of Dr.
Schreber, with whom I kept up a correspondence. When I
found no name in this way, I was obliged to give one myself

GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG. 63

and to add to it N. S., till better information came from more
capable botanists." The cryptogamous plants are repre-
sented in this index by twenty-five genera with one hundred
and twenty-five species. The work, as its name implies, con-
sists merely of the enumeration of the species observed, with-
out description or indication of their habits or uses. A supple-
ment to this Index, presented to the American Philosophical
Society in September, 1796, and published in the fourth volume
of its Transactions, contained forty-four additional genera with
sixty-two species of phanerogams, of which nine were hitherto
unknown species of grasses ; while the cryptogams were further
represented by two hundred and twenty-six additional species,
belonging to twenty-nine genera.

Muhlenberg perceived very early in his botanical studies
how great confusion was likely to arise if names were conferred
upon plants supposed to be new, without considering whether
they might not have been previously identified and named by
others. We have already described the painstaking care he
took in his own notes to find the correct names of his speci-
mens. While he was critical of the work of others, he was
always ready to recognise their merit, and to make allowance
for their imperfections. He wrote to Dr. Cutler of his work
on the Useful Plants of New England that, although the author
regarded it as immature, " it was of great use to me, and I was
very much pleased with it. Every beginning will be imperfect,
especially in a new country, and I have not yet read any botan-
ical work without errors. Even Linnaeus's works, which were
prepared with so much industry, are full of them." In another
place he wrote : " Herr Aiton,* in my opinion, makes too many
species out of varieties ; for instance, his asters and golden-rods.
We must expect such things when descriptions are made from
specimens taken from a garden instead of from their natural
habitats, where plants grow numerously and in various soils."
Other criticisms of similar tenor may be taken from his letters,
all made from the point of view of exactness in identification
and description.

Freedom from self-glorification and from solicitude for the
recognition of his work are patent in all his writings and trans-
actions. When Dr. Barton announced, in 1791, his illustrated

* In his Hortus Kewensis, 1789.

64 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Flora of Pennsylvania as in preparation, Muhlenberg con-
cluded that as that author had seen his manuscripts and her-
barium, it would not be necessary for him to publish anything
except a few additional notes which he might make during the
year, and a Floral Calendar. " Excuse my enthusiasm for
science," he wrote to Dr. Cutler, in 1792, "which has given me
so many pleasant hours, and which, I know, has been cultivated
by you with great success. Botany needs your co-operation,
and when you have prepared a full table, please leave a few
fragments for me." It was this readiness to give credit to
the merit of others, combined with his clear vision of the con-
fusion that threatened to arise from the continuance of plan-
less labours, that decided him as early as 1785 to bring out a
plan for common labour in making up the Flora of North
America. He came to the Philosophical Society again in 1790
or 1791 with this plan. "1 repeat," he writes, "my formerly
expressed desire that a number of my learned countrymen
should unite in botanical investigation and send in their floras
to the society for revision and publication, so that by combi-
nation of the floras of the different States we may obtain a
flora of the United States which shall rest on good and definite
observation." While this plan was not carried into execution
through the medium of the American Philosophical Society,
Muhlenberg again and again returned to it in his extensive
correspondence. Thus he wrote : " Others should do the same
(that is, search out the flora of the neighbourhood of their
homes), and, after collecting material for a dozen years, let a
Flora of North America be written." Further, " I first sent in
a sketch, and in 1790 an index of all the plants that grow here,
in the expectation that my botanical friends would join in
working up the floras of their several States, so that in about
ten years a more general work might be undertaken." And in
another place : " If the botanists continue to proceed in the
way they are going, in a few years all will be confusion. In
order to be sure, we should confer with one another. For this
purpose I have printed my Index before publishing full de-
scriptions." A letter to Dr. Cutler, of November 12, 1792,
goes more into particulars ; it reads : " You have made the
beginning of a Flora of New England, and all friends of
botany wish that you would go on and complete the work.
Let each of our American botanists do something, and the

GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG. 65

wealth of America would soon be recognised. Michaux should
do South Carolina and Georgia; Kromsch, North Carolina;
Greenway, Virginia and Maryland ; Barton, New Jersey, Del-
aware, and the lower parts of Pennsylvania ; Bartram, Mar-
shall, and Muhlenberg, each his neighbourhood ; Mitchell, New
York ; and you, with the Northern botanists, your States.
How much might then be accomplished ! If, then, one of our
younger associates — Dr. Barton, for instance, whose specialty
it is — would combine the different floras into one, how pleasant
it would be for the botanical world ! I have written to nearly
all the persons named above, and hope to receive their concur-
rence. Let me know your views about it." Dr. Cutler gave
the scheme his unreserved approval.

This plan was not carried out. Instead of it, Andre Michaux
worked the combined collections of his eleven years' travels in
the United States, through the French botanist Richard, into a
Flora of North America, and it appeared in Paris in 1803, one
year after the author's death in Madagascar.

The publication of this flora did not change Muhlenberg's
view of the necessity of comparative work in co-operation, and
in order to bring it a step nearer he decided in 1809 to write a
catalogue of the then known native and naturalized plants of
North America (Catalogus Plantarum America Septentrionalis,
hue usque cognitarum indigenarum et ctcurum), the printing of
which was finished after nearly nine months of work, at the end
of July, 1813. While Michaux had described about fifteen
hundred flowering plants and ferns, Muhlenberg was able ten
years later to exhibit more than double the number of species,
and besides these to add, from specimens mostly collected in
Pennsylvania, 175 mosses, 39 liverworts, 32 algae, 176 lichens,
and 305 fungi, in all 727 species. The Composite comprised in
Michaux 193 species, in Muhlenberg 410.

Muhlenberg conscientiously named not only the books
which he had used in the determination of his collected plants,
but also the twenty-eight correspondents in different parts of
the United States who had assisted him in his researches by
sending plants or seeds. The work gives, besides the botan-
ical and English names, only the numbers of the several parts
of the flower, the color of the corolla, the character of the
fruit, the locality, and the time of flowering, all as briefly as
possible.

66 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

At the same time a complete description of the plants grow-
ing around Lancaster had been ready to print for years ; like-
wise a complete description of all the other North American
plants which Muhlenberg had himself seen and arranged in his
herbarium. These descriptions were consequently based en-
tirely on his own knowledge, and had, therefore, especial
value. Unfortunately, they have not been published.

A part of one of these works, comprising the grasses, was
printed in 1817, two years after the author's death, under the
title Descriptio uberior Graminum (Fuller Description of Grass-
es). This manuscript was presented by Zaccheus Collins, a
friend of Muhlenberg, to the American Philosophical Society
in 1831.

The valuable herbarium, for which Muhlenberg collected
and sorted for a full third of a century, was bought by a num-
ber of his friends for a little more than five hundred dollars,
and was presented to the American Philosophical Society in
February, 1818. It was then in good condition, but has, un-
fortunately, not been well taken care of, and has become so
decayed as to have little if any more than historical value.

In considering the question of the importance to science of
these labours of a whole lifetime, we should think first of the
greater clearness which they led to in the descriptive botany
of North America. Although Muhlenberg printed but little,
and although he often lost the claim to priority through being
anticipated in publication by less reserved botanists, yet we
find in Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United
States about one hundred species and varieties which were first
established as such by him, and besides them a nearly equal
number which were either assigned afterward to other genera,
or with which, on the principle of priority in publication, the
names given by other botanists were retained. This is really
an admirable result, considering the zeal of collectors and
hunters before and during Muhlenberg's time, and the limited
extent of the field which he was able personally to examine.
His services have also been freely recognised by later botanists.
A golden-rod was given by Torrey and Gray the name Solidago
Muhlenbergii ; Grisebach named a centaury Erythr&a Muhlen-
bergii ; a small willow was called by Barratt Salix Muhlen-
bergii; and Gray gave the name Muhlenbergii to a species of
reed or sedge. Two mosses of the genera Phascum and

GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG. 6/

Funaria were named after Muhlenberg by Schwartz ; two
lichens of the genera Umbilicaria and Gyrophora by Acharius;
and a fungus of the genus Dothidea by Elliott.

About half of the plant-names given by Muhlenberg which
are now recognised belong to the reeds and the grasses,
Cyperacea and Graminece, in the study of which he was sup-
ported by Schreber. One of the first new genera of grasses
observed by him, to which belong seven species in the North-
ern floral region of the United States, and a still larger num-
ber of other species in the other States and Territories, was
given the name Muhlenbergia by Schreber. At least five spe-
cies of this genus, which have not become domiciled east of the
Mississippi, are known in Colorado.

It is recorded by one who knew him, in Sprague's Annals
of the American Pulpit, that " in person Dr. Muhlenberg was
of medium stature, of a florid complexion, of a robust frame,
and great physical strength. There are various traditions,
some of them amusing enough, illustrative of this latter
quality. On one occasion when a beggar had obtruded himself
into his study, and had begun to take on insolent airs, the
doctor took him up and removed him from the premises with
perfect ease, greatly to the amusement of those who were look-
ing in. He was a great pedestrian, and often walked from
Lancaster to Philadelphia, a distance of sixty miles, without
suffering from fatigue." His grandson, Frederick A. Muhlen-
berg, for many years professor in the University of Pennsyl-
vania, gives the following statement as to what manner of man
he was :

" His private journal is now before me, and the variety of
subjects in it which engaged his reflections is remarkable, and
shows the inquiring character of his mind and his power of
accurate discrimination. Here are found, for instance, care-
fully prepared descriptions of plants, birds, minerals, or other
objects of Nature, which he had met with in his walks, and the
uses to which they might be applied for the benefit of himself
or others. Here he gives his decision upon the medicinal
properties of plants or the value of the inks made out of their
juices, and there records an attempt of his, and a successful
one, as early as the year 1779, to make molasses from corn-
stalks. In other parts of the journal we meet with observations
on the weather, such as thunderstorms, dark days, remarkable

68 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

snows, and other natural phenomena ; and two of such me-
teorological memoranda met my eye in running over the pages
of the volume, which may be of interest, one in reference to
the winter of 1780, the other to that of 1786. The former he
designates the ' cold ' winter, and remarks that in February the
snow was three feet deep where there was no drift, and, where
drifted, from five to seven; and in the other year two feet in
depth. Besides these there were also discussions of the bank-
rupt laws of Congress, several remarkable dreams, articles in
opposition to the theatre and public dancing, poetic effusions,
and pious meditations.

" His knowledge of medicine was considerable ; and he was
in the habit of prescribing for his people and distributing to
them the medicines of the Halle Institute, which he regularly
ordered to be sent to him. In his journal are given at length
accounts of the diseases and treatment of the different mem-
bers of his own family when visited with sickness.

" His habits of life were simple. He was temperate in
eating and drinking. His wife always carved at table and
supplied his plate, and he was accustomed to ask her if he had
eaten a sufficiency and to submit to her judgment in the mat-
ter ; and a favourite dessert of his was a roasted potato, with
a little butter and salt. When he drank anything spirituous he
usually mingled a wineglass of wine with a quart of water.
In his dress he also meekly submitted to the wishes and judg-
ment of his wife.

" He was very fond of music, and played with taste, having
a preference for that which was sad and plaintive rather than
lively.

" His early entrance upon the arduous duties of the minis-
try at seventeen years of age, together with his subsequent
intense studies in literature and science, had a serious influence
in causing frequent attacks of vertigo and acute pains in his
head. One remarkable incident in his life, due no doubt to
this protracted mental activity, is worthy of record for its psy-
chological interest. About ten years before his sudden death
from apoplexy he lost, after an attack of serious illness, all his
knowledge, and he began study a second time with the alphabet,
syllabication, and reading under the instruction of his daugh-
ter. After having thus learned to read a second time, one day

GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG. 69

while his daughter was teaching him the Lord's Prayer, all his
former acquisitions, like a sudden effulgence, returned to him
in their completeness, and he laboured successfully in the min-
istry for the ten subsequent years. Such instances of disor-
dered mental action are few in number."

This review of Muhlenberg's botanical work would not be
complete without special mention of his scientific correspond-
ence, his personal intercourse with naturalists, and the honours
he received. Among his foreign correspondents were Dille-
nius, Hedwig, Hoffmann, Persoon, Pursh, Smith, Schopf, Schre-
ber, Sturm, Willdenow, William Aiton, of Kew; Batsch, the
mycologist ; Palisot de Beauvoir in Paris, and Dr. Thibaud in
Montpellier ; Christian Ludwig Schkuhr, of Wittenberg, an
eminent cryptogamist ; Professor and Medical Counsellor Hein-
rich Adolph Schrader, of Gottingen ; Kurt Sprengel, professor
of medicine and botanist at Halle; and Prof. Olof Swartz, one
of Linnaeus's most eminent pupils. Among the twenty-eight
home correspondents mentioned by Muhlenberg in the preface
to his catalogue are the Rev. Christian Denke, of Nazareth,
Pa. ; the Rev. Samuel Kramph, of North Carolina ; the Mora-
vian bishop Jacob Van Vleck, and Dr. Christopher Miiller, of
Harmony, Pa. One of the most valued was Dr. Baldwin, of
South Carolina, and Muhlenberg's letters to him have been
published by William Darlington, in a volume entitled Bald-
winiana. All or nearly all these correspondents were enter-
tained by him in his home at Lancaster, which was open to all
students of plants, and was usually visited by them when they
came to Philadelphia. Alexander von Humboldt and Aime
Bonpland sought him there on their return from their long
sojourn in Spanish America; and Humboldt's letter acknowl-
edging his hospitality is the last which that master in science
wrote in America.

Learned societies and institutions likewise covered him
with their honours. The University of Pennsylvania gave him
the degree of Master of Arts in 1786; Princeton College, that
of Doctor of Divinity in 1787. He was elected a member of
the American Philosophical Society on January 22, 1785, along
with Joseph Priestley and James Madison. Of other societies
he received diplomas : from the Imperial Academy of Erlangen,
1791 ; the Society of Friends of Natural History, Berlin, 1798;
the Westphalian Natural History Society, 1798; the Phyto-

70 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

graphic Society of Gottingen, 1802; the Physical Society of
Gottingen, 1802; the Linnsean Society of Philadelphia, 1809;
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1814; the
Society for the Promotion of the Useful Arts, Albany, N. Y.,
1815 ; the Physiographical Society of Lund, Sweden, 1815 ;
and the New York Historical Society, April 12, 1815.

Introducing the description of a Muhlenbergia in the second
volume of his work on the Grasses, Prof. Schreber referred to
Dr. Muhlenberg as having, " through the discovery of numer-
ous new species and in other ways, rendered immortal service
to the natural history of North America, and especially to the
knowledge of the plants of Pennsylvania and the other United
States."

SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL.

SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL.

1764-1831.

THE name and fame of Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill have, in the
absence of a complete biography, become to a considerable
extent a tradition, known to few except students; yet, during
the first quarter of this century, he was one of the most con-
spicuous figures in the literary and scientific life of the United
States. He is called by Dr. J. W. Francis " the Nestor of
American science," and " the pioneer philosopher in the pro-
motion of natural science and medicine in America." He was
a man of various attainments, and proved himself at home in
many fields — in medicine, science, letters, politics, and social
life.

Samuel Latham Mitchill was born in Hempstead, Long
Island, August 20, 1764, and died in the city of New York, Sep-
tember 7, 1831. He was the third son of Robert Mitchill, an
industrious farmer and member of the Society of Friends, and
was remarkable for his habits of observation and reflection.
His father seems to have taken less interest in his early in-
struction than his maternal uncle, Dr. Samuel Latham, of North
Hempstead, who assisted him to obtain a good classical edu-
cation. He afterward studied medicine with Dr. Latham;
then with Dr. Samuel Bard, of New York ; and in 1783 went
to complete his studies in the University of Edinburgh, whence
he was graduated in 1786. He there enjoyed rare advantages
of intellectual society, and had among his contemporaries at
the university such illustrious men as Sir James Mackintosh
and Thomas Addis Emmet, Dr. Caspar Wistar, Richard S.
Kissam, the surgeon ; and William Hammersley, afterward a
professor in Columbia College. After graduation, and before
returning home, he made a pedestrian tour through a part
of England. In 1787, after his return to America, he visited
Saratoga Springs while it was surrounded by the forest, and

71

72 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ascertained experimentally that the gas escaping from the
water was " fixed air, with the power to extinguish flame,
destroy the life of breathing animals, .etc." He is found in
1788 recording his walking with congenial companions "in the
very grand procession for celebrating the adoption of the Con-
stitution of the United States." He began the study of law
with the Hon. Robert Yates, Chief Justice of the State of New
York, and was shortly afterward appointed one of the commis-
sioners to treat with the Five Nations for the cession of the
" Great Western District " to the State of New York, He at-
tended the council at Fort Stanwix, witnessed the deed, and
received names from the Oneidas and Onondagas.

In 1790 Dr. Mitchill was chosen a representative from
Queens County in the New York Legislature. In the next
year he exerted himself to form the North Hempstead Li-
brary Association and Library. In 1792 he was appointed
Professor of Chemistry, Natural History, and Philosophy in
Columbia College, where, while dissenting from some of the
principles of the French chemist, he introduced, for the first
time in the United States, the chemical nomenclature devised
by Lavoisier. His dissent from Lavoisier led to a controversy
with Dr. Priestley, at the end of which the two disputants found
themselves on a footing of mutual esteem and warm personal
friendship. He records himself in 1794 as having exhibited at
full length, in a printed essay, the actual state of learning in
Columbia College. At about this time, too, he was co-operat-
ing with Chancellor Livingston and Simeon De Witt in the
establishment of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture,
Manufactures, and the Useful Arts, before which he delivered
his first public address. Having executed a commission from
this society for that work, he made a detailed report, in 1796,
of geological and mineralogical observations on the banks of
the Hudson, for coal, etc. — a performance which, he mentions,
was respectfully quoted by Count Volney. This was the first
work of the kind undertaken in the United States, and the re-
port helped to secure a wide European as well as American
reputation for the author. Referring to it, Dr. J. W. Francis
says, " He may fairly be pronounced the pioneer investigator
of geological science among us, preceding McClure by several
years." The report was published in the Medical Repository,
a quarterly magazine begun in 1797 by Dr. Mitchill, with Drs.

SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL.

73

Edward Miller and Elihu H. Smith, and continued by Dr.
Mitchill for more than sixteen years.

After his marriage, in 1799, to Mrs. Catharine Cock, which
brought him the enjoyment of an ample fortune, Dr. Mitchill
was able to devote himself entirely to scientific and public
occupations. Among the scientific works with which he ac-
credits himself during the few years succeeding this event is
the publication of a chart of chemical nomenclature, with an
explanatory memoir, in which he contended that metals in their
malleable and ductile state are compounds of a base with hydro-
gen (phlogiston), as in their calciform state they consist of a
base with oxygen ; and that in several there is an intermediate
condition in which there is no union either with hydrogen or
oxygen. And he extended the same doctrine to the greater
part of inflammable bodies. In 1802 he records a correspond-
ence with Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, on a
project for illuminating the lighthouses of the United States
with inflammable air. In 1806 he wrote the introduction to
the American edition of Assalini's Observations on the Plague,
Dysentery, and Ophthalmy of Egypt ; and in the ensuing win-
ter translated from the Latin Lancisi's book on the noxious
exhalations of marshes at Washington — a work which was
afterward printed in the Medical Repository. As a member
of the Legislature, he supported, in the face of ridicule and
opposition, the act of 1798 giving Livingston and Fulton the
exclusive right to navigate the waters of New York by steam.
He performed, with Fulton, in August, 1807, the first voyage
in a steamboat. He was again chosen to the Assembly in 1797
as one of the representatives from the city and county of New
York for a term of service which he marked as distinguished
by his introduction of a motion relative to the fourth command-
ment, requiring citizens to labour on the six days as well as to
refrain from labour on the seventh day. In 1801 he was elected
to the national House of Representatives, as member from the
district consisting of the counties of Kings and Richmond and
the city and county of New York. He was appointed to the
Senate in 1804, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of
John Armstrong, and after the expiration of his term there, in
1809, served in the House again till 1813. A bright picture of
his life in Washington is given in the letters written by him to
his wife during his term of service. They are full of the life,
6

74 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the politics, and the society of the capital, and the telling of
the incidents is made more attractive by the writer's always
lively humour.

The lines of Dr. Mitchill's work in Congress are indicated by
various notes in his letters and in the record which he has left
of Memorable Events and Occurrences in his life. During his
first term he was a member of committees of the House on
Commerce and Manufactures, the Naturalization Laws, the
protection of American seamen and commerce against the
Tripolitan corsairs, Naval Affairs, memorials concerning per-
petual motion, patent rights, the Mint, and French spoliations.
He laboured in the Senate for the adoption of improved
quarantine laws, " and was strenuous," says Dr. Francis, " to
lessen the duty on the importation of rags, in order to render
the manufacture of paper cheaper, the better to aid the diffu-
sion of knowledge by printing." In December, 181 1, he brought
up for adoption by the House of Representatives a report
favourable to the " nascent nations " of Spanish America, and
" full of good wishes toward them in their exertions to be-
come free and independent." In connection with the War of
1812 he acted as a commissioner under the Navy Department
in constructing a floating battery or heavy vessel of war, to
defend the seacoast and harbours of the United States ; and in
1814 he was found labouring jointly with his patriotic neigh-
bours, " with mattock and shovel, in the trenches for several
days, to erect fortifications against the enemy."

National and social matters did not absorb Dr. Mitchill's
attention in Washington to the exclusion of his interest in
scientific inquiries. Curious speculations and remarks appear
in his letters about phenomena which came under his obser-
vation. In one letter, he wishes his wife to inform him
exactly at what hour a certain storm began. " I wish to
know," he said, " exactly when the storm began in New York,
as it is connected with other facts tending to a theory of the
atmospheric motions in winter." Another letter, forwarding a
specimen of the Mitchella repens, explains why no plant had
been named after him. Prof. Willdenow, of Berlin, had in-
tended to give his name to some plant, but found it already
appropriated by this partridge berry, which was named by
Linnaeus in honour of John Mitchell, of Virginia. He was
more fortunate, according to Dr. Francis, in the matter of

SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL.

75

fish. "He was the delight," says this biographer, "of a meet-
ing of naturalists. The seed he sowed gave origin and growth
to a mighty crop of those disciples of natural science. He was
emphatically our great living ichthyologist. The fishermen
and fishmongers were perpetually bringing him new specimens.
They adopted his name for our excellent fish, the striped bass,
and designated it the Perca Mitchilli"

He writes concerning a conversation he had with Captain
Lewis, the explorer, about the burning plains up the Missouri,
where the burning strata of coal underlying the plains pro-
duced such intense heat as to form lava, slag, and, pumice-
stone by the same process that forms those volcanic sub-
stances in the burning mountains of other countries. Decem-
ber 30, 1807, he congratulates his wife on the account in one
of her letters of the meteoric stones that fell to the earth in
Connecticut, which arrived at a most convenient time, having
preceded all the letters to the Connecticut delegation, and
even outrun the newspapers. Dr. Mitchill also during this
period visited Upper Canada, and described the mineralogy of
Niagara Falls ; wrote a history of West Point and the Military
Academy ; and visited Harper's Ferry and described the
geology and scenery of that spot, which had been eulogized
for its sublimity by Jefferson in his Notes on Virginia. Dr.
Mitchill retired from his professorship in Columbia College
on his election to Congress, in 1801. In 1807, when the Col-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons of the City of New York was
organized, he was chosen its first Professor of Chemistry, but
declined the position, preferring his public duties. In 1808,
however, he accepted a professorship of Natural History ; and
in 1820, on the reorganization of the faculty, became Professor
of Botany and Materia Medica. Difficulties occurred with the
Board of Trustees in 1828, and the whole faculty of the college
resigned. Among other works for the advancement of science
and learning mentioned in his record are his action with Drs.
Hosack and Hugh Williamson in laying the foundation of a
Literary and Philosophical Society in New York, in 1815 ; the
reading to the society of a narrative of the earthquakes of the
United States and in foreign parts, during 1811, 1812, and
1813; co-operation in a petition to the Common Council of
New York for the grant of the building in the North Park for
the purposes of Literature, Science, and Arts ; the delivery, in

76 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

connection with a curious case by which the town was stirred,
of a public lecture on the Somnium, or dream, as a state dif-
ferent both from wakefulness and sleep ; an excursion with
friends to the region watered by the Wallkill, where the party
disinterred a mammoth ; participation in an excursion to the
Neversink Hills, near Sandy Hook,-where a dangerous mistake
in their altitude, which had been supposed to be six hundred
feet, was corrected, and the real height was found to be only
half as great, or three hundred feet ; acting as vice-president
of the District Convention which met at Philadelphia for pre-
paring a National Pharmacopoeia ; and co-operation with Sam-
uel Wood and Garrett K. Lawrence in recommending the
willow-leaved meadow-sweet (Spircea salicifolid) " as an admi-
rable article for refreshment and health, and as a substitute
for the tea of China." A description and classification of one
hundred and sixty-six species of fish, chiefly found in the fresh
and salt waters adjacent to the city of New York, which he
offered to the Literary and Philosophical Society at one of its
earlier meetings, was the nucleus of what is regarded as his
chief work. He mentions in his record more than forty addi-
tional species described in Bigelow and Holly's Magazine, and
several more in the Journal of the Academy of Sciences of
Philadelphia. An elaborate History of the Botanical Writers
of America by him is to be found in the collections of the
New York Historical Society. Of his literary and scientific
work as a whole, in fact, it is well said in the Cyclopaedia of
American Literature that numerous papers by him are included
in the Transactions of the many learned societies of Europe
and America of which he was a member ; and he was often
called upon, at the anniversaries of the societies of his own
city, to appear as their orator. " His multifarious productions
are consequently scattered over a number of publications and
collections of pamphlets, and are somewhat overshadowed by
the reputation of the learned bodies with which they are con-
nected. They have fallen, to some extent, into an unmerited
oblivion." He had committed his manuscripts to his brother-
in-law, the late Dr. Samuel Akerly, as the friend most compe-
tent to write his biography, and the work was begun, when
the papers were destroyed by the burning of the house in
which they were deposited. Had Dr. Akerly not been thus
prevented from completing this work, and had he been able to

SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL. jj

present Dr. Mitchill's life and writings in substantial form, the
subject of our sketch would doubtless have received the credit
to which he was entitled, and have been made to appear as
one of the most vigorous leaders of early American science.

The scientific items in Dr. Mitchill's record are continued
with mention of the introductory lecture to the College of Phy-
sicians, etc., on the life and writings of their late president,
Samuel Bard, 1821 ; a philosophical discourse in St. Stephen's
Chapel, Bowery, to the class formed in that congregation for
cultivating the natural and physical sciences, 1822; a discourse
on the Life and Writings of Linnaeus, at Prince's Botanical
Gardens, Flushing, on the anniversary of the Swede's birth-
day in 1823; and the publication of a catalogue of the geo-
logical articles and organic remains which he presented to the
museum of the Lyceum. In 1823 he appears as performing,
after the Venetian example, on an invitation from Albany and
a mission from New York, the ceremony of marrying the Lakes
to the Ocean, at Albany, " on the day of the unprecedented
gathering of the people to witness the scene of connecting the
Western and Northern Canals with the Hudson " ; and again,
two years afterward, as a member of a committee for celebrat-
ing the completion of the Western Canal, when, in the vicinity
of Sandy Hook, he pronounced an address " on the introduc-
tion of the Lady of the Lake to the estate of her spouse the
Lord of the Ocean." This, according to Dr. Francis, was the
proudest day of his life. He also acted on a committee, in
1824, to receive funds in aid of the efforts of the Greeks to
achieve their independence.

Dr. Francis says, summing up his work, and quoting at
least a part of the estimate from the book, Old New York,
that " the universal praise which Dr. Mitchill enjoyed in almost
every part of the globe where science is cultivated, during a
long life, is demonstrative that his merits were of a high order.
. . . His knowledge was diversified and extensive, if not pro-
found. His first scientific paper was an essay on Evaporation.
His mineralogical survey of New York, in 1797, gave Volney
many hints ; his analysis of the Saratoga waters enhanced the
importance of those mineral springs. . . . His ingenious theory
of the doctrine of septon and septic acid gave origin to many
papers and impulse to Sir Humphry Davy's vast discoveries;
his doctrines on pestilence awakened inquiry from every class

78 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

of observers throughout the Union ; his expositions of a theory
of the earth and solar system captivated minds of the highest
qualities. His speculations on the phosphorescence of the wa-
ters of the ocean, on the fecundity of fish, on the decortication
of fruit trees, on the anatomy and physiology of the shark,
swelled the mystery of his diversified knowledge. . . . His
researches on the ethnological characteristics of the red men of
America betrayed the benevolence of his nature and his gen-
erous spirit. . . . He increased our knowledge of the vegeta-
ble materia medica of the United States, and wrote largely
on the subject. . . . He largely seconded the views of Judge
Peters on gypsum as a fertilizer. . . . His letters to Tilloch,
of London, on the progress of his mind in the investigation
of septic acid — oxygenated azote — is curious as a physiologi-
cal document. ... He was associated with Griscom, Eddy,
Golden, Gerard, and Wood in the establishment of the Institu-
tion for the Deaf and Dumb ; and, with Eddy and Hosack,
may be classed with the first in this city, in respect to time,
who held converse with the afflicted mute by means of signs."
It would be difficult, says an article in Harper's Magazine
for April, 1879, for those who never saw Dr. Mitchill, "to con-
ceive the deference paid to his learning and judgment. His
knowledge of the physical sciences, his varied and intimate ac-
quaintance with classical literature, both ancient and modern,
his attainments in history and political science, his practical
acquaintance with public affairs, and his remarkable affinity
with the common and useful arts, caused him to be looked upon
as a fountain of learning always ready to pour forth abun-
dant streams of knowledge to every thirsty applicant. A witty
friend once said of him, ' Tap the doctor at any time, he will
flow.' Accordingly, the merits of all inventions, discoveries, pro-
jects, arts, sciences, literary subjects and schemes, new books
and publications, professional cases, acts of charity or public
spirit, and a multitude of other things, used to be submitted to
his critical opinion. If he had not been one of the most polite
and amiable of men, he could hardly have borne the demands
thus made upon his time and patience." Dr. Francis relates
that, being present at his funeral, he stayed till all but the sex-
ton had gone, and then asked, unrecognised by him, whom he
had just buried. " A great character," the man answered, " one
who knew all things on the earth and in the waters of the great

SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL. 79

deep." Dr. Francis is also authority for tfre story that when
the purchase of the Elgin Botanic Garden by the constituted
authorities was argued at the Capitol, " he won the attention
of the members by a speech of several hours' length, in which
he gave a history of gardens and the necessity for them. . . .
With his botanical Latinity occasionally interspersed, he prob-
ably appeared more learned than ever. Van Horn, a Western
member, was dumfounded at the Linnsean phraseology, and
declared such knowledge to be too deep for human powers to
fathom."

As described by Dr. Francis, Dr. Mitchill's appearance be-
fore his class in the instruction room was that of an earnest
instructor, ready to impart the stores of his accumulated wis-
dom for the benefit of his pupils, while his oral disquisitions
were perpetually enlivened with novel and ingenious observa-
tions. Chemistry, which first engaged his capacious mind, was
rendered the more captivating by his endeavours to improve
the nomenclature of the French savants, and to render the
science subservient to the useful purposes of agriculture, art,
and hygiene. In treating of the materia medica, he delighted to
dwell on the riches of our native products for the art of heal-
ing, and he sustained an enormous correspondence throughout
the land, in order to add to his own practical observations the
experience of the competent, the better to prefer the claims of
our indigenous products.

Many of Dr. MitchiU's scientific papers were published in
the London Philosophical Magazine, New York Medical Re-
pository, American Medical and Philosophical Register, New
York Medical and Physical Journal, American Mineralogical
Journal, and Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Phil-
adelphia ; and he supplied several other periodicals, both abroad
and at home, with the results of his cogitations.

Dr. Mitchill was the author of a few verses, and of prose
essays or addresses of an order of humorous trifling, much
affected at the time, of which the lighter works of Irving and
Paulding furnish the most conspicuous examples, and with
which Halleck's verses are in sympathy. One of his favourite
topics was a proposition to give a new name — Fredon or Fre-
donia — to the United States, after which the people should be
called Fredes or Fredonians, and their relations Fredish or Fre-
donian. The subject was taken up and discussed in the

go PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

New York Historical Society, but has long since been for-
gotten.

His social and domestic character, according to the writer
in Harper's Magazine, was unusually amiable and attractive,
and marked by many amusing peculiarities. He had great
fondness for young people, and a rare power of inspiring them
with the love of knowledge. His home was pleasant and un-
pretending, " and the numerous celebrities who used to resort
to his salon were entertained with cordial but simple hospi-
tality." His house was a perfect museum of curiosities, and
Mrs. Mitchill used to be troubled by the disorder they occa-
sioned. As pertinent to this nuisance, the story of the ant-
eater's skin was told. At first the skin was an object of great
interest. Then it became dingy and dusty, and was remanded
to the garret. In two or three years more it became old and
motheaten, and Mrs. Mitchill and the servant, not wishing to
worry the doctor, had it secretly carried off and thrown into
the street. Dr. Mitchill, taking his regular walk the next
morning, came upon a group of boys curiously looking at some
unusual object, which proved to be the ant-eater's skin. He
joined them, and, after giving them a full scientific lecture on
the ant-eater, said he had a skin like this one at home, and
would be glad to have another — and bought it from them for
fifty cents. No further attempts were made to get rid of it.

m

BENJAMIN SMITH BABTON.

BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON.

1766-1815.

OF the three professions formerly distinguished as " learned,"
that of medicine is the only one connected with natural sci-
ence. Hence it is not surprising that, in the times when scien-
tific research could seldom be pursued except as an avocation,
it was frequently joined to his vocation by the physician. The
history of medicine in the Old World is adorned with the
names of many profound students of Nature, and in America
the name of Dr. Barton stands at the head of a considerable
list of eminent investigators who either followed or at least
entered upon the medical profession.

Benjamin Smith Barton was one of the younger children
of the Rev. Thomas Barton, an Episcopal clergyman, and was
born at Lancaster, Pa., February 10, 1766. His mother was
a sister of David Rittenhouse, the astronomer. He received,
therefore, a double inheritance of intellectual ability, but the
benefits of parental care and training were lost to him at an
early age. His mother died when he was eight years old, and
his father when he was fourteen. Early in the fall of 1778 Mr.
Thomas Barton had left Pennsylvania, intending to go to
Europe, but was taken sick before he could conveniently set
sail, and died without returning to his home, May 25, 1780, at
the age of fifty years.

Before leaving Lancaster Mr. Barton had placed his younger
children in the care of a friend in the country near by, where
they remained until after their father's death. During this
period young Benjamin devoted much of his time to reading,
showing considerable fondness for the subject of civil history.
Being a studious boy, he naturally took less interest than boys
generally do in athletic sports. His predilection for natural
history, especially for botany, appeared early, and very likely
had received some encouragement from his father, who is

81

82 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

known to have been a student of Nature. In a note to his
Observations on the Desiderata of Natural History Dr. Barton
speaks of the " fine collection of North American minerals,
which was made by my father near forty years ago, at a time
when he paid more attention to this part of natural history
than, so far as I know, any other person in the (then) colo-
nies." It appears also that the Rev. Thomas Barton was a
member of the American Philosophical Society, and corre-
sponded with Linnaeus on botanical subjects.

Young Benjamin early displayed a notable talent for draw-
ing, and afterward became also remarkably skilful in etch-
ing. His artistic ability was of great service to him in sketch-
ing objects of Nature and in criticising the illustrations pre-
pared by others for his books. He is said to have maintained
that " no man could become a nice, discriminating, and eminent
botanist without possessing that acumen in perception of pro-
portion, colour, harmony of design, and obscure differences in
the objects of the vegetable world which alone belong to the
eye of a painter." He insisted on strict accuracy in details
that even most careful naturalists would disregard. To men-
tion an extreme instance of his exactness, he had every pro-
tuberance on the back, tail, and legs of a horned lizard counted,
and required the precise number found to be represented in the
drawing made for him.

In the spring of 1780 Benjamin, with one of his brothers,
was placed in an academy at York, Pa., where he remained
nearly two years, pursuing a course of classical study. When
he was sixteen years of age, his elder brother, who was living
in Philadelphia, took him into his family, where he remained
about four years. During this period he attended for a time
the College of Philadelphia, and afterward, at the beginning
of his eighteenth year, took up the study of medicine under
Dr. William Shippen.

In the summer of 1785 he accompanied the commission, of
which his uncle, Mr. Rittenhouse, was a member, that was en-
gaged in running the western boundary line of Pennsylvania.
Young Barton was absent from Philadelphia five months, and
it was on this expedition that he gained his first acquaintance
with the Indians and began his researches into their medicines
and pathology, their general customs and history, which re-
ceived a share of his attention for the rest of his life.

BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON. 83

In order to obtain a thorough medical training it was at
that time necessary to go abroad. Accordingly, young Barton
repaired to Edinburgh in the autumn of 1786, where he studied
for two years, with the exception of a few months spent in
London. Having become a member of the Royal Medical
Society at Edinburgh, he won the Harveian prize of that asso-
ciation for a dissertation on the Hyoscyamus niger of Linnaeus
(black henbane). Barton's first book was issued while he was
in London, in the early part of 1787. It was a little pamphlet,
entitled Observations on some Parts of Natural History : to
which is prefixed an Account of some Considerable Vestiges of
an Ancient Date, which have been Discovered in Different
Parts of North America. Considering his youth — he was only
twenty-one years of age — and the fact that he was afflicted
with ill health when he wrote it, this production is very cred-
itable; but it contained some ill-founded theories and other
crudities that he readily and candidly acknowledged only a
few months later. For a number of reasons — among them
the failure of two professors to show him courtesies that he
had reason to expect — he left Edinburgh and took his degree
at Gottingen, returning to America toward the close of the
year 1789. He began to practise his profession in Philadel-
phia, where his knowledge of science soon caused him to be
looked upon as one of the rising young men of the day.

The trustees of the College of Philadelphia having insti-
tuted a professorship of natural history and botany, appointed
Dr. Barton, then only twenty-four years of age, to the chair.
This appointment was confirmed in the following year, when
the college united with the University of Pennsylvania, and
was held by him for the rest of his life. Dr. Barton thus be-
came the first instructor in natural history in Philadelphia, and
probably was the first in any American college. Five years
later the professorship of materia medica in the University be-
came vacant, and this chair also was assigned to Dr. Barton
and was held by him until he succeeded to that of Dr. Rush.
On January 28, 1798, he received an appointment as one of the
physicians of the Pennsylvania Hospital, which position he held
for the rest of his life. Dr. Barton was a man of high ambi-
tion, and being deeply impressed by the well-deserved fame of
Prof. Rush, spared no exertions to equal it. When the latter
died, he very naturally desired to obtain his professorship, and

84 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

his application was followed in a few months by his appoint-
ment.

Dr. Barton had been from early life subject to haemorrhages
and to attacks of gout — his period of illness while a student at
Edinburgh was due to these causes — and he had further weak-
ened his health by too great application to his scientific and
professional labours. He had sustained a severe haemorrhage
just before undertaking the labour of preparing for his new
position. He had delivered but two courses of lectures on the
practice of medicine when his increasing ill health decided him
to try the effect of a sea voyage. He accordingly sailed for
France in the spring of 1815, and returned in November of that
year, but without gaining the benefit hoped for. Hydrothorax
came on soon after he landed in New York, and it was three
weeks before he was able to reach home. His condition be-
came rapidly worse, and on the morning of December 19, 1815,
he was found dead in bed.

Only three days before his death he wrote a memoir on a
genus of plants which had been named in honour of him, and
requested his nephew, Dr. W. P. C. Barton, to make a drawing
to accompany it. The latter did so, and read the memoir at
the next meeting of the American Philosophical Society. Dr.
Barton was elected to this society January 16, 1789, before his
return from his medical studies abroad, and had been one of its
vice-presidents since January i, 1802. The printed Transac-
tions of the Society afford abundant evidence of his activity as
a member and as a man of science. For three years in succes-
sion, beginning with 1797, he was chosen to deliver the annual
oration.

In his youth Dr. Barton had suffered the discomforts and
hindrances of poverty and the persecutions of those who bore
him ill will. But it was not many years before the income
from his lectures and his books had lifted him above the influ-
ence of want.

Being prevented by his professional engagements from
making explorations in search of plants and other objects of
natural history, he employed others to collect for him, advanc-
ing his favourite sciences by this means. Frederick Pursh, in
his Flora America Septentrionalis (London, 1814), describes an
excursion that he was enabled to take by the aid of Prof.
Barton. Starting in the beginning of 1805, he went along the

BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON. 35

mountain chain of Virginia and the Carolinas, and returned
through the coast lands, reaching Philadelphia late in the
autumn. Similar assistance was extended to Thomas Nuttall,
"whose zeal and services," to use the words of Dr. Barton,
" have contributed essentially to extend our knowledge of the
northwestern and western flora of North America, and to
whom the work of Frederick Pursh is under infinite obliga-
tions." Pursh himself gives due credit for Nuttall's contribu-
tions. A genus of plants (resembling cactus), first described
by them, was named Bartonia^ in honour of " their mutual
friend Dr. B. S. Barton." In a paper written by Dr. Barton, a
few days before his death, he says of Nuttall :

"I became acquainted with this young Englishman in Phila-
delphia several years ago ; and observing in him an ardent
attachment to and some knowledge of botany, I omitted no
opportunity of fostering his zeal, and of endeavouring to ex-
tend his knowledge. He had constant access to my house, and
the benefit of my botanical books.

"In 1810 I proposed to Mr. Nuttall the undertaking of an
expedition entirely at my own expense and under my immedi-
ate direction, to explore the botany, etc., of the northern and
northwestern parts of the United States and the adjoining
British territories." Dr. Barton further relates that Nuttall set
out on this journey in April, 1810, but he deviated from the
route which had been pointed out to him, having been pre-
vailed upon to ascend the Missouri with other travellers, whose
objects were principally traffic. Returning, he reached St.
Louis in the autumn of 1811. "In the latter end of the year
1811, Mr. Nuttall returned to England by the way of New Or-
leans. Previously to his departure he transmitted to me a
number of the dried specimens and seeds which he had col-
lected." It was on this trip that Nuttall found two species of
the genus that he named Bartoniay descriptions and specimens
of which he furnished to his patron.

Among the early printed works of Dr. Barton was a Memoir
concerning the Fascinating Faculty which has been ascribed
to the Rattlesnake and other North American Serpents, pub-
lished in 1796. He issued a supplement to this memoir four
years later, and a new edition in 1814. The original paper had
been read before the American Philosophical Society. He also
undertook a work on the materia medica of the United States,

86 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

issuing an opening part in 1798, a second part in 1804, and an
edition of the two combined in 1810. His most important
publication was his Elements of Botany, a work of 508 pages,
octavo, illustrated with thirty plates, which first appeared in
two volumes in 1803. A second edition of the first volume was
issued in 1812, and of the second volume in 1814, with forty
plates. After the author's death, Dr. William P. C. Barton pub-
lished, in 1836, a revised edition in one volume, condensed by
omitting the quotations from Latin and English poets, certain
tabular views that had become antiquated, and the index. To
this edition is prefixed a biographical sketch, prepared by Dr.
W. P. C. Barton at the request of the Philadelphia Medical Soci-
ety, of which Dr. B. S. Barton had been president from Febru-
ary, 1809, till he died, and read before that society February
24, 1816. The Elements of Botany was republished in London,
and was translated into Russian.

Another considerable work was his New Views of the Origin
of the Tribes and Nations of America, which appeared in 1798.
Other subjects on which he published more or less fully were
the natural history of Pennsylvania, the disease of goitre, the
generation of the opossum, the principal desiderata in natural
history (read before the Philadelphia Linnsean Society), Siren
lacertina, the hellbender, the bite of the rattlesnake, the honey-
bee, the jerboa, and the stimulant effects of camphor upon
vegetables. He issued also the first part, sixty-four pages, of a
work on paleontology, entitled Archczologia Americana Telluris
Collectanea et Specimina. In the preface to this fragment he
says, " I at one time, indeed for some years together, flattered
myself that I should have found leisure to have devoted a
considerable portion of my life to the study of organic geol-
ogy," but adds that his recent succession to the chair of Dr.
Rush would prevent any extensive or systematic attention to
this subject. An ardent thirst for literary fame, which was
present in Prof. Barton throughout his life, made him an inde-
fatigable student and writer. Several ambitious undertakings
were left unfinished by him. The following three papers that
he had read before the American Philosophical Society re-
mained unpublished at his death : a eulogy on Dr. Priestley,
with whom Dr. Barton had been acquainted ; a geographical
view of the trees and shrubs of North America ; and a mem-
oir (which gained the Magellanic premium), concerning a con-

BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON. 87

siderable number of pernicious insects of the United States.
Prof. E. A. W. Zimmerman, of Brunswick, translated into Ger-
man and published the memoir on the fascinating faculty of
serpents and that on the bite of the rattlesnake.

In 1797 Dr. Barton married a daughter of Mr. Edward
Pennington, of Philadelphia, who, with their only children, a
son and a daughter, survived him. He named his son after
Mr. Thomas Pennant, an English naturalist and author of
Arctic Zoology, with whom he became acquainted while a
medical student.

Dr. Barton was extremely cautious about accepting human
testimony in matters of science, and in one of his publications
he declares that "credulity is the most injurious feature in the
character of the naturalist as well as that of the historian.
Its influence in one individual is often felt and propagated
through many ages. Unfortunately, too, it has been the vice
of naturalists, or those who have touched on questions rela-
tive to natural history."

In a general description of Prof. Barton his nephew
says : " As a medical teacher he was eloquent, instructive,
and when occasion called for it quite pathetic. His voice
was good, though attenuated, penetrating, and sometimes
rather sharp — his enunciation clear and distinct — his pro-
nunciation constrained, and his emphasis, owing to his
remarkable kind of punctuation, and a desire to be perspicu-
ously understood, was studied, forced, and often inappropri-
ate. In his lectures his diction was cacophonous and un-
pleasant.

" As a writer he is ingenious, rich in facts, profound in re-
search, and always abounding in useful information. He
wanted, however, in a great degree, a talent for generalizing
Hence his various works are characterized by an egregious
want of method or perspicuous arrangement. His style, it
must be confessed, is always diffuse, inelegant, and frequently
tautological. As he never corrected what he once wrote, or
at least but rarely, these defects in his composition were the
natural consequences of his vehemence in writing. His punc-
tuation is truly remarkable, and, for a man of his discernment
and extensive reading, singularly incorrect.

"As a physician, he discovered a mind quick in discriminat-
ing disease, skilful in the application of appropriate remedies,

88 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

though he certainly was a very cautious if not timid practi-
tioner. No man read more extensively on the subject of dis-
eases— in fact he was deeply versed in pathological knowledge
derived from book As, however, his medical practice was
never very extensive, his practical observations delivered in
his lectures were strikingly marked with the evidences of
overweening caution. Hence he recommended to his pu-
pils, and always employed himself, unusually small doses
of medicine. He was, however, in the main, an observ-
ing and intelligent practitioner, and was remarkably as-
siduous in his attentions and soothing in his behaviour to
his patients.

" In figure he was tall and exceedingly well formed ; in
middle life he might be considered as having been handsome.
His physiognomy was strongly expressive of intelligence, and
his eye was remarkably fine and penetrating.

"In temperament he was irritable and even choleric. His
spirits were irregular, his manners consequently variable, im-
petuous, vehement. These repeated vacillations between equa-
nimity and depression were generally owing to the sudden and
repeated attacks of his continual earthly companion — irreg-
ular gout.

" In familiar conversation he was often elegant, remarkably
facetious, but never witty.

"As a parent he was kind, tender, and indulgent to a
fault.

" He possessed some high virtues ; among the most ele-
vated of them was his unaffected love of country. Indeed, his
patriotic feelings were not only strong, .but frequently ex-
pressed with unreserved warmth."

A sketch of Barton, extracted from that by his nephew,
'was published in The Portfolio for April, 1816 (Philadelphia),
and in an editorial note prefixed to it occurs this statement :
" Our estimate, too, of the character of the deceased is some-
what different from that which has been formed by the author
of this ' Sketch.' Dr. Barton was a very industrious man in
the pursuit of science, and though we do not think that he has
contributed much to enlarge its bounds, we are willing to be-
lieve that his collections will facilitate the labours of the stu-
dent, to whom he has left a laudable example of active dili-
gence and unwearied perseverance."

BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON. 89

Dr. Barton was in correspondence with many prominent
naturalists and physicians both at home and abroad. He es-
tablished an enviable foreign reputation, as is attested by his
membership in the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow,
the Linnsean Society of London, the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland, the Danish Royal Society of Sciences; and the Royal
Danish Medical Society.

ALEXANDER WILSON.

1766-1813.

A PECULIAR interest attaches to the lives and labours of
pioneers. The circumstances which led to the discovery of a
new continent, the first application of one of the forces of Na-
ture to the services of man, the making of the first instrument
for viewing the stars, and the first description of the animals,
plants, or physical features of a country, always have eager
readers. Then, too, the personality of a man who has the
courage and originality to set forth into an untrodden field is
generally picturesque and inspiring. All these claims to atten-
tion are possessed by the pioneer American ornithologist.

Alexander Wilson was born on the 6th of July, 1766, at
Paisley, in Renfrewshire, which lies just south of the river
Clyde. His father, Alexander Wilson, was a weaver, and
reached the age of eighty-eight years, dying in 1816. During
the latter part of his life, at any rate, the father was rated as a
most exemplary citizen, but there is a glamour of "moon-
shine " about his early manhood, in the sense that, when not
occupied with tending the loom, he operated a "wee still,"
from which trickled good Scotch whisky that was consumed
without paying tribute to the tax-collector. This has natu-
rally been denied, but not with entire success. His wife was a
Mary McNab, of a strictly pious character, and with the beauty
that frequently accompanies a tendency to consumption. Of
this disease she died when young Alexander, who was one of
three children, was ten years old.

Like many devout Scottish folk, the parents of "Alick,"
especially his mother, cherished the ambition that their boy
should "wag his head i' the puppit yet," but his genius did not
lie in the direction of the ministerial office. He attended the
Grammar School of Paisley, but his schooling must have been
interrupted and of no great amount, for much of his boyhood
was otherwise occupied, and his deficiencies in grammar, spell-

90

ALEXANDER WILSON.

ALEXANDER WILSON. ^r

ing, etc., clung to him till manhood. He is known to have
struggled with his backwardness in arithmetic after emigrating
to America. His handwriting was called excellent, and his lan-
guage was simple and idiomatic. The taste for reading, which
he early developed, largely made up for his scanty schooling.
At one time he was sent to be a herd on a farm called Baker-
field, not far from Paisley, where he remained probably not
more than a single summer. It is said that " he was a very
careless herd, letting the kye transgress on the corn, being
very often busied with some book."

In his thirteenth year he was bound apprentice as a weaver,
for three years, to his brother-in-law, William Duncan. Hav-
ing served out his time in 1782, he continued a weaver "by
constraint, not willingly," for four years, living part of the
time under his father's roof in Paisley and in Lochwinnoch,
and finally with his brother-in-law at Queensferry. His taste
was for outdoor life, and he had inherited a feeble constitution
from his mother, so that the loom was irksome to him both
mentally and physically. During this period young Wilson
began to contribute verses to the local newspapers. His best
piece, however, Watty and Meg, was published in 1792, as a
penny chap-book, without his name, and was ascribed to Robert
Burns. The latter, who lived not far away, and was but six
years older, strengthened the compliment by avowing that he
should have been glad to be its author. Wilson's descriptive
pieces are interesting, from the evidence they give of his natu-
ral fondness for the woods and fields.

After a while Duncan decided to " travel " as a peddler
through the eastern districts of Scotland, and invited Alexander
to accompany him. Accordingly, the two abandoned the loom
and entered upon their new occupation. The Scotch peddler
of that time was generally a man of shrewdness and common
sense, probably resembling the best type of our own departed
Yankee peddler, and was generally respected by the common
people, but often suspected and despised by the wealthier.
This occupation, although it delivered Wilson from the con-
finement of the weaving room, was not all sunshine. It in-
volved trials and rebuffs, which to a man, as Grosart* calls

* The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson, edited with memorial
introduction, essay, etc., by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, two vols., Paisley,
1876.

92 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

him, "of sensitive, strangely refined if also in elements as
strangely coarsened temperament," must have been hardly
borne. His Journal as a Pedlar, several poems bearing on his
experiences of the road, and his earlier letters give a realizing
sense of the lights and shadows of this kind of life. In addi-
tion to his trading, he solicited subscriptions for a volume of
poems, which he published in 1790.

In a short time he dropped the pack and returned to his
hated trade of weaving. Being in ill health and sorely op-
pressed by poverty, he was at this period much given to de-
spondency. Yet he had a humour which enabled him at times
to joke about his necessities. He had a gift of satire, also,
which got him into some trouble, but which was the cause of
his taking the first step in the path that led to fame. Industrial
affairs in Great Britain at that time were greatly unsettled.
Many of the Paisley weavers were unemployed, and capital
and labour were arrayed against each other. Some of the
turbulent spirits among his fellow-weavers induced the enthu-
siastic young Wilson to use his talent for verse-making to
abuse the capitalists. Several poems of his, portraying in no
flattering light certain local petty tyrants, were adjudged libel-
lous, and Wilson, who manfully acknowledged their authorship,
was fined heavily and condemned to burn the poems in public.
Being unable to pay the fine, he was sent to jail.

In this hour of gloom, Wilson's eyes were turned to the
New World. Attracted by the chances for winning his way
open to a free man in a new country, he determined to emi-
grate. Accordingly, he and his nephew, William Duncan,
sailed from Belfast Loch, Friday, May 23, 1794, and after a
voyage of over seven weeks landed at Newcastle, Delaware.
Wilson was then twenty-eight years old. He and young Dun-
can went first to Wilmington, and from there to Philadelphia,
looking for employment at weaving. At the latter place, he
writes in his first letter home to his father and step-mother,
" we made a more vigorous search than ever for weavers, and
found, to our astonishment, that, though the city contains
between forty and fifty thousand people, there is not twenty
weavers among the whole, and these had no conveniences for
journeymen, nor seemed to wish for any, so, after we had spent
every farthing we had, and saw no hopes of anything being
done that way, we took the first offer of employment we could

ALEXANDER WILSON. 93

find, and have continued so since." This employment was in
the shop of a copper-plate printer. The above-quoted letter
was a long and very newsy one, and contains Wilson's first ob-
servation of the feathered creatures that were to make his
fame. He writes : *' As we passed through the woods on our
way to Philadelphia, I did not observe one bird such as those
in Scotland, but all much richer in colour. We saw a great
number of squirrels, snakes about a yard long, and some red
birds, several of which I shot for our curiosity."

Wilson remained in his first found employment but a few
weeks. After that he worked at his trade of weaving at a place
ten miles north of Philadelphia, and for a short time in Vir-
ginia. In 1795 he tramped through northern New Jersey as a
peddler. He had been in America but little over a year when
he took up school-teaching, and at this occupation he suc-
ceeded remarkably well, although it gave him only a scanty
income. He first opened a school at Frankford, but soon gave
it up to become master of the school at Milestown, in Phila-
delphia County, where he taught for nearly six years. His
own education had been limited ; so, after he began to teach,
he had to study diligently to make up his deficiencies. He ad-
vanced so far in mathematics that he was enabled to take oc-
casional employment as a surveyor.

After leaving Milestown he taught for a while at Bloom-
field, N. J., but found this place disagreeable ; and he was at
the same time burdened with a trouble, only dimly revealed in
his letters, but in which one of the Milestown young ladies
figured. He became very despondent, and even thought of re-
turning to Scotland. It was not long before he obtained a
school at Kingsessing, near Gray's Ferry, on the Schuylkill.
His removal to this place was attended with important results,
He became acquainted with William Bartram, who lived at the
famous garden of his father, not far away, and with Alexander
Lawson, the engraver, both of whom became his steadfast
friends. Bartram lent him books, among them the works of
Catesby and Edwards. In the parts of these works relating to
American birds, Wilson's own acquaintance with the birds was
enough to show him an exasperating number of errors, false
theories, and caricatured figures. During the early part of his
life at this place Wilson was so despondent that Lawson at one
time feared for his reason, and advised him to give up poetry

94

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

and his flute, which seemed to increase his melancholy, and to
take up drawing. This accomplishment does not seem to have
come very naturally to him, for he made a failure of the land-
scapes and human figures which Lawson set before him. Still,
the statement of an American writer that he was " without any
previously suspected aptitude " is denied by Mr. Grosart, who
adds that drawings by him before he left Scotland are pre-
served in the Paisley Museum with the collection of Wilson's
manuscripts. Bartram and his niece, Miss Nancy, started him
again on easier subjects — first flowers, and then birds, with
which he made encouraging success.

It is in a letter to one of his Scottish biographers, his old
friend in Paisley, Mr. Thomas Crichton, under date of June i,
1803, that Wilson's determination to study the birds of America
is earliest recorded. " Close application to the duties of my
profession," he writes, " which I have followed since Novem-
ber, 1795, has deeply injured my constitution, the more so that
my rambling disposition was the worst calculated of any one's
in the world for the austere regularity of a teacher's life. I
have had many pursuits since I left Scotland — mathematics,
the German language, music, drawing, etc., and I am now about
to make a collection of all our finest birds." At first he de-
voted only leisure hours to the birds, and his figures " were
chiefly coloured by candle-light," but he soon began to make
longer and longer expeditions. In October, 1804, he set out
with two companions, on foot, to visit Niagara. From there
he went through the lake region of central New York, visiting
his sister and her children, who were living on a farm that
Wilson and his nephew William had bought together. He
made his way home down the Mohawk Valley to Albany, and
thence by boat to New York. In this journey, occupying two
months, he traversed over twelve hundred miles. Winter over-
took him in the midst of it, so that the latter part of it was
made "through deep snows and almost uninhabited forests;
over stupendous mountains and down dangerous rivers." The
trip seems to have benefited both his health and spirits, for in
his account of it, written to Bartram, he expresses eagerness
for wider explorations and new discoveries. "With no family
to enchain my affections, no ties but those of friendship, and
the most ardent love of my adopted country ; with a constitu-
tion which hardens amid fatigues, and a disposition sociable

ALEXANDER WILSON.

95

and open, which can find itself at home by an Indian fire in the
depth of the woods, as well as in the best apartment of the
civilized [world], I have at present a real design of becoming
a traveller. But I am miserably deficient in many acquire-
ments absolutely necessary for such a character. Botany,
mineralogy, and drawing I most ardently wish to be instructed
in, and with these I should fear nothing." How oblivious to
matters of detail his enthusiasm made him can be judged,
Ord * remarks, from the fact that at this time Wilson's avail-
able cash amounted to seventy-five cents.

Two of the birds which he shot in New York, one being the
Canada jay, were unknown to Wilson's associates. He made
careful drawings of them, and got Mr. Bartram to send them to
President Jefferson, whom Wilson much admired. The Presi-
dent, who was quite an amateur naturalist, replied with a very
appreciative letter, in which he put Wilson on the track of a
certain sweet-singing and very unapproachable bird. He had
" followed it for miles without ever, but once, getting a good
view of it," and had for twenty years tried to get a specimen,
without success. "After many inquiries and unwearied re-
search," says Ord, " it turned out that this invisible musician
was no other than the wood robin, a bird which, if sought for
in those places which it affects, may be seen every hour of the
day." The next summer Wilson announced to Bartram his de-
termination to make a collection of drawings of the birds of
Pennsylvania, and sent him twenty-eight for criticism. The
scope of his undertaking was extended, within a few months,
so as to include the whole United States. He had planned an
expedition down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers for the sum-
mer of 1806 with Bartram; but the latter, who was nearly sev-
enty years old, gave up the idea. Wilson, who had heard that
explorers were to be sent by the Government up the Red and
Arkansas Rivers, through the recently acquired Territory of
Louisiana, then offered himself to President Jefferson for this
service, " Mr. Wilson," says Ord, "was particularly anxious to
accompany Pike, who commenced his journey from the canton-
ment on the Missouri, for the sources of the Arkansas, etc., on the
i5th of July, 1806." But no reply was made to his application.

* Life of Alexander Wilson, by George Ord, in volume ix of the Ameri-
can Ornithology.

96 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

About this time he was engaged by the publishers, Messrs.
Bradford and Inskeep, as assistant editor for the revision of
Rees's New Cyclopaedia, on " a generous salary," namely, nine
hundred dollars a year. He now gave up school-keeping, which
had been his calling for ten years. While in this position he
made known his plans for the American Ornithology to Brad-
ford, who readily agreed to undertake its publication. A pro-
spectus was immediately issued, and a year later, in September,
1808, the first volume of the work appeared. In the fall of
that year Wilson made a trip through New England, " in search
of bjrds and subscribers." On the way from Philadelphia he
stopped at Princeton to show his work to the college professors.
He expected to get some valuable information on American
birds from the Professor of Natural History, "but," he writes,
" I soon found, to my astonishment, that he scarcely knew a
sparrow from a woodpecker." WTherever he showed his book to
college professors, and other literary men, the highest praise
was lavished upon it, but subscriptions were not so freely forth-
coming, the price, one hundred and twenty dollars, being a
serious obstacle. He wrote from Albany, on his way home,
that he had obtained only forty-one subscribers. One of the
less intelligent personages, whose favour he had sought, was the
then Governor of New York — Daniel D. Tompkins. This mag-
nate, as Wilson informs us, " turned over a few pages, looked at
a picture or two, asked me my price, and, while in the act of
closing the book, added, ' I would not give a hundred dollars
for all the birds you intend to describe, even had I them
alive.' "

He soon set off again on a trip through Baltimore, Wash-
ington (where he was received " very kindly " by Jefferson),
and other Southern cities, and when he reached home had in
all two hundred and fifty subscribers. In the South he shot
several new birds. It was now deemed advisable to add three
hundred impressions of Volume I to the two hundred first
struck off, and the second volume started with an edition of
five hundred copies. His undertaking had already won him
" reputation and respect," but the pecuniary return was still
doubtful.

Volume II of the Ornithology was ready in 1810, and in
February of that year Wilson set out on another hunt for new
specimens of the feathered tribes and those rarer birds— sub-

ALEXANDER WILSON.

97

scribers. His varied adventures on these expeditions, and his
impressions of the people and places that he visited, are de-
lightfully recorded in the letters which Mr. Grosart collected.

At Hanover, Pa., he met a judge who condemned his work
because " it was not within the reach of the commonality, and
therefore inconsistent with our republican institutions." Wil-
son turned the tables on this learned man by showing that the
judge's elegant three-story brick house was open to the same
objection ; and then in a more serious vein pointed out to him
the benefit which a young, rising nation can derive from science,
" till he began to show such symptoms of intellect as to seem
ashamed of what he said." From Pittsburg Wilson made his
way in a skiff down the Ohio over seven hundred miles, nearly
to Louisville, stopping at the important towns on the way.

At Louisville one of the persons on whom he called was
Audubon, then thirty years old and engaged in business.
Audubon has left an account of this meeting, in which he thus
describes Wilson's physical appearance : " How well do I re-
member him as he walked up to me! His long, rather hooked
nose, the keenness of his eyes, and his prominent cheek bones
stamped his countenance with a peculiar character. . . . His
stature was not above the middle size." Audubon claims that
he was about to subscribe for the Ornithology, but a compli-
mentary reference to his own knowledge of birds, spoken in
French by his partner, checked him. " Vanity and the en-
comium of my friend prevented me from subscribing," he
writes, and to this he adds that he lent some of his drawings
to Wilson, and hunted with him, obtaining some birds which
the latter had never seen before. Audubon states also that
being in Philadelphia some time afterward he called on Wilson,
who received him with civility, but did not speak of birds or
drawings. Against this story must be set the following ex-
tract from Wilson's diary published in the ninth volume of the
Ornithology : " March 23d, I bade adieu to Louisville, to which
place I had four letters of recommendation, and was taught to
expect much of everything there ; but neither received one act
of civility from those to whom I was recommended, one sub-
scriber, nor one new bird ; though I delivered my letters, ran-
sacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the characters
likely to subscribe. Science or literature has not one friend
in this place." "We must take Audubon's account," says his

98 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

own biographer, Robert Buchanan, "cum grano salts" while
Grosart, eager in defence of Wilson, does not hesitate to call it
"a tissue of lies," except his admission that vanity kept him
from subscribing to Wilson's work.

Turning southward, Wilson crossed Kentucky to Tennessee,
and proceeded through the Chickasaw and Choctaw countries
to Natchez, and thence went to New Orleans.

By persistent labour the successive volumes of the Ornithol-
ogy were issued up to the seventh, which appeared in the
spring of 1813. On the 6th of July in that year he wrote: " I
am myself far from being in good health. Intense application
to study has hurt me much. My eighth volume is now in the
press and will be published in November. One volume more
will complete the whole." But he was not to see the appear-
ance of even the eighth volume. The unremitting labour of
that summer, carried on in the city, where even his tramps
with his gun were cut off, so reduced his strength that he suc-
cumbed to an attack of his old enemy the dysentery and died,
August 23, 1813, at the age of forty-seven. The immediate
cause of the attack was his swimming a river in pursuit of a
rare bird that he caught sight of while visiting a friend.

Wilson died unmarried, although in his letters he condemns
celibacy, and shows that he was not indifferent to female com-
panionship. In fact, he was to have married a Miss Miller,
whom he made one of his executors. George Ord, who had
accompanied Wilson on some of his trips, was made a coexec-
utor, and completed the publication of the Qrnithology, pre-
fixing to the last volume a life of the author. The original
edition of Wilson's great work is now rare. It comprises nine
thin folio volumes, about eleven by fourteen inches in size.
Several birds are figured on each plate — the smallest ones of
life size, the others reduced. An edition in three volumes, in-
cluding the birds afterward described by Prince Bonaparte,
was issued in i829-'36,* and another in four volumes, edited
by Prof. Robert Jameson, in 1831.

Wilson was no compiler ; he took his facts from his own
observations, or the accounts of those who had known the birds
for a lifetime. He had, further, as Grosart says, a " magnet-

* American Ornithology, by Alexander Wilson and Prince Charles Lucien
Bonaparte. Edited, with a Life of Wilson, by Sir William Jardine, Bart.

ALEXANDER WILSON. QQ

ical sympathy with the birds whereby his descriptions of their
looks and ways and faculties take the colouring of so many
little biographies of personal friends."

Sir William Jardine says of Wilson : " He was the first who
truly studied the birds of North America in their natural
abodes, and from real observations ; and his work will ever
remain an ever-to-be-admired testimony of enthusiasm and
perseverance — one certainly unrivalled in descriptions; and if
some plates and illustrations may vie with it in finer workman-
ship or pictorial splendour, few, indeed, can rival it in fidelity
and truth of delineation."

DAVID HOSACK.

1769-1835.

IN the early part of the nineteenth century no citizen of
New York was held in higher honour than was De Witt Clin-
ton. Closely associated with Clinton in the leadership of the
civic life of the day, but holding rigidly aloof from politics,
was Dr. Hosack. " It was not infrequently remarked by our
citizens," said his pupil and associate, John W. Francis, " that
Clinton, Hosack, and Hobart were the tripod on which our
city stood." Dr. Hosack was one of the founders of the New
York Historical Society and its president from 1820 to 1828,
He was also instrumental in founding an art society, was prom-
inent in various scientific, literary, and humane undertakings,
and, if his lead had been followed, New York would have to-
day a botanic garden equal to any in a European metropolis.

David Hosack was the eldest of seven children, and was
born August 31, 1769, in the house of his maternal grand-
father, No. 44 Frankfort Street, New York. His father, Alex-
ander Hosack, was a native of Morayshire (Elgin), Scotland.
Having entered the British army, he was, at the age of twenty-
one, serving as an officer in the artillery. He came to America
in the force under General Sir Jeffrey Amherst, and was at the
retaking of Louisburg. April i, 1768, he married in New
York Jane, daughter of Francis Arden. Her father's family
came from England, while that of her mother belonged to that
valuable contingent of Huguenot citizens which America re-
ceived as a consequence of the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes.

Young David, after receiving the ordinary elements of edu-
cation, was placed at fourteen or fifteen years of age in the
academy of the Rev. Dr. Alexander McWhorter, of Newark,
N. J., where he pursued the study of Latin and other usual
branches and began to learn Greek. But as Dr. Peter Wilson,

100

DAVID HOSACK.

DAVID HOSACK. IOI

of Hackensack, was a more distinguished teacher of that lan-
guage than Dr. McWhorter, David was transferred to his acad-
emy in 1785. The next year he entered Columbia College,
remaining in that institution until the middle of his junior year.
He had also private tutors in the classics and the French
language. In the beginning of the junior year, finding his
time not fully occupied, he took up the study of medicine as a
private pupil under Dr. Richard Bayley. " He had scarcely
begun his studies," writes his son,* " before the celebrated
' Doctors' Mob ' occurred, which threatened serious results to l
those concerned ; it arose in consequence of the imprudence
of some of the students carelessly pursuing dissection in the
building upon the site since occupied as the New York Hos-
pital. This mob caused many of the professors to absent
themselves from the city and others to seek shelter in the city
jail. Mr. Hosack, with the rest of the students interested,
learning that the mob had seized upon and demolished the
anatomical preparations found in the lecture room above re-
ferred to, repaired immediately to Columbia College,f with the
view of saving such specimens as were to be found in that
institution. Before reaching the college, however, and when
on his way in Park Place, he was knocked down by a stone
striking him on the head ; he would in all probability have
been killed hfid it not been for the protection he received from
the neighbour of his father, Mr. Mount, who was passing at
the time and took care of him."

In the fall of 1788 young Hosack entered the senior class
of the College of New Jersey at Princeton in order that he
might the sooner complete his collegiate course and devote his
whole attention to the study of medicine, to which he had
become ardently attached. " Having finished my course at
Princeton," he says in some memoranda that he left for the
benefit of his children, " I returned to New York and resumed
my favourite medical studies, to which I now gave my undivided
attention, availing myself of every advantage which the city at
that time presented. I attended the lectures on anatomy and

* Dr. Alexander E. Hosack, in a biography contributed to the Lives of
Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons of the Nineteenth Century, edited
by Samuel D. Gross, M. D. From this biography most of the facts for the
present article have been drawn.

\ Then in College Place.

102 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

physiology delivered by Dr. Wright Post, those on chemistry
and practice of physic, by Dr. Nicholas Romayne, and the
valuable course on midwifery and the diseases of women and
children, by Dr. Bard. I also attended the practice of physic
and surgery at the almshouse, which then offered the only
means of clinical instruction in this city ; they were, how-
ever, very ample, the house being daily visited by Dr.
Post, Dr. William Moore, Dr. Romayne, and Dr. Benjamin
Kissam."

There was then no institution in New York empowered
to grant the degree in medicine, the medical faculty of Co-
lumbia, formerly King's College, having been broken up by
the Revolution. So after a year of private study Hosack pro-
ceeded to Philadelphia and enrolled at the medical school of
the University of Pennsylvania, where Drs. Shippen, Rush,
Kuhn, and Wistar were then among the professors, and in the
summer of the succeeding year obtained his medical degree.
In the same year he married at Princeton Miss Catharine War-
ner, a young lady of great worth, to whom he had become at-
tached while pursuing his collegiate studies.

By the advice of Dr. Rush and others whom he consulted
Dr. Hosack settled first at Alexandria, Va., which place he be-
lieved was to be the capital of the United States. The prac-
tice that he acquired here, although considerable? was not sat-
isfactory to him, and after a year's residence he returned to
New York. He now determined to supplement his medical
studies abroad. " Observing the distinction," to quote his
own words, " which our citizens at that time made between
those physicians who had been educated at home, and those
who had had additional instruction from the universities of
Europe, and knowing how little property I had reason to ex-
pect from my parents, I found that my chief dependence was
upon my own industry and increasing attention to the profes-
sion I had chosen as the means of my subsistence ; my ambi-
tion to excel in my profession did not suffer me to remain in-
sensible under such distinction. Although it was painful for
me to think of leaving my family, consisting then of a wife and
child, I accordingly suggested to my father the propriety of my
making a visit to Europe, and of attending the medical schools
of Edinburgh and London. He at once, with his character-
istic liberality, acquiesced in my views and wishes. In August,

DAVID HOSACK. IO3

1792, leaving my family to the care of my parents, I took pas-
sage for Liverpool."

After spending a few days in Liverpool he proceeded to
Edinburgh, where he attended the medical lectures at the
university during the following winter. In the spring, after a
visit to his father's birthplace, where he met two uncles and
other relatives, and to some other places in Scotland, he re-
paired to the metropolis and entered as a pupil of St. Barthol-
omew's Hospital. He also frequently visited other hospitals
when any important surgical operations were performed, sur-
gery being the favourite subject of his pursuit ; he nevertheless
did not neglect the collateral branches of medical science.

It was during this stay abroad that his interest in botany
sprang up. "Having," as he says, "upon one occasion —
while walking in the garden of Prof. Hamilton, at Bland-
ford, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh — been very much
mortified by my ignorance of botany, with which his other
guests were familiarly conversant, I had resolved at that time,
whenever an opportunity might offer, to acquire a knowledge
of that department of science. Such an opportunity was now
presented, and I eagerly availed myself of it. The late Mr. Wil-
liam Curtis, author of the Flora Londinensis, had at that time
just completed his botanic garden at Brompton, which was
arranged in «such a manner as to render it most instructive to
those desirous of becoming acquainted with this ornamental
and useful branch of a medical education. Although Mr.
Curtis had for some time ceased to give lectures on botany, he
very kindly undertook, at my solicitation, to instruct me in the
elements of botanical science. For this purpose I visited the
botanical garden daily throughout the summer, spending sev-
eral hours in examining the various genera and species to be
found in that establishment. I also had the benefit once a
week of accompanying him in an excursion to the different
parts of the country in the vicinity of London. Dr. William
Babbington, Dr. Thornton, Dr. (now Sir) Smith Gibbs, Dr.
Hunter, of New York, the Hon. Mr. Greville, and myself com-
posed the class in these instructive botanical excursions, in the
summer of 1793.

" By Mr. Dickson, of Covent Garden, the celebrated cryptog-
amist, the lmaximus in minimis,' as Mr. Curtis has very prop-
erly and facetiously denominated him, I was also initiated into

IO4

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the secrets of the cryptogamic class of plants. In the spring
of 1794 I also attended the public lectures of botany delivered
by the President of the Linnaean Society, Dr. (now Sir) James
Edward Smith ; and by the kindness of the same gentleman I
had access to the Linnaean Herbarium. I spent several hours
daily for four months examining the various genera and the
most important species contained in that extensive collection.
Notwithstanding my attention to botany, I was not unmindful
of the other departments of medicine." The acquaintance
thus begun with Sir James Edward Smith ripened into an affec-
tionate friendship, and a correspondence was begun that ended
only with Smith's life.

In the course of the winter of 1 793-^4 Dr. Hosack em-
bodied certain Observations on Vision in a paper which he
communicated to the Royal Society. It was published in the
society's Transactions for 1794, and brought him, after due
examination by a committee, the thanks of the society. A
theory was in some vogue at the time that the power of ac-
commodation in the eye resided in the crystalline lens. Ho-
sack maintained the opposing theory, that it depended upon
the external muscles. His paper contained many original
views, and its statements were supported by experiments that
he had made upon himself and others.

He returned to New York in 1794 by the ship Mohawk,
the passage lasting fifty-three days. On the voyage typhus
fever made its appearance and became very general, particu-
larly among the steerage passengers. Dr. Hosack being the
only physician on board, was called upon to attend the stricken
ones, and was wonderfully successful, not losing a single case.
His services were duly appreciated by all, as was evinced by
the unsolicited vote of thanks published in the daily papers
when the ship reached port.

Taking up his residence in New York city, Dr. Hosack at
the age of twenty-five years began again the practice of his
profession under the most favourable auspices. Mr. Thomas
Law, who had been a fellow-passenger on the Mohawk, intro-
duced him to many of his acquaintances, among whom were
General Hamilton and Colonel Burr. He soon became the
family physician to these distinguished persons. In 1795 he
was appointed Professor of Botany in Columbia College, for
which position his diligent application to this science in Lon-

DAVID HOSACK.

105

don had admirably fitted him. At the end of his first course
he published a syllabus of his lectures, afterward inserted in
his Medical Essays. In 1795, a^so> tne yellow fever reached
New York, and the violence of the epidemic afforded ample
opportunity to young medical men to distinguish themselves.
Dr. Hosack at this time attracted the especial attention of
Dr. Samuel Bard, one of his former preceptors, who soon after
took him into partnership. This was a preparatory step to Dr.
Bard's retiring from the profession, which he did three or four
years later, leaving Dr. Hosack in the enjoyment of an exten-
sive and profitable practice.

Having lost his infant son during his absence in England
and his wife not long after his return, Dr. Hosack married,
Decmber 21, 1797, Mary, daughter of James and Mary Dar-
ragh Eddy, of Philadelphia. By this marriage he had nine
children.

Upon the death, in 1797, of Dr. William Pitt Smith, his chair
of Materia Medica in Columbia College was assigned to Dr.
Hosack, in addition to the one of Botany already held by the
latter. He continued to fill these two professorships until
1807, when the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the
State of New York was established, in which he was chosen
Professor of Surgery and Midwifery. He soon, however, re-
linquished this chair for that of the Theory and Practice of
Physic and Clinical Medicine. The Analectic Magazine for
1814 contained a notice of an introductory lecture given in the
last-named chair, which had been published. It says that,
after an opening statement on another matter, " Dr. Hosack
proceeds to point out what he deems the proper method of
cultivating the science of medicine. He recommends the in-
ductive system of philosophizing as the only sure means of
acquiring correct methods in science, and enforces the same
by the celebrated examples of Bacon, Boyle, and Newton in
physics, of Reid, Bentley, and Stewart in metaphysics, and of
Hippocrates, Sydenham, and Boerhaave in medicine."

Meanwhile Dr. Hosack had become prominently known for
his success in the treatment of yellow fever, which had visited
New York in four successive summers, beginning with 1795, an(^
afterward in 1803, 1805, 1819, and 1822. On many occasions,
when disease suspected to be yellow fever broke out, he was
called upon by the Board of Health of New York for a report
8

I06 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

as to its real nature, for if the fears of his fellow-citizens
were groundless his statement would be sure to allay them.

Of Dr. Hosack in the professorial chair, Dr. Minturn Post,
one of his pupils, has said : " In no respect was Dr. Hosack
more remarkable than as a lecturer ; gifted with a command-
ing person and a piercing eye, of an ardent temperament and
of strong convictions, his manner of treating the various sub-
jects connected with his professorship was at once bold, im-
pressive, and eloquent. . . . His great object was to direct the
student to the importance of the subject under examination,
to lead him by his eloquence, and to rivet his attention by his
earnestness, and no man ever succeeded better as a public lec-
turer in attaining these results. . . . Dr. Hosack was gifted
with a fine, sonorous voice, great play of expression, and a
remarkable vivacity of manner — qualities which, being as it
were contagious, begat in his youthful auditory a kindred sym-
pathy." In closing his account above quoted Dr. Post re-
marks : " He lived in memorable times, before the great men
of the Revolution had passed away ; had seen and conversed
with the most eminent of the age ; had listened to the inspired
song of Burns, tuned to sweet cadence, from his own lips;
was intimate with Rush, and Gregory, and Sir Joseph Banks,
and was the friend of Clinton and Hamilton." The friendship
of Hamilton was probably won for the most part by his suc-
cess in saving the life of a son of the general sick with scar-
let fever, whose case for a time was deemed hopeless. This
friendship was conspicuous on every occasion, and was termi-
nated only on that day when Dr. Hosack accompanied Hamil-
ton across the Hudson River to his fatal duel with Colonel
Burr.

Dr. Hosack is often mentioned as one of the leading pro-
moters of science of his time. " His love of botanical science,"
says his son, "induced him to found the Elgin* Botanic Gar-
den, which he did at his own individual expense, as early as
1801. It was situated about three and a half miles from the
city of New York. It consisted of about twenty acres of land
on the middle road.f It was selected from its varied soil as

* So named after the village in Scotland where his father was born.

f The location is given in Mrs. Lamb's History of New York as lying be-
tween Fifth and Sixth Avenues and stretching from Forty-seventh to Fifty-
first Streets.

DAVID HOSACK. lOj

peculiarly adapted to the cultivation of the different vegetable
productions. The grounds were skilfully laid out and planted
with some of the most rare and beautiful of our forest trees.
An extensive and ornamental conservatory was erected for the
cultivation of tropical and greenhouse plants, as well as those
devoted to medical purposes, more especially those of our own
country.

" At this time there were under cultivation nearly fifteen
hundred species of American plants, besides a considerable
number of rare and valuable exotics. To this collection addi-
tions were made from time to time from various parts of Europe
as well as from the East and West Indies. It was the intention
of the founder of this beautiful garden, had his means been
more ample, to devote it to the sciences generally, more espe-
cially those of zoology and mineralogy. This, however, he
was compelled from want of fortune to relinquish, hoping that
the State of New York would at some future day be induced
to carry out the plan as suggested by him similar in all respects
to that of the Garden of Plants in Paris ; but in this he was
disappointed. The State purchased the garden from him, but,
like many other public works unconnected with politics, it was
suffered to go to ruin. While it was in his possession it af-
forded him many a pleasant hour of recreation, and served to
abstract him from the cares and anxieties of an arduous pro-
fession." Frederick Pursh, author of the Flora Septentriona-
lis, was for several years curator of this garden.

A jail society, which had existed in New York to supply
provisions to prisoners for debt, was developed by Hosack into
the Humane Society, with broader aims and means. The City
Dispensary received no less his care and attention. He vigor-
ously advocated a separate hospital building for contagious
diseases, the strict enforcement of quarantine regulations, the
substitution of stone piers for wooden ones, and urged that
the city's sewers should discharge at the outer ends of the
piers instead of at the bulkhead line.

His friends often wondered that Dr. Hosack found time to
contribute so much as he did to the literature of his profession.
At an early period he began the publication of the Medical
and Philosophical Register, a quarterly journal, in which Dr,
John W. Francis was associated with him. He afterward pub-
lished three volumes of his Medical Essays, containing occa-

108 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

sional addresses, introductory lectures to his regular courses,
many practical papers on medical subjects, etc. He also pub-
lished an extensive appendix to a work on the Practice of
Medicine, by Dr. Thomas, of Salisbury, England. Adopting
the nosological arrangement as a system best calculated to
illustrate diseases, he was induced to prepare a work on that
subject, which ran through several editions.

Botany was not the only branch of science in which he be-
came interested while abroad. To quote from a sketch of his
life by a friend: "He attended in the winter of -1193-94. the
first course of lectures on mineralogy that was delivered in
London by Schmeisser, a pupil of Werner. With this addi-
tional knowledge of mineralogy, which Dr. Hosack had begun
to study at Edinburgh, he continued to augment the cabinet of
minerals which he had commenced in Scotland. This collec-
tion was brought by him to the United States, and was, we be-
lieve, the first cabinet that crossed the Atlantic ; it was after-
ward deposited in Princeton College, in rooms appropriated
by the trustees, but fitted up at the expense of the donor,
similar to those at the J&cole des Mines at Paris. To render
this donation immediately useful, it was accompanied by a
collection of the most important works on mineralogy."

Having a large circle of friends and acquaintances, and
being fond of company, Dr. Hosack used to set apart his Sat-
urday evenings for entertaining them. " Surrounded by his
large and costly library, his house was the resort of the learned
and enlightened from every part of the world. No traveller
from abroad rested satisfied without a personal interview with
him ; and, at his evening soirte, the literati, the philosopher,
and the statesman, the skilful in natural science, and the ex-
plorer of new regions, the archaeologist and the theologue met
together, participators in the recreation of familiar inter-
course." Many a distinguished American and many a for-
eign visitor, coming with a letter from some European
friend of Hosack, has left on record his delightful ex-
perience in a visit to the doctor, either at his city house or
his place in the country.

Of the scientific honours most prized by Americans in his
day — membership in European societies — Dr. Hosack had a
goodly share. He also received the honour of having a genus
of plants named for him. The various species of Hosackia,

DAVID HOSACK. IOg

of which there are some thirty, are herbs and shrubs growing
in the Southern and Southwestern States and in Mexico.

His second wife having died, Dr. Hosack married Mrs.
Magdalena Coster, widow of the Holland merchant, Henry A.
Coster. Some time after this event he retired from his pro-
fession and spent the rest of his life, except the winter months,
on the beautiful estate at Hyde Park, on the banks of the Hud-
son, which he had owned for a number of years. Here he de-
voted himself to agriculture and to growing plants of botan-
ical interest. "He carried with him," his son remarks, " the
same ardour and zeal which had been so characteristic of him
in his professional career. He introduced into the country
many of the finest breeds of cattle, sheep, and swine, which he
imported at great expense from abroad. The grounds were
cultivated in the best possible manner, and the most esteemed
fruits and vegetable productions of the country were made to
thrive in the greatest luxury possible."

In the autumn of 1835 Dr. Hosack removed as usual to his
city residence, and a few weeks after was seized with apoplexy
which terminated his existence. One morning in December he
went out and did some business errands, and on his return
home found he was paralyzed in his right arm. His speech
was also affected. He received immediate attention from his
son, Dr. A. E. Hosack, and later from several of his profes-
sional friends. But their efforts were of no avail. His symp-
toms became worse, and four days after the attack, on De-
cember 22d, he passed away. His body was placed in the
family vault in the marble cemetery in Second Street.

One of the surest ways in which an eminent man can cause
his influence to live after him is in training up younger men to
lives of usefulness. This Dr. Hosack was constantly doing.
" I can scarcely recollect the time," says his son, " when he
was without some such protege." At one time it was the son
of a New York carpenter, who, unfortunately, fell a victim to
his devotion to yellow-fever patients in the epidemic of 1798.
At another it was a young Frenchman, who, without means,
had come to America to study its flora, his family having been
forced to leave France on account of the Revolution there.
Dr. Hosack took him into his family and educated him as a
physician. He returned to France and became eminent as a
botanist. This was Prof. Delile, who accompanied Napoleon

IIO PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

to Egypt as the botanist of his corps de savants, and was after-
ward superintendent of the Jardin des Plantes at Montpellier.
Among Dr. Hosack's regular pupils at the College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons was John Torrey, and many other students
who heard his lectures at the medical school or at Columbia
College had whatever of inclination toward botany they pos-
sessed greatly quickened by the enthusiasm and eloquence of
Dr. Hosack.

AMOS EATON.

AMOS EATON.
1776-1842.

PROF. AMOS EATON was prominent among those who culti-
vated science in the earlier half of this century, who laboured to
popularize the study and make it accessible to the masses.
American geology and botany owe much to him. His books
on those subjects have two special merits — they were among
the first published in which a systematic treatment for America
was attempted, and they were written throughout in a language
that all could read.

Amos Eaton was born in Chatham, Columbia County, N. Y.,
May 17, 1776, and died in Troy, N. Y., May 6, 1842. His father,
Captain Abel Eaton, was a farmer in comfortable circum-
stances, and of the best standing as a citizen. The family was
descended from a John Eaton, who came from Dover in Eng-
land about 1635, and two years later settled in Dedham, Mass.,
where descendants of the elder line still reside. The scholastic
tendencies which determined the character of his career appear
to have shown themselves at an early age, for we find that in
1790, when Amos was only fourteen years old, he was appoint-
ed to make a Fourth-of-July oration, and acquitted himself ac-
ceptably in the effort. Serving as a chain bearer in the sur-
veying of some land, he acquired a taste for that business.
He had no instruments, and, in order to obtain them, he ar-
ranged with a blacksmith to " blow and strike " for him by
day, in return for which the blacksmith should help him make
instruments at night. After several weeks' work, a needle,
magnetized from kitchen tongs, and a working chain were
turned out. A compass case was made out of the bottom of
an old pewter plate, well smoothed, polished, and graduated ;
and the young man, at sixteen years of age, was ready to do
little jobs of surveying.

He fitted himself for college with the Rev. Dr. David Pot-

111

112 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ter, of Spencertown ; entered Williams College, and was gradu-
ated thence in 1799, with a high standing in science. On Octo-
ber i6th of the same year he married, at Chatham, Polly, daugh-
ter of Malachi and Mary (McCall) Thomas, who died three years
later, leaving him a son. He prepared himself for the legal
profession, studying law with the Hon. Elisha Williams, of
Spencertown, and the Hon. Josiah Ogden, of New York. An
association which he formed in New York with Dr. David Ho-
sack and Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, the most distinguished scien-
tific men in the city at the time, marked another determinative
point in his career ; for, under their instruction, he became in-
terested in the natural sciences, and particularly in botany.
So earnest did he become in these studies that, having bor-
rowed Kirwan's Mineralogy, he made a manuscript copy of the
whole work. Having been admittd to the bar of the Supreme
Court of New York, he settled in Catskill as a lawyer and land
agent, and continued his studies in science. At this place he
began, in 1810, a course of popular lectures on botany, which
is believed to have been the first attempted in the United
States. In connection with the lectures he compiled a small
elementary treatise. Dr. Hosack commended him as being
the first in the field with this course, saying, "You have adopt-
ed the true system of education, and very properly address
yourself to the memory."

Finding that his taste for the incidents of legal practice was
diminishing, and his interest in science was growing upon him,
Mr. Eaton resolved to abandon the law and devote himself to
the more congenial pursuit. He removed to New Haven in
1815, and there placed himself under the tuition of Prof. Silli-
man, who was lecturing on chemistry, geology, and miner-
alogy. He enjoyed the advantage of Prof. Silliman's library
and of that of Prof. Ives, in which works on botany and ma-
teria medica were prominent, and was a diligent student of
the college cabinet of minerals. Having become well grounded
in the sciences he took up his abode near Williams College, where
he gave courses of lectures to volunteer classes of the students
on botany, mineralogy, and geology, and awakened a perma-
nent interest in the natural sciences. An interesting description
of his personality at this time, when he was in his prime, is given
by Prof. Albert Hopkins, who speaks of him as " of striking
personage, a large form, somewhat portly and dignified, though

AMOS EATON. II3

entirely free from what is commonly called starch. His face
was highly intellectual, the forehead high and somewhat re-
treating, locality strongly marked, and the organs of observa-
tion and compassion well developed. His hair was black, and,
being combed back, rendered his fine physiognomy still more
striking." In the same year the first edition was published of
Prof. Eaton's Manual of Botany, a work the appearance of
which, according to Dr. Lewis C. Beck, gave an impulse to the
study of botany in New England and New York, which had
been hampered by the want of a manual in English. The only
descriptive work previous to this one was that of Pursch, in
which the descriptions were in Latin. The Manual was added
to and became fuller, in successive editions, till the eighth
edition, published in 1840, was a large octavo volume of 625
pages, known as the North American Botany of Profs. Eaton
and Wright, and contained descriptions of 5,267 species of
plants.

From Williams College the lectures were extended, in the
shape of courses, with practical instructions to classes, to the
larger towns of New England and New York. Prof. Eaton
was greatly aided in this enterprise by the patronage and en-
couragement he had received from the faculty and students
of Williams College, and the fame he derived from his lectures
there ; and he made an acknowledgment of this fact in dedi-
cating the second edition of his botany to the president and
professors, when he said, "The science of botany is indebted
to you for its first introduction into the interior of the North-
ern States, and I am indebted to you for a passport into the
scientific world." In the course of two or three years, says
Prof. H. B. Nason, to whose Biographical Record of the Rensse-
laer Polytechnic Institute we are most largely indebted for the
material for this sketch, " Prof. Eaton diffused a great amount
of knowledge on the subjects of his lectures ; and so far excited
the curiosity and enthusiasm of many young students that
there sprang up, as a result of his labours, an army of botanists
and geologists." The late Prof. Albert Hopkins, of Williams
College, accrediting Prof. Eaton with being one of the first to
popularize science in the Northern States, mentioned as among
his special qualifications for the task an easy flow of language,
a popular address, and a generous enthusiasm in matters of
science, which easily communicated itself to his pupils. He

114

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

adds : " Prof. Eaton was among the first in this country to
study Nature in the field with his classes. In pursuance of this
idea, he used to make an annual excursion with Rensselaer
School, sometimes leading these expeditions in person, at others
deputing some competent teacher to take the lead. The cause
of natural history in Williams College owes, undoubtedly, a
good deal to Prof. Eaton. I think his zeal in the department
of botany led Prof. Dewey to direct his discriminating mind
to the study of plants, a study which he pursued further than
Prof. Eaton had done in certain lines. ... At this time, also,
Dr. Emmons took the field. In fact, natural history came on
with the spring tide, and has never lost the impulse since."
While at Albany, in 1818, on the invitation of Governor Clin-
ton, delivering a course of lectures before the members of the
Legislature of New York, Prof. Eaton became acquainted with
many leading men of the State, and interested them in geology
and its application by means of surveys to agriculture. Here
was planted the idea which eventually fructified in that great
work, The Natural History of New York. In the same year
Prof. Eaton published his Index to the Geology of the North-
ern States, which has been pronounced " the first attempt at a
general arrangement of geological strata in North America."
Although under the undeveloped condition of geology at the
time, with the defective knowledge even among its advanced
students, this book could not fail to contain many state-
ments now known to be errors, it must be recognised as a
creditable and valuable effort. An interesting view of the
conditions of geology at the time and of the method of study
is given in a letter which Prof. Eaton wrote to Mr. Henry R.
Schoolcraft, in 1820, while preparing a second volume of his
Index. In it he said : " I have written the whole over anew,
and extended it to about two hundred and fifty pages, i2mo.
I have taken great pains to collect facts in this district dur-
ing the two years since my first edition was published, but I
am rather deficient in my knowledge of secondary and alluvial
formations. I wish to trouble you with a few inquiries on that
subject. From what knowledge I have been able to obtain
in that department, I am inclined to arrange the secondary
class thus : Breccia, compact, or shell limestone ; gypsum, sec-
ondary sandstone. I leave much, also, for peculiar local for-
mations. A gentleman presented specimens to the Troy Ly-

AMOS EATON. I! 5

ceum, from Illinois, of gypsum and secondary sandstone, and
informed me that the latter overlaid the former in regular
structure. Myron Holly and others have given me similar
specimens, which they represent as being similarly situated,
from localities in the western part of this State. This secondary
sandstone is sometimes more or less calcareous. I believe it
is used for a cement by the canal company, which hardens
under water. Will you do me the favour to settle this question ?
On your way to Detroit you may perhaps, without material in*
convenience, collect facts of importance to me in reference to
secondary and alluvial formations. Anything transmitted to
me by the middle of April on these subjects will be in season,
because I shall not have printed all the transition part before
that time. Have you any knowledge of the strata consti-
tuting the Rocky Mountains ? Is it primitive, or is it gray-
wacke, like Catskill Mountains ? I have said in a note that
after you and Dr. E. James set foot upon it we shall no
longer be ignorant of it. I intend to kindle a blaze of
geological zeal before you return. I have adapted the style
of my index to the capacity of ladies, plough-joggers, and
mechanics."

Prof. Eaton also delivered lectures at Lenox Academy and
the Medical College at Castleton, Vt., where he was appointed
Professor of Natural History in 1820. He gave lectures and
practical instructions in Troy, and thus laid the foundation for
the establishment there, as a direct result of his work, of the
Lyceum of Natural History ; and it is said that in the fall of
1818 Troy could boast of a more extensive collection of
American geological specimens than could be found at any
other literary institution in this country. The geological and
agricultural survey of Albany and Rensselaer Counties, made
in 1820 and 1821, by Prof. Eaton and Drs. T. Romeyn and
Lewis C. Beck, at the expense of the Hon. Stephen Van Rens-
selaer, is believed to have been the beginning of such surveys in
this country, and was described by Prof. Silliman, in his Jour-
nal, as a novel attempt. Next was a geological survey by
Prof. Eaton, also at the instance of Mr. Van Rensselaer, of
the district adjoining the Erie Canal, the result of which was
published in 1824, in a report of one hundred and sixty pages,
with a profile section of rock formations, from the Atlantic
Ocean, across Massachusetts and New York, to Lake Erie.

U6 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Governor Seward said of this work, in the Introduction to the
Natural History of the State of New York, that it "marked an
era in the progress of geology in this country. It is in some
respects inaccurate, but it must be remembered that its talented
and indefatigable author was without a guide in exploring the
older formations, and that he described rocks which no geolo-
gist had at that time attempted to classify. Rocks were then
classified chiefly by their mineralogical characters, and the aid
which the science has since learned to derive from fossils in
determining the chronology and classification of rocks was
scarcely known here, and had only just begun to be appre-
ciated in Europe. We are indebted, nevertheless, to Prof.
Eaton for the commencement of that independence of Euro-
pean classification which has been found indispensable in de-
scribing the New York system. . . . Prof. Eaton enumerated
nearly all the rocks in western New York, in their order of
succession, and his enumeration has, with one or two excep-
tions, proved correct. It is a matter of surprise that he recog-
nised, at so early a period, the old red sandstone on the
Catskill Mountains, a discovery the reality of which has since
been proved by fossil tests."

In 1824 Prof. Eaton was placed at the head, as " Senior
Professor," of the School of Science founded by the Hon.
Stephen Van Rensselaer at Troy, N. Y., then called the Rens-
selaer School, now the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He
spent the remainder of his life in this position. He introduced
and developed here a system of instruction in which the stu-
dents were made experimenters and workers, and, in place of
recitations, delivered lectures to one another. The success of
this method was such that some one or other of its features
were introduced into other schools.

Summarizing his career in brief, Prof. Nason says, in his
biography : " In developing the botany and geology of the
Northern States, Prof. Eaton rightfully ranks among the pio-
neers of the new era of the natural sciences in this country.
His efforts in various departments of natural history were a
rich gift to New England, New York, and even to the whole
country, for which the country owes him a debt of gratitude.
Many of his pupils have been for years among the most justly
distinguished scientific men of the country. As an educator
and an active labourer in the general cause of natural history

AMOS EATON.

117

in America, his memory will long be cherished. The history
of natural science on this continent can never be faithfully
written without giving the name of Amos Eaton an honourable
place. It was he, more than any other individual in the United
States, who, finding the natural sciences in the hands of the
learned few, by means of popular lectures, simplified text-
books, and practical instruction, threw them broadcast to
the many. He aimed at a general diffusion of the natural
sciences, and nobly and successfully did he accomplish his
mission."

Prof. Eaton is described as having been a kind and courte-
ous gentleman, whose vast acquirements and simple habits were
pleasantly characterized by Mrs. Emma Willard's designation
of him as "the Republican Philosopher." In 1803 he married
Sally, a daughter of Eleazar and Tryphena (Beebe) Cady, and
sister of Daniel Cady, afterward Judge of the Court of Appeals
of New York. She bore him five sons. After her death he
was again married, October 20, 1816, to Anne, daughter of
Lewis and Lydia (Woodin) Bradley, by whom he had three
sons and two daughters. She having died, he married, August
5, 1827, Alice, daughter of Benjamin and Alice (Smith) John-
son, who bore him one son, and survived him about four years.
Three of his sons adopted scientific pursuits or cultivated sci-
entific tastes. One, Hezekiah Hulbert Eaton, was Assistant
Professor of Chemistry in Transylvania University, but died
when only twenty-three years old. Major General Amos B.
Eaton was an officer of the United States Army, and interested
in science. A daughter, Sara C. Eaton, was a teacher of
natural sciences and the modern languages in a young
woman's seminary at Monticello, 111. A grandson, Daniel
Cady Eaton, has been Professor of Botany in Yale College
since 1864.

The list of Prof. Eaton's books includes an Elementary
Treatise on Botany, 1810; Manual of Botany, 1817; Botanical
Dictionary, 1817; Botanical Exercises, 1820; Botanical Gram-
mar and Dictionary, 1828; Chemical Notebook, 1821; Chem-
ical Instructor, 1822; Zoological Syllabus and Notebook,
1822; Cuvier's Grand Division, 1822; Art without Science,
1800; Philosophical Instructor, 1824; Directions for Survey-
ing and Engineering, 1838; Index to the Geology of the
Northern States, 1818; Geological and Agricultural Survey of

Hg PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the County of Albany, N. Y., 1820; Geological Nomenclature
of North America, 1822 ; Geological and Agricultural Survey
of the District adjoining the Erie Canal, 1824; Geological
Text-Books, prepared for Popular Lectures on North American
Geology, 1830; and Geological Text-Book, for the Troy
class, 1841.

GERARD TROOST.

GERARD TROOST.

1776-1850.

GERARD TROOST, one of the founders and first President
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, was born
at Bois-le-Duc, Holland, March 5, 1776, and died in Nashville,
Tenn., August 14, 1850. His parents were Anna Cornelia
(Van Heeck) and Everhard Joseph Troost. He attended the
Universities of Leyden and Amsterdam, devoting special atten-
tion to chemistry, geology, and natural history ; received the
degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Leyden,
and that of Master in Pharmacy, in 1801, from the University
of Amsterdam. He practised his art for a short time at
Amsterdam and the Hague ; served in the army as a private
soldier, and at another time as an officer of the first class in
the medical department ; and during these periods of service
was wounded in the thigh and in the head. In 1807 he went
to Paris, under the patronage of Louis Napoleon, King of
Holland, to pursue his studies, and then he became the pupil
and associate of the Abbe Rene" Just Haiiy, author of the fa-
mous system of crystallography. For this distinguished and
most excellent man he ever cherished a filial, grateful, and
affectionate respect. One of the last letters written by the
illustrious Haiiy was to Troost with a presentation copy of his
great work. While in Paris he translated into the Dutch lan-
guage one of the earlier works of Alexander von Humboldt,
The Aspects of Nature. This service brought him the cordial
thanks of the author, with whom he maintained a friendly -cor-
respondence to the last.

Dr. Troost travelled in France, Italy, Germany, and Switzer-
land, and collected a valuable cabinet of minerals, which was
purchased by the King of Holland. In 1809 this king ap-
pointed Troost to accompany, in a scientific capacity, a naval
expedition to Java. He was captured by an English privateer

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I2O PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

and confined for some time; returned to Paris; and'then made
his way to La Rochelle. He took passage from a northern
port, beyond French jurisdiction, in an American vessel, for
New York, whence he hoped to reach the East Indies under
the protection of our flag. This vessel was captured by a
French privateer and Troost was kept a prisoner till the French
became aware of his true name and character, when he was re-
leased. He went at once to Paris. In March, 1810, he was
elected a correspondent of the Museum of Natural History of
Paris. A few days afterward he was allowed to embark again
on an American vessel for Philadelphia. The turn of political
events in Europe, among which was the abdication of Louis
Napoleon as King of Holland and the surrender of Java to
England, caused him to abandon his contemplated visit to the
East Indies and to remain in the United States.

His decision to remain here may have been partly due to
his forming the acquaintance of Miss Margaret Tage, of Phila-
delphia, whom he married on the i4th of January, 1811. They
had two children — Caroline, who married Mr. A. G. Stein, a
civil engineer, and went with her husband to live in Mobile.
The second child was Louis, who became a civil engineer, and
removed to Mobile, where he resided until his death. Mrs.
Troost died in 1819, when Louis was little more than a year
old. The facts here given in regard to the parentage and mar-
riage of Dr. Troost and the birth of his children are derived
from the record in an old family Bible, kindly transcribed by
his grandson, Mr. Louis Stein, of Mobile. The entries are in
Latin, and presumably in Dr. Troost's own hand. Dr. Troost
married a second wife, a Mrs. O'Riley, who by admirable house-
keeping greatly aided him in the conduct of his affairs. There
were no children by this marriage.

A brother of Dr. Troost, Dr. Benoit Troost, came to the
United States, and was living at Kansas, Mo., when Gerard
Troost died.

In 1812 Dr. Troost participated in the foundation of the
Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and became its
first president. Of the origin of this society, Dr. W. S. W.
Ruschenberger, from whose account we derive much of the
material of this sketch, says there were some young persons in
Philadelphia disposed to study the laws of creation. Occupied
with their business during the day, they were accustomed to

GERARD TROOST. I2i

converse concerning natural phenomena when they met in the
evening, without appointment, at the ordinary places of resort.
They very often met at the apothecary's shop of John Speak-
man, of whom Thomas Say was subsequently the business
partner, at the corner of Market and Second Streets. At one
of these meetings Mr. Speakman suggested that if the young
men could be induced to meet at stated times, where they
would be secure from interruption, to communicate to one an-
other what they might learn about the phenomena of Nature,
they would derive more pleasure and profit than from desultory
and irregular conversation. The suggestion was seconded by
Jacob Gilliams, and a meeting was appointed for the next
Saturday evening at Mr. Speakman's house, for the young men
and such of their friends as might be interested in the matter :
Six persons were present at the meeting, January 25, 1812:
Dr. Gerard Troost, Dr. Camillus Macmahon Mann, Jacob Gil-
liams, John Shinn, Jr., Nicholas Parmentier, and John Speak-
man, host. The meeting was described in the minutes as "a
meeting of gentlemen, friends of science and of rational dis-
posal of leisure moments " ; and it was agreed that the exclu-
sive object of the society should be the cultivation of natural
science. For the furtherance of this purpose all matters of
politics and religion were rigorously excluded, even allusions to
them being forbidden. It was perhaps from this determina-
tion, Dr. Ruschenberger suggests, that " the erroneous notion
sprang, which, according to tradition, prevailed with some, that
the object of the institution was to favour religious infidelity."
The constitution of the society was agreed upon on the iyth
of March, and the name Academy of Natural Sciences was
adopted on the 2ist of that month, which date was established
as that of the beginning of the institution. On that day, too,
the members agreed " to contribute to the formation of a mu-
seum of natural history, a library of works of science, a chem-
ical experimental laboratory, an experimental philosophical
apparatus, and every other desirable appendage or conven-
ience for the illustration and advancement of natural knowl-
edge, and for the common benefit of all the individuals who
may be admitted members of our institution." Among the
first donors of minerals were Dr. Troost, Mr. Isaac Lea, Dr.
Hays, and Mr. S. Hazard. When the small room, 121 North
Second Street, hired about the ist of April, was occupied, the
9

I22 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

members came foward with their gifts to serve as the nucleus
of the museum and library. Among them was Dr. Troost,
with some artificial crystals, prepared by himself. On the oc-
casion of the election of officers, May 7, 1812, Dr. Troost was
chosen president. He held this office five years, or till 1817,
when he resigned and was succeeded by William Maclure. On
the i5th of August, 1812, the collection of minerals previously
purchased from Dr. Seybert by Mr. Speakman came formally
into the possession of the society, which formed a kind of
joint-stock company to pay for it and hold it. Soon after this,
Dr. Troost delivered a course of lectures on mineralogy before
the academy.

During his residence in Philadelphia Dr. Troost was en-
gaged in manufactures of various kinds. In 1815 or 1816 he
began the manufacture of alum on the Magothy River, Cape
Sable, Maryland, establishing the first alum works in the
United States. Owing to the failure of the proprietors, he
suffered great pecuniary loss. The War of 1812 with Great
Britain had stimulated manufactures, and its termination was
disastrous to many enterprising men. In 1821 he was ap-
pointed Professor of Mineralogy in the Philadelphia Museum,
where he delivered lectures on the subject. He was also ap-
pointed about the same time first Professor of Chemistry in
the College of Pharmacy, Philadelphia, a position which he
resigned, -after having delivered one course of lectures, in the
succeeding year. During this period he also made geological
excursions into New Jersey, New York, and elsewhere.

In 1825 Dr. Troost, with Maclure, Say, and Lesueur, joined
Robert Owen in the formation of the Communistic Society at
New Harmony, Ind. After remaining there two years, he re-
moved to Nashville, Tenn., in 1827. In 1828 he was elected,
at the instance of President Lindsley, Professor of Chemistry,
Geology, and Mineralogy in the University of Nashville. In
a historical sketch, published in the catalogue of 1850, is a
table of the longest terms of official service of instructors. It
is headed by President Lindsley, twenty-six years; and next
in length of service comes Prof. Troost, from February 9,
1828, to August 14, 1850, twenty-two years and a half.

In 1831 he was appointed State Geologist of Tennessee, an
office which he held till it was abolished in 1839. The record
of his work in this department is preserved in his reports.

GERARD TROOST. 125

The first and second reports were not published. The third
report, made in 1835, contains the results of the geologist's
investigations respecting the extent of the coal formations in
the State. "I have ascertained," it says, " that the places in
which coal may be expected belong exclusively and entirely to
that group of mountains which are known by the name of
Cumberland Mountains, and are composed of Walden's Ridge,
Crab Orchard Mountain, Brimstone Mountain, and some other
subordinate ridges of the same system." The breadth of the
formation was greatest near the northern limit of the State,
and in one part the coal was represented as deposited in hori-
zontal strata of great extent. The report also deals largely
with marl, iron, and soils, and concludes with the words: "In
a scientific point of view, my labours have been very advan-
tageous. I have been very fortunate in obtaining organic
remains which were unknown, and which eventually will show
how far our strata correspond with those on the old continent.
I have discovered parts of the American or gigantic mastodon
hitherto unknown."

The fourth report, of 1837, relates to the Ocoee district,
comprising a part of the mountain region near the North Car-
olina boundary, which Prof. Troost was directed by the State
Legislature to explore. It begins with an exposition of the
principles of geology and their application to the general
structure of the district under view, for the information of the
people; an admirable specimen of exact scientific writing
adapted to popular comprehension, explicit, lucid in style, and
showing familiarity with the subject. The character of the re-
gion is depicted in a few words : " Commencing our recon-
naissance at the most northern extremity of the district, I
found the rocks at Tallassee, on the Tennessee River, en-
tirely composed of grauwacke, alternating here and there with
limestone; this is the case everywhere along the Tennessee
River, where I was able to approach and examine them, to the
Smoky Mountain, which forms the southeastern limit of the
district, and separates Tennessee from North Carolina. It is
almost impossible to penetrate any distance in this wild and
mountainous country ; and the apparent confusion of the rocks,
which seem at some places heaped up without order, and
changing at small distances, makes the geological survey haz-
ardous and extremely difficult." The author calls attention to

126 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

tin of the Geological Society of France, a memoir on the
organic remains and fossils of Tennessee ; and in Silliman's
American Journal of Science and the Arts, articles on Amber at
Cape Sable, Maryland ; Minerals of Missouri ; Coral Regions
of Tennessee; Analysis of a Meteorite from Tennessee; Me-
teoric Iron from Tennessee and Alabama ; A Shower of Red
Matter in Tennessee ; Three Varieties of Meteoric Iron ; Me-
teoric Iron of Murfreesboro, Tenn. ; and Krausite and Caco-
rene in Tennessee. His last writing, forwarded to the Smith-
sonian Institution for publication only a few weeks before his
death, was a monograph on the rare and hitherto undescribed
encrinites of Tennessee, with accurate and beautiful drawings,
from specimens in the doctor's cabinet.

He gathered a collection of about fourteen thousand min-
eralogical and more than five thousand geological specimens,
besides a large number of shells, and relics from Indian mounds,
constituting what was at the time considered the finest cabinet
belonging to a single person in the United States. This cabi-
net was sold in 1874 by his heirs to the Louisville (Ky.) Pub-
lic Library for twenty thousand dollars. His specimens in
comparative anatomy, zoology, and botany were disposed of
before his death. Besides the Philadelphia Academy, he was
a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Geologi-
cal Society of Pennsylvania, the Geological Society of France,
and of other scientific bodies in America and Europe.

A minute adopted by the Board of Trustees of the Univer-
sity of Nashville, on the occasion of the death of Prof. Troost,
relates that, " born and liberally educated in Holland, he early
manifested a zealous devotion to natural history and chemis-
try, more especially to the then infant sciences of geology and
mineralogy. With a view to the more successful pursuit of
his favourite studies he visited Paris, and was for several years
the pupil of the celebrated Haiiy. He removed to the United
States about forty years ago, and in due time became an Amer-
ican citizen. His entire life was consecrated to geology and
the kindred sciences, with what ability and success his pub-
lished writings and his well-earned reputation at home and
abroad may eloquently testify. As a professor in this univer-
sity during the last twenty-two years and a State geologist of
Tennessee for the most part of that period, he won the confi-
dence and respect of the community by invaluable service in

GERARD TROOST. 12J

both capacities, as well as by the unaffected modesty, kindness,
and uniform courtesy of his deportment toward all men. In
the various relations and stations of life, public and private,
he was without reproach and above suspicion. Beloved,
trusted, honoured, venerated by all those most intimately con-
nected or associated with him, he could not make an enemy —
he had none."

The last official act of Dr. Lindsley before retiring from
the presidency of the university was to pronounce a dis-
course on the life and character of Troost, from which many
of the facts in this account are derived.

A son of President Lindsley, Prof. J. Berrien Lindsley, M. D.,
who was Dr. Troost's favourite and most trusted pupil, thus
writes of him : " The doctor was, in all respects, of most lov-
able character. From my early boyhood until his death I
knew him intimately, and admired and revered him. He was
universally esteemed. From the University of Nashville he
received throughout his long professional career one thousand
dollars per annum for three lectures weekly to the senior class;
from the State five hundred, and, for a short period, one thou-
sand dollars per annum for three months' geological explora-
tions. He lived very frugally and sent large sums to Europe
for rare and choice mineral specimens. He dealt largely with
Hewland, of London, and with Krautz, of Bonn. The latter
told me, in 1852, that Dr. Troost was one of his most liberal
customers."

In a letter to President Lindsley, replying to one which had
informed him of Troost's death, Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of
Boston, wrote : " It was my good fortune to become somewhat
intimately acquainted with Dr. Troost in 1825, while travelling
in company with him and the late distinguished geologists and
naturalists, Maclure, Say, and Lesueur, during their scientific
excursions through the counties of Sussex, N. J., and Orange,
N. Y., and I was struck with the unaffected simplicity of his
manners, and his uniform kindness and courtesy, as well as
his prompt and scientific recognition of the minerals and
rocks which it was our object to examine. He was an accu-
rate and scientific mineralogist, and very correct crystallogra-
pher, remembering with the most remarkable fidelity the exact
angles of known crystals of minerals, so that he readily distin-
guished rare and remarkable forms."

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR.

1778-1846.

AMONG the early naturalists in America, not the least de-
serving of commemoration was the artist, traveller, and nat-
uralist who was " the first to study the ichthyology of the
Great American Lakes." He travelled widely in Pennsylvania,
New York, and New England from 1817 to 1828. He had won
a high reputation in France as an artist. As a naturalist he
had voyaged for over three years with Peron. He was a care-
ful and faithful observer, and, according to accounts, a man of
most genial and attractive character.

Charles Alexandre Lesueur was born at Havre-de-Grace,
France, on New Year's Day of 1778. His father, Jean Baptiste
Denis Lesueur, who was an officer of the admiralty, bestowed
upon his son such education as his limited means allowed, there
being several other children that equally claimed his paternal
care. In French schools the elements of drawing were even
then taught, and young Charles early developed a strong bent
toward this art. At the end of his school days the productions
of his pencil displayed the skill and finish of a master.

Toward the close of the eighteenth century the Institute of
France conceived a project for a government expedition of dis-
covery and scientific observation in the southern parts of the
Eastern hemisphere. The idea found favour with Bonaparte,
who was then First Consul, and was duly carried out. Two
corvettes, named Le Gfrgraphe and Le Naturaliste, were equipped
in the port of Havre, officers and crews were carefully selected
from the best material in the navy, and a scientific corps of
twenty-three members was organized. This body comprised
four astronomers and hydrographers, three botanists, five
zoloogists, two mineralogists, four artists, and five gardeners.
There was great competition for places in both the naval and
the scientific departments of the expedition. It had been in-

128

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR.

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR. I2Q

tended to have only four zoloogists. The fifth was Frangois
Peron, a young physician, who made a place for himself after
the staff was complete by pointing out the desirability of add-
ing a medical naturalist, who should make researches upon
the natural history of the human race, or anthropology. Le-
sueur caught the prevailing fever and succeeded in joining the
expedition by enlisting on board Le Ge'ographe as an aide canon-
nier according to one authority, or a novice-timonier (helmsman's
apprentice) according to another. A detailed account of this
voyage is given by George Ord, in the memoir of Lesueur read
by him before the American Philosophical Society in 1849. The
two vessels set sail October 19, 1800, touched at the Canaries,
and after following around the coast of Africa reached the He
de France, now Mauritius, east of Madagascar, on March 15,
1801. Long before the ship reached this port the talent of
young Lesueur for drawing and painting had become known.
When the artists of the scientific corps saw the masterly man-
ner in which he had depicted some of the mollusks, and soft
zoophytes taken in the early part of the voyage, they declared
him worthy of a place in their department. The commander
in chief, Nicholas Baudin, accordingly released him from the
humble position he occupied among the crew, gave him similar
accommodations to those enjoyed by the other artists, and for
occupation set him at work illustrating the private journal
which the commander kept. This journal, aside from Le-
sueur's illustrations, was worthless. Lesueur had made the
acquaintance of Peron, who was only three years older than
he, and for the rest of the voyage these two young men worked
zealously together.

The commander had by this time proved himself both in-
competent and dishonest. Instead of standing from the Ca-
naries across the ocean to near Brazil, and from there to the
Cape of Good Hope, thus taking advantage of the trade winds,
he attempted to follow down the coast, and experienced calms
and baffling winds, which caused much loss of time. At Mau-
ritius upward of eighty boxes and trunks, among whose con-
tents, it was alleged, were quantities of the wines, liquors, and
medicines belonging to the ship, were put on shore in charge
of the commander's secretary, who soon opened a shop for the
sale of these goods. Seven of the scientific corps decided to
go no further. These were Bissy, an astronomer ; Andre Mi-

130 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

chaux, and Delisse, botanists ; Bory de Saint- Vincent, zoolo-
gist; Milbert, Lebrun, and Gamier, artists. Forty of the best
seamen had deserted, and several of the officers remained on
the island. Many of those who left the ships had the excuse
of illness, but their chief reason was a sense of insecurity with
such a commander. Worse was to follow, for in the subse-
quent part of the cruise the work of the scientific exploring
parties was hampered by the rigid discipline of the com-
mander and the inadequate supplies of food and arms
which he furnished to them, while sickness and death afflicted
both the crew and the scientific corps because of his neg-
lect of well-known sanitary measures and the scant allow-
ance of water, stimulants, and sometimes food, prescribed
by him.

After a stay of six weeks at Mauritius the expedition pro-
ceeded to Australia. While exploring this coast the ships be-
came separated in a gale. The Ge'ographe then visited De
Witt's Land and went next to Timor, where she was rejoined
by her consort. On this island, while pursuing a troop of
monkeys among the rocks which obstructed the course of the
River Coepang, Lesueur was bitten in the heel by a venomous
reptile. He was alone, at some distance from the town, but by
placing a ligature around the limb he was able to reach the
quarters of the surgeon general and obtain treatment, which
saved his life.

Although the climate of Timor is very unhealthful to Eu-
ropeans, a stay of eighty-four days was made there. As a result
dysentery made frightful havoc among the crew, while among
the scientists the chief gardener died at the island, two zoologists,
a mineralogist, and another gardener only a short time after
leaving it. The ships at length set sail for Tasmania, which was
explored together with part of the southern coast of Australia.
The horrors of scurvy had succeeded the dysentery. A long
stop was made at Sydney to care for the sick and replenish
supplies. The Naturaliste was sent home from here and a small
schooner was bought to accompany the GJographe. Five
months were spent in further explorations of Tasmania and
neighbouring islands, and another stay of a month was made
at Timor, but dysentery caused a hurried departure. The ship
being in need of supplies which could not be procured in the
vicinity, and the commander suffering from hemorrhage, the

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR. 131

course was laid for Mauritius, where Baudin died six weeks
after reaching Port Louis.

After a stay of four months at Mauritius the Gtographe set
sail for the Cape of Good Hope, homeward bound. At that
port PeVon, now the only remaining zoologist of the expedition,
with the aid of Lesueur, made a careful investigation of an
anatomical peculiarity of the Bushman women — a fold of skin
called the apron — of which Lesueur made four careful draw-
ings. From the Cape the ship proceeded directly to France,
entering the port of Lorient, March 25, 1804, after an absence
of upward of three years and five months.

Knowledge of Captain Baudin's misconduct and of the con-
sequent disintegration of the scientific corps had predisposed
the Government and the Institute to regard the expedition as a
failure, so that Pe"ron and Lesueur met with rather a cold re-
ception. They secured, however, a committee to examine the
collections brought home by the Naturaliste and Gtographe,
from whose comprehensive report, made June 9, 1806, the fol-
lowing summary is drawn :

" Of the five zoologists appointed by the Government, two
remained at the Isle de France. Two others perished at the
commencement of the second campaign, by diseases contracted
at Timor. P£ron alone was left ; but supported by his invig-
orated ardour, and the efforts of his coadjutor Lesueur, a
zoological collection was made, the extent and importance of
which become more and more manifest. It is composed of more
than one hundred thousand specimens of animals, several of
which will constitute new genera ; and the new species, accord-
ing to the report of the professors of the museum, are upward
of twenty-five hundred. If we call to mind that the second
voyage of Cook, fruitful as were its discoveries, made known
not more than two hundred and fifty new species, and that
all the united voyages of Carteret, Wallis, Furneaux, Mears,
and even Vancouver, did not produce as great a number,
it results that P£ron and Lesueur alone have discovered
more new animals than all the travelling naturalists of mod-
ern days."

After commending Pe*ron's descriptions, the report pro-
ceeds :

" A description, nevertheless, how complete soever it may
be, can never give a sufficiently just idea of those singular

132

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

forms, which have no precise term of comparison in objects
previously known. Correct figures alone can supply the im- ,
perfection of language. Here the labours of which it is our
duty to render an account acquire a new interest. Fifteen
hundred drawings or paintings, executed by Mr. Lesueur with
extreme precision, reproduce the principal objects which were
collected by his careful industry and that of his friend. All
these drawings, either made from living animals or recent
specimens, form the most complete and the most precious
series of the kind that we have any knowledge of."

Of Lesueur's share in the work the report says further :
" You have seen, by what we have said of the labours of Le-
sueur, that he was almost everywhere an associate in those of
Peron. The natural history of man is not less indebted to him.
All the details of the existence of the natives have been de-
signed by him with the most scrupulous accuracy. All their
musical instruments, those of war, of hunting, of fishing; their
domestic utensils; all the peculiarities of their clothing, of their
ornaments, of their habitations, of their tombs — in a word, all
that their rude ingenuity has been able to accomplish, is found
united in the productions of this skilful and indefatigable art-
ist. The principal sites of the coasts explored by the expedi-
tion ; different views of the town of Sydney, the capital of the
English colony of New South Wales, its plan, etc., give to the
Atlas of the History of the Voyage, edited by his friend, a new
character of importance."

The Government now provided for the publication of a
history of the voyage, under the editorship of Pe"ron, with an
atlas by Lesueur. The first volume of the Voyage de Decou-
vertes aux Terres Australes appeared in 1807. When only
part of the chapters of the second volume were finished, Peron
was compelled by ill health to give up the work, and he died in
December, 1810. Lesueur, to whom he had bequeathed all his
manuscripts, shrank from the task of going on with the history,
but the second volume was completed by Captain Louis Frey-
cinet, one of the naval officers of the expedition, and finally
published in 1816. An account of the voyage prepared by Le-
sueur's father was also published.

After Peron's death Lesueur was no longer contented in
France. He desired to visit other scenes, but was restrained
by the fact that his father, now aged, was in need of his assist-

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR. l^

ance. At length an opportunity was afforded him to gratify
his desire for travelling without inconvenience of a pecuniary
nature. Mr. William Maclure, formerly of Philadelphia, but
then residing in Paris, was intending to go to the United States
by the way of the West Indies, and offered to take Lesueur as
a travelling companion. The offer was gladly accepted, and
they left France in the autumn of 1815. A large number of
the West India islands were visited in the following winter, en-
abling Lesueur to gather a rich harvest of marine creatures,
and the travellers reached the United States late in the spring
of 1816. After a tour through New York, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Mary,
land, they settled down in Philadelphia.

Lesueur found many agreeable associates in the United
States. His reputation had preceded him, and he was quickly
elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Seme months later he was elected into the Academy of Natural
Sciences, of which Mr. Maclure was now president, and took a
large part in gaining a high scientific standing for that rising
institution. Philadelphia was Lesueur's residence for nine
years. The teaching of drawing and painting was his profes-
sion, and the time that he could devote to science was em-
ployed in preparing materials for a contemplated systematic
work on the fishes of North America. Needing a literary
coadjutor for this undertaking, whom he never found, the work
was not written.

When the famous socialistic colony was established by
Robert Owen, at New Harmony, Ind., Lesueur was one of its
members. He came down from Pittsburg in the famous "boat-
load of knowledge " with which the colony was intellectually
equipped. It was not his own choice, but a sense of duty — to
gratify the wishes of his patron, Mr. Maclure — that induced
him to leave his agreeable surroundings in Philadelphia for the
crude, experimental social conditions of the colony in the West.
During his stay at New Harmony, Lesueur made considerable
collections and many drawings, some of which are still pre-
served, and others have been published in the Journals of the
Academy at Philadelphia. A most spirited portrait of the old
Governor Vigo is still extant. An account of the drop-curtain
painted by Lesueur for the old theatre in New Harmony men-
tions that a rattlesnake and the Falls of Niagara were repre-

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

sented on it, as two natural features most characteristically
American.

After the failure of the New Harmony colony, Lesueur con-
tinued to reside at the settlement for several years, the com-
panionship of Thomas Say largely reconciling him to his
surroundings, and its loss at Say's death, in 1834, being keenly
felt. Three years later Lesueur sailed from New Orleans for
France, where, according to Swainson, he earned a precarious
livelihood as a teacher of painting.

Fortunately this sketch can be enriched by the most valu-
able of original documents concerning Lesueur. This is a per-
sonal letter from the late Prof. Richard Owen, whose early life
was spent at New Harmony, to Prof. Jordan, his successor in
the chair of Biology in the University of Indiana.

Prof. Owen writes as follows under date of December 14,
1886:

"Charles A. Lesueur was, when I knew him in 1828, about
fifty to fifty-five years of age, tall, rather spare in muscle, but
hardy and enduring. He permitted his beard to grow, which
at that time was quite unusual ; hence he sometimes platted it
and tucked it almost out of sight when he went from home. In
New Harmony he usually went barenecked, often bareheaded,
and in summer occasionally barefooted, or at least without
socks. His hair had been dark, but was sprinkled (as well as
his beard) with gray. His manner and movements were quick ;
his fondness for natural history (as it was then called) led him
to hunt and fish a good deal.

" In summer he was fond of swimming in the Wabash, and
I frequently accompanied him. He instructed me how to feel
with my feet for Unios and other shells as we waded some-
times up to our necks in the river or ponds, searching to add
to our collections. When he went fishing with others he always
exchanged his fine common fishes for the smallest and to them
most indifferent-looking, when he recognised some new species
or even variety. This item I have from Mr. Sampson, who is
well acquainted with the fish of the Wabash, but who confesses
he could see no difference in many caught until Mr. Lesueur,
who at once detected that difference, had pointed it out.

" He was temperate and active in all his habits, smoking
being the only objectionable habit in which he indulged. His
temper was quick and used to call out an occasional " God

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR.

135

bless my soul ! " the only approach to anything like irritation
that he evinced; he was very kind-hearted.

" In conversation with Agassiz about Mr. Lesueur, the
great Swiss ichthyologist paid a high compliment to Lesueur's
acquirements in that department, considering him then (as I
inferred) the next best to himself at that time in the United
States. He wasn however, I judge, remarkably conversant
with other branches of biology, inasmuch as nearly all the
magnificent drawings he had made when left in New Holland
(as it was then called) were mammals, chiefly the ornithorhyn-
chus, echidna, and other rare animals. In showing his draw-
ings he generally offered a lens, that you might see every
hair distinctly delineated.

" He was a magnificent artist, good alike in drawing and
colouring. I have some of his sketches yet, in which, when I
was taking drawing lessons from him, he showed me how to
outline, for instance, the skeleton of the human figure, then to
add the muscular system, then the clothing, drapery, etc. We
usually took views from Nature. Although so minute in de-
tails of fine paintings, he was equally good in large scenery.
For many years we had here the scenes he painted for a Thes-
pian Society of this place, where, amid the forest trees, he had
squirrels, birds, etc. Being fond of hunting, he had made to
order by a native gunsmith, who was quite a genius, a double-
barrel piece, one a rifle, the other a smoothbore. Gillson, the
gunsmith, made the barrels, bored the rifle, made the stock, and
an admirable lock ; the stock was inlaid with silver and en-
graved by the same skilful hand, bearing Lesueur's name and
an appropriate device. I do not remember exactly the price,
but think it was about a hundred dollars.

" In consequence of his having been with La Pe'rouse (until,
fortunately for his life, he was left to work up the animals of
Australia), the French Government gave him a pension, which
he drew annually, until they notified him that, unless he re-
turned and gave his time and talents to his native country
(France), the pension would be withheld.* He went at a time
when I was absent, and those who here knew him well have

* This statement evidently contains an error. The pension was probably
given for his services in conjunction with Peron, as he was too young to have
gone on the ill-fated expedition commanded by La Perouse. — W. J. Y.

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

forgotten the date. He became curator of the museum at
Havre, and then, after some years, died and was buried there.
The exact date of his death those there have also forgotten.

"When he came to New Harmony during the social experi-
ment he was directly from the West Indies, and brought a
young lad and a child, both of whom subsequently married,
but both are now dead. It was from their relatives that I ex-
pected to get dates, but failed.

" When the ' Preliminary Society ' (at New Harmony) re-
solved itself into the (i) Educational, (2) Agricultural, and (3)
Commercial Societies, Mr. Lesueur joined the first, and I have
in my box of valuable papers a deed of a lot (for the purpose
of erecting a foundry), executed by the Educational Society,
and signed by my father-in-law, Mr. Neef, and his family, Drs.
Troost, C. A. Lesueur, William Phiquepal, and a number of
others.

" Some of the relatives of those who came with him think
there was a notice in some public journal of his death, etc.,
but I never saw it. I just recall two incidents :

"When we were together, going sketching, I think, we
found and killed a large blacksnake, uncommonly distended.
Mr. Lesueur, when we reached home, used a large syringe and
injected water into the stomach, from which he then stripped
four young rabbits. Another time we obtained a female opos-
sum, and he very deftly dissected it and showed me the young
adhering to the small teats in the pouch or marsupium."

Lesueur's scientific work was done chiefly in America, and
it ranked with the best of its kind at the time. His most im-
portant memoir was a monograph of the suckers, a group of
American fishes constituting his genus Catostomus, each species
being represented by a clever and accurate figure— drawing
and engraving being both by the hand of Lesueur. In 1878
Prof. David Starr Jordan spoke of this paper as " an excellent
one, comparing favourably with most that has since been writ-
ten on the group." Other valuable papers were on certain
blennies, rays, and flying fishes, accounts of new species from
the West Indies, and descriptions of tortoises and other rep-
tiles.

The Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers contains
the titles of nine papers of which Lesueur was joint author
with Fran9ois Peron. These appeared in 1809 and 1810 in

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR.

137

French scientific serials and deal with jellyfishes and some
other marine animals. Lesueur was joint author with Anselme
G. Desmarest of two papers on certain molluscs and sea
mosses in 1814 and 1815. The papers of which he was sole
author number forty-three. They begin in 1813 with a memoir
on several new species of mollusks and radiates, published in
the Journal de Physique. The first six were written before he
came to America, and he picked up material for the seventh
on his way over. It deals with three new sluglike molluscs,
and is entitled Characters of a New Genus (Firoloida) and De-
scriptions of Three New Species upon which it is Formed ;
Discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Months of March and
April, 1816, lat. 22° 9'. It appeared in Volume I of the Journal
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, in 1817.
Dr. Ruschenberger relates, in his Notice of the Academy, that
in the first year of the Journal, " Mr. Ord, anxious to forward
the publication, translated or rather prepared the papers of M.
Lesueur from materials furnished by him, as that gentleman,
who immigrated from France in 1816, possessed very little
knowledge of the English language." The last three of the
list appeared in Paris in 1827, 1831, and 1839 respectively.
Two are on certain tortoises, the other is an observation on a
bite of a viper. Three other papers, written while he was in
this country, were published in Paris ; the rest appeared in the
Journal of the Philadelphia Academy, except one in the Trans-
actions of the American Philosophical Society. He evidently
restricted himself quite closely to the fishes and other aquatic
animals, though with an occasional excursion among the rep-
tiles. Peron and Lesueur had intended to publish an elabo-
rate work on the Medusa, after the history of the Voyage to
Terra Australis was completed. The death of the former
checked the project, but Lesueur issued a prospectus of the
work, with specimen plates engraved and coloured after his
beautiful drawings. It is probable that the necessarily great
cost of such a publication prevented the plan from being car-
ried out.

His descriptions are clear, exact, and honest. His drawings
are not accurate only, but spirited. They are works of art
rather than mechanical representations. With less range of
learning than Rafinesque and some other contemporaries, Le-
sueur had, what Rafinesque had not, sound sense and faithful-
10

138 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ness in the study of details. In America he was perhaps the
first of that school of systematic zoology which regards no
fact as so unimportant that it need not be correctly ascertained
and stated — a method of work with which has been rightly
associated the name of Prof. Spencer F. Baird. This attention
to accuracy in detail marks the so-called " Bairdian epoch " in
vertebrate zoology.

When Lesueur left France for America, Ord relates, he
placed all his disposable means, including his pension, in the
hands of his father. The latter dying four years later, these
affairs were entrusted to an attorney, " it being his intention
to create a fund, to which he might have recourse in case of
need. It does not appear that he gave himself much concern
with respect to this agency, and on his return. to Paris he had
the mortification to find that the agent had betrayed his confi-
dence by appropriating to the use of his own family the entire
fund, which amounted to the sum of forty thousand francs-
The feelings of Lesueur were sorely tried at this event, and the
wrong was the more galling, as it was perpetrated under the
guise of friendship. Notwithstanding this heavy loss, at a time
of life, too, when the infirmities of age began to be felt, he had
still a remnant left, the produce of his industry, which modicum
he shared with a brother whose necessities were greater than
his own."

In the latter part of 1838 Mr. George Ord visited him in
Paris, whither he had brought a valuable collection of speci-
mens of natural history from the United States, and all the
drawings and manuscripts resulting from his various travels.
" Perhaps no individual then living," said Mr. Ord in his
memoir, " possessed a greater fund of materials for works of
the highest interest in natural history — materials destined in a
great measure, it is feared, to be useless, for the want of that
mind which alone could direct their application."

"Some time in the year 1843, "Ord continues, "the project
of founding a museum of natural history in the city of Havre
was set on foot, and Mr. Lesueur, who had taken a great in-
terest in the measure, was looked to as one eminently capable
of filling an important office in an establishment which was in-
debted to his personal exertions for much of its favour with the
community. In 1845 he was chosen curator of the museum,
and he removed to Havre in order to superintend the building,

CHARLES ALEXANDRE LESUEUR.

which was advancing toward completion." In May, 1846, he
wrote to Ord : " I am occupied at this time in arranging the col-
lections of our cabinet. As my presence is now essential, I
have taken a small country house not far from Havre. It is
situated in a quiet valley, a short distance from the sea, which
is visible from our windows. Should you return to France you
must come and stay with us." He was not destined to enjoy
these congenial surroundings for long. On December 12, 1846,
he died, after an illness of only a day or two. His burial place
is the Church of St. Adresse, in a little valley at the base of
Cape la Heve.

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER.

1779-1864.

THE name of Professor Silliman is intimately connected
with the progress of science in the United States during the
former half of this century. In fact, his long life, his unbroken
connection of over half a century with Yale College, and his
founding of the American Journal of Science, make him prob-
ably the best-known figure of the period.

Benjamin Silliman was born in North Stratford (now Trum-
bull), Connecticut, on the 8th of August, 1779. The home of
his family was at Fairfield, a few miles distant, on Long Island
Sound. But the Revolutionary War was then at its height, his
father had recently been taken out of his house at midnight by
a British and Tory raiding party, and his mother had sought
safety with friends. His earliest American ancestor on the
father's side, Daniel Silliman, was believed to have been an
emigrant from Holland, but there are reasons for presuming
that he belonged to an Italian Protestant family that took
refuge in Switzerland, and one of whose members afterward
came to America, possibly sojourning for a short time in Hol-
land. His grandfather, Ebenezer Silliman, was a graduate
from Yale College, a Judge of the Superior Court of the
colony, a member of the Governor's Council, and influential
in public affairs. His father, Gold Selleck Silliman, was grad-
uated from Yale College in 1752, was admitted to the bar a
few years later, and soon became prosecuting attorney of his
county. When the Revolution broke out he was a colonel of
cavalry in the local militia. At the head of his regiment he
joined the forces under Washington at New York, was in the
battles of Long Island and White Plains, and enjoyed the con-
fidence of his chief. He was made a brigadier general of Con-
necticut troops and charged with the defence of the southwest-
ern frontier of that colony. His activity in resisting the incur-

140

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN.

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER. I4I

sions of the British led to the secret expedition which suc-
ceeded in capturing him. He was held a prisoner nearly a
year. General Silliman died in 1790.

Benjamin's mother, Mary Fish, was descended from John
Alden and Priscilla Mullins, of the Mayflower. She was the
eldest daughter of Rev. Joseph Fish, of North Stonington.
She had been married to Rev. John Noyes, of New Haven, and
at the time of her second marriage had three children living.
Mr. Silliman had also been married before and had a son,
William.

In the recollections of his relatives and his early years,
written out by Benjamin Silliman near the close of his life,
he describes his father as a gentleman of the old school and
a decidedly religious man, but without austerity or bigotry.
All of his large household, including negro domestics and hired
white people, were expected to attend, so far as practicable,
daily prayers, and public worship on Sunday. For convey-
ance to church they had usually half a dozen horses and two
chaises, and the horses under the saddle frequently carried
two. " My brother and I," he writes, " were sometimes in-
structed to take each of us one of the daughters of our clergy-
man, the Rev. Mr. Eliot, who had more girls than horses ; and
we were at an age when the jeers of our school-fellows made
this a rather embarrassing duty."

After attending for a time the public schools of his neigh-
bourhood, Benjamin prepared for college under the tuition of
his pastor, the Rev. Andrew Eliot, and entered Yale College
at the age of thirteen years, the youngest but one in his class.
As to his college career his biographer, Prof. George P. Fisher,
writes :

" Mr. Silliman exhibited in his college essays and debates,
as well as in the letters written by him in that period, both a
maturity of thought and a correctness of style hardly to be
expected in one so young. He was fond of writing verses,
and acquired no mean facility in versification. His closing
piece at graduation was a poem, as was also the piece which
he delivered on taking the master's degree. He does not
appear to have shown an exclusive predilection for any one
department of knowledge, but attained to a highly respectable
proficiency in all. He speaks of himself as having been un-
usually fond of rhetorical and poetical studies, but as also

I42 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

taking delight in geometry, and being strongly interested in
natural phenomena. His reading, as far as it went beyond
the requirements of the curriculum, was chiefly in history and
English literature."

Only once in his college course, it is believed, did young Sil-
liman expose himself to an academic penalty or censure. One
day in his Freshman year the thirteen-year-old lad gave a kick
to a stray football in the college yard, and for this offence
against ancient decorum was fined a sixpence by President
Stiles, who happened to be an eyewitness. This incident
drew upon him some banter from Mr. Eliot and other friends
at home, who were much amused that " Sober Ben," as they
were wont to style him, should be so unlucky as to fall into
the hands of the law.

Owing to a severe wound in the foot from an axe, which
was unskilfully treated, the youth was obliged to be absent
from college during portions of his senior year. After gradu-
ating he was still a sufferer from this hurt, and unable to sus-
tain continuous intellectual labour. Partly for this reason and
partly because his mother needed his aid, he spent the next
year at home. For lack of a guiding hand the farm lands left
by his father had largely run to waste, and he devoted himself
to reclaiming them. He went into the fields with the labourers
and was almost entirely cut off from the society of cultivated
/ young men, which he had enjoyed for the preceding four years.
"In this situation," says Prof. Fisher, "uncertain as he was
respecting his career in the future, and oppressed with nervous
infirmity, it is not strange that he became for a while a prey to
gloomy thoughts and apprehensions." Another year brought
with it improved health and a more congenial occupation,
which soon restored his cheerfulness. He took charge of a
select school in Wethersfield for the greater part of the year
1798, and in October of that year, having decided to adopt the
legal profession, he entered the law office of the Hon. Simeon
Baldwin, in New Haven, whence, after completing his three
years' course in law, he was admitted to the bar in 1802.
While still a law student — in September, 1799 — and when he
had just reached the age of twenty, he was appointed a tutor
in Yale College.

Up to this time classical instruction had received the pre-
dominant share of attention at Yale College ; " theological,

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER. j^

ethical, and metaphysical subjects were much cultivated, and
logic was also a prominent topic " ; mathematics was appreci-
ated ; much interest had been aroused in astronomy ; physics
was less cared for, and chemistry had been " scarcely men-
tioned." Mr. Silliman was considering a proposition to settle
down at the practice of the law in Georgia, when in July, 1801,
President Dwight informed him that the corporation of the
college had several years before resolved to establish a pro-
fessorship of chemistry and natural history as soon as the
funds would admit of it. The time had come when the reso-
lution could be carried into effect, but it was impossible to find
in this country a man properly qualified to discharge the
duties of the office, while there were reasons that made the
appointment of a foreigner inexpedient. The president saw
no way but to select a suitable young man at home, and give
him time to qualify himself for the professorship ; and he had
fixed upon Mr. Silliman as the person whom he would propose
to the corporation. Mr. Silliman was inclined from the first to
consider the offer favourably, because, as he has recorded in his
Reminiscences, " the study of Nature appeared very attract-
ive. In her works there is no falsehood, although there are
mysteries to unveil, which is a very interesting achievement.
Everything in Nature is straightforward and consistent.
There are no polluting influences; all the associations with
these pursuits are elevated and virtuous, and point toward the
infinite Creator." The professorship was instituted in 1802,
with a provision that such time as might be agreed upon
should be given the professor-elect to decide whether he would
accept the appointment, and Mr. Silliman was chosen profess-
or. Philadelphia then " presented more advantages in science
than any other place in the country," and he went there first.
Here he enjoyed the instruction, with experiments, of Dr.
James Woodhouse, of the Medical College, and had as a fel-
low-boarder Robert Hare, who had just perfected his oxyhy-
drogen blowpipe, and was much occupied with the subject,
and enlisted his new friend in his service. He also attended
the lectures of Dr. Barton on botany and of Dr. Caspar Wistar
on anatomy and surgery, and met Dr. Priestley at the house
of the latter. He received valuable suggestions from Dr. Mac-
lean, of Princeton, whom he visited in his transits to and from
Philadelphia ; and thus he learned to regard the eminent pro-

!44 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

fessor as his earliest master in chemistry, and Princeton as his
first starting-point in that pursuit, although he had not an op-
portunity to attend any lectures there. Having attended two
winters in Philadelphia, he returned to New Haven and began
to write his lectures. His first lecture was delivered April 4,
1804, when he was twenty-four and a half years old, to a class
which included, among other men who afterward became dis-
tinguished, John C. Calhoun, Bishop Gadsden, and John Pier-
pont; the subject was the history and progress, nature and
objects, of chemistry. Four lectures were given in a week —
sixty in the course — and some notices of mineralogy were in-
cluded.

In the meantime the corporation of the college had voted
to spend ten thousand dollars in Europe during the ensuing
year, in the purchase of books and philosophical and chem-
ical apparatus. Prof. Silliman applied for the privilege of
going as purchasing agent, suggesting that his salary, which
would be continued, and the agent's commission would pay
his expenses, and he would at the same time have an op-
portunity of improving in his profession. His proposition
was accepted ; armed with a multitude of letters of intro-
duction, the general effect of which he found to be equiv-
alent to an order — " Sir : Please to give the bearer a dinner,
and charge the same to yours," etc. — he spent a year in
Europe. He performed experiments with Frederick Accum,
the German chemist, and attended the lectures of Dr.
George Pearson on chemistry, materia medica, and thera-
peutics, in London ; heard Drs. Hope, Gregory, and Murray,
in chemistry and geology ; subscribed to Dr. Munroe's and
attended Dr. Barclay's courses in anatomy, at Edinburgh;
visited the Continent, and made the acquaintance of the most
eminent scientific men of the day. Geological science at that
time, he says, in his Reminiscences, " did not exist among us,
except in the minds of a very few individuals, and instruction
was not attainable in any public institutions." In Edinburgh
there were learned and eloquent geologists and lecturers, and
ardent and successful explorers, and the contest between the
Wernerians and the Huttonians was at its height. Prof. Silli-
man was interested in the discussion, and, giving his attention
to the subject, reached a standard of attainment in geology
which he believed he could not have gained at home. He read

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER. ^5

the arguments on both sides, and came to the conclusion on
which geologists are generally now tacitly agreed, that <4 both
theories were founded in truth, and that the crust of the earth
had been formed and greatly modified by the combined, or
sometimes antagonistic and conflicting, powers of fire and water."

Prof. Silliman had already attended to the care of the
modest collections of minerals belonging to the college.
There were a few metallic ores which had been named by Dr.
Adam Seybert, of Philadelphia ; a small collection which Dr.
Semper had brought from England, containing some beautiful
specimens, particularly in the lime family ; and his own
collections made in the mines of Derbyshire and Cornwall,
in England, and local specimens obtained in his rambles
among the trap-rocks of the Scottish capital, with a purchased
suite of Italian polished marbles, all of which "when arranged,
labelled, and described in illustration of the mineral portion of
the chemical lectures, served to awaken an interest in the sub-
ject of mineralogy, and to produce both aspirations and hopes
looking toward a collection which should by and by deserve
the name of a cabinet." One of the first things to be done
after returning home was to study the geology of the vicinity
of New Haven, in the light of the knowledge that had been
gained in Edinburgh. The result of this survey was a report,
printed in the first volume of the Transactions of the Connect-
icut Academy of Arts and Sciences, in which an attentive re-
perusal by the author fifty-two years afterward suggested very
few alterations and disclosed no important errors. The cabi-
net of Mr. Benjamin D. Perkins was shortly afterward pur-
chased for a thousand dollars, and in 1810 the splendid cabinet
of Colonel George Gibbs was deposited in the college. The
latter cabinet, which attracted visitors from all parts of the
country, was bought fifteen years afterward. While Prof. Sil-
liman was engaged in arranging it, the Rev Dr. Ely accosted
him : "Why, dominie, is there not danger that with these phys-
ical attractions you will overtop the Latin and the Greek?"
Prof. Silliman replied : " Sir, let the literary gentlemen push
and sustain their departments. It is my duty to give full
effect to the sciences committed to my care."

An American Journal of Mineralogy had been started by
Dr. Archibald Bruce, of New York, in 1810, but it was sus-
pended after the publication of four numbers. Prof. Silliman,

I46 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

at the suggestion of Colonel Gibbs, and with the approbation
of Dr. Bruce, started, in 1818, a journal intended to include
the entire circle of the physical sciences and their applica-
tions. This was Silliman's (now the American) Journal of Sci-
ence, which is still continued under the direction of the grand-
son of its founder.

The courses of popular lectures on scientific subjects which
were conducted by Prof. Silliman in the different cities of the
United States, originated in 1808, when a course in chemistry
for ladies and gentlemen was proposed to him, and gladly
assented to, as a scheme in the interest of scientific progress.
A class of about forty-five persons was formed, and listened to
the instruction given them apparently with complete satisfac-
tion, for it appeared afterward, the lecturer remarks, in speak-
ing of the matter, that the course " turned on female hinges,"
and " sentiment lubricated the joints. ... It was my province
to explain the affinities of matter, and I had not advanced far
in my pleasing duties before I discovered that moral affinities,
also moving without my intervention, were playing an impor-
tant part." One of the affinities involved the professor, and
his marriage to one of his hearers, Miss Harriet Trumbull,
daughter of the second Governor Trumbull, followed in the
course of the next year. Many years afterward he was in-
vited to deliver a course in Hartford — the first out of New
Haven ; then followed courses in Lowell, Boston (where " the
Orthodox and Unitarian influence was united in his favour,"
and where he returned to lecture in several successive years
afterward), other New England towns, and New York. In
1843 he lectured in Pittsburg, where he received most "vivid
demonstrations of kind and gratified feelings " ; the next year
in Baltimore, where he found that " people who came for once,
stayed " ; and afterward in Baltimore again, Mobile, New Or-
leans, Natchez, at Washington before the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, and in St. Louis. The calls to lecture continued actively
through twenty-three years, from 1834 to 1857. In summing
up the results of these courses, Prof. Silliman expressed a
feeling of satisfactory assurance that he had popularized sci-
ence; that at no period of his life had his efforts been more
useful, both to his country and his family ; and that there was
no part of his professional career which he reflected upon with
more satisfaction.

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER.

He was accustomed to explain the success of his lectures,
and the uninterrupted interest they attracted, by stating that
he always prepared them " with all possible care, and arranged
every experiment and illustration so as to insure success.
Then I could stand before the largest audience without anxiety
or embarrassment ; could, without manuscript, clearly state
and explain my subject, and, when the proof became necessary,
I could perform the experiments successfully and even beau-
tifully, and exhibit the specimens which some other truth de-
manded, to insure conviction."

In 1830 Prof. Silliman made a visit of exploration to the
valley of Wyoming, in Pennsylvania, and its coal formations,
where he examined some hundred mines and localities of coal,
extending through forty miles in length; in i832-*33 he was
engaged, under a commission from the General Government,
in a scientific examination on the subject of the culture and
manufacture of sugar; and in 1836 he made a tour of investi-
gation among the gold mines of Virginia.

In 1840 an association of geologists was formed in Phila-
delphia for the purpose of promoting the progress of their
science and its applications in this country, and Prof. Silli-
man was chosen its first president. This society was in time
succeeded by the " American Association of Geologists and
Naturalists," and the latter eventually became the "American
Association for the Advancement of Science."

In 1849 Prof. Silliman, having reached the age of seventy
years, tendered a resignation of his professorship, to take
effect at the end of the ensuing academic year. The corpora-
tion, only half accepting his resignation, requested him to con-
tinue his lectures in the department of mineralogy and geol-
ogy, should his life and health be spared. Later, at the re-
quest of the corporation, he reconsidered his resignation, and
continued in the full occupation of his professorship till 1853,
when, " wishing to go out before he should be compelled by
infirmity, and to march out of the camp with colours flying,"
he retired finally. " Thus," he remarks in his journal, after re-
ferring to the public notices that were taken of his retirement
during commencement week, " I have finished my regular con-
nection with Yale College, after having been almost fifty-four
years an officer of the institution — three years a tutor, fifty-
one a professor, and almost fifty a lecturer. ... I seem to

148

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

have attended my own academic funeral, and many were the
mourners on the occasion." The corporation requested him
to continue as a professor emeritus, with the right to vote in
the academical and medical faculties. His professorship was
divided, and he had the satisfaction of seeing his son placed
in the chair of Chemistry, and his son-in-law, Prof. James D.
Dana, in that of Geology and Mineralogy. The name of Silli-
man was given to both chairs.

Prof. Silliman was still to continue a prominent figure be-
fore the public, kept so by other events than those connected
with science and the affairs of the college. A few months
after his resignation the Kansas-Nebraska controversy rose
to its height, and the Republican party was born amid the
convulsions it excited. Prof. Silliman had always abhorred
slavery, and he saw in these disputes great moral issues, and
the question of the equal rights of citizens of all the States to
settle in the Territories and defend themselves there. His
active interest in these matters, and the works by which he
showed it, called out bitter partisan reprobation, and this in
turn invoked eloquent and deserved eulogies of his pure char-
acter and his attainments irt science from Senators Foster and
Dixon in the United States Senate.

Prof. Silliman kept even pace with the progress of sci-
ence and scientific ideas as they were developed through all
his career, and let his religious faith shine at the same time
with a light of even brilliancy. The possibility that there was
a conflict or could be a conflict does not seem even to have
occurred to him. From his earliest college days, piety and a
firm devotion in religious faith seem to have formed a promi-
nent side of his character ; yet he never hesitated to accept
the most startling discovery, when it proved deserving accept-
ance. " Now, at eighty-two and a half years of age," he says,
March i, 1862, "I can truly declare that, in the study and ex-
hibition of science to my pupils and my fellow-men, I have
never forgotten to give all the honour and glory to the infinite
Creator, happy if I might be the honoured interpreter of a por-
tion of his works, and of the beautiful structure and benefi-
cent laws discovered therein by the labours of many illustrious
predecessors. For this I claim no merit. It is the result to
which right reason and sound philosophy, as well as religion,
would naturally lead. While I have never concealed my con-

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER. ^Q

victions on these subjects, nor hesitated to declare them on
all proper occasions, I have also declared my belief that while
natural religion stands as the basis of revelation, consisting as
it does of the facts and laws which form the domain of science,
science has never revealed a system of mercy commensurate
with the moral wants of man. In Nature, in God's creation,
we discover only laws — laws of undeviating strictness, and
sure penalties annexed for their violation. There is associated
with natural laws no system of mercy ; that dispensation is
not revealed in Nature, and is contained in the Scriptures
alone. With the double view just presented, I feel that Sci-
ence and Religion may walk hand in hand." " For his own
part," says Prof. Fisher, from whose rich biography we
have drawn freely in the composition of this sketch, " he felt
that the Bible was a revelation from God. . . . Not being in
the habit of resorting to the Scriptures for information in
physical science, he had valued its early pages for the pure and
sublime theism which they inculcated. . . . Nor did he deem
it necessary to suppose that the author of Genesis, however in-
structed by a higher light, was himself cognizant of the truths
of geology, especially the truth of the great antiquity of the
globe, and the length of time consumed in the geological
changes." The idea of the length of geological time, as pre-
sented in his lectures, was novel to the majority of his audi-
tors, and evidently shocked the prejudices of many of them,
but he maintained it with vigour, and generally left a good im-
pression regarding it in the 6nd. Concerning the opponents
of these ideas among the clergy, he wrote to Dr. Hitchcock in
1837 : "I believe, with you, if they were masters of our sub-
ject, they would think as we do. Some of them are candid
and forbearing; others find no insuperable difficulties ; others
are silent because they feel that they do not understand the
matter ; but a few are loud, confident, and uncharitable, while
it is obvious they know not whereof they affirm, . . . but I see
a strong purpose on the part of some to hold no terms with
geology, and to insist upon the literal and limited understand-
ing of the history ; but they will find themselves deserted, for
the matter will in time come right." Of a particular attack on
the geological theory he wrote to Prof. Hitchcock : " You
and I know that any attempt to impair geological evidence, or
to reconcile it with the popular view of time, must be abortive.

150 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

No matter how violent or bitter our assailant may be, doubt-
less he will be more so in proportion to his ignorance of geol-
ogy and to the strength of his prejudices."

Mrs. Silliman died in January, 1850, and Prof. Silliman
was married a second time, in the following year, to Mrs.
Sarah I. Webb, of Woodstock, Connecticut. He had nine chil-
dren, of whom one son and four daughters lived to adult age.
The son was Prof. Benjamin Silliman, the younger, and the
daughters were Maria Trumbull, who married John B. Church ;
Faith Wadsworth, who married Prof. O. P. Hubbard ; Henrietta
Frances, the wife of Prof. James D. Dana; and Julia, who mar-
ried Rev. Edward W. Oilman. Prof. Silliman's death was sup-
posed to be due to an affection of the heart, apparently in-
duced by a neuralgic attack which he incurred from attending
a meeting on behalf of the Sanitary Commission, on the i3th
of November, 1864. He was confined to the house for several
days, but seemed afterward to recover, and made several calls
in the neighbourhood ; but on the 24th — Thanksgiving day —
he died, instantly and without a struggle, just as he had re-
marked that he might perhaps go out to church.

Prof. Silliman, says Prof. Fisher, would have been the last
to claim that he had that rare insight of genius which divines
the secrets of Nature. His whole turn was more prac-
tical than speculative. " His perceptions were quick, his
judgment sound, and all his mental operations were marked
by good sense." His qualities "well fitted him for his pecul-
iar work, and that was to collect and diffuse scientific truth.
. . . Nor is he without merit as an investigator, although his
distinction does not lie here. He was never very careful to
claim for himself the credit of scientific discovery. At the
same time, he took delight in bringing honour to the discov-
eries of others." He prepared an edition of Henry's Chemis-
try, which appeared in 1808, with the modest announcement,
" To which are added notes by a professor in this country."
While this work was going through the press, a remarkable
meteor passed over New England (December, 1807), and ex-
ploded over Weston, Connecticut, where several stones fell to
the ground. He visited the scene, and, besides publishing a
popular account of the facts in the Connecticut Herald, made
them the subject of a scientific examination and report before
the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, which was afterward

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER. jjjj

republished in the Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of
Arts and Sciences, and read before the Philosophical Society
of London and the Academy of Sciences in Paris. His two
visits to Europe (the second one was in 1851) were followed
by books of travels, both of which were received with great
satisfaction, while the earlier one (1810) was highly commend-
ed, abroad as well as at home, as one of the best works of its
class. He was the first to obtain potassium in this country,
and the first to notice and record the effect of a powerful bat-
tery in volatilizing carbon and transferring it from the posi-
tive to the negative pole in a state of vapour. An account of
his experiments with the oxyhydrogen blowpipe was published
in the Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences in 1813. He published an account of a journey between
Hartford and Quebec in 1820, an edition of Bakewell's Geology
in 1829, and a text-book on chemistry, in two volumes, in
1830. It was largely through his influence that the Scien-
tific School, started by the younger Prof. Silliman in 1842,
which was afterward endowed by the gentleman whose name
it bears as the Sheffield Scientific School, was adopted by the
college as one of its departments, in 1846 and 1847. Prof. Sil-
liman was for many years in regular correspondence with
the most eminent scientific men of Europe, among whom may
be named Berzelius, Robert Bakewell, Humboldt, Carl Ritter,
Lyell, Sir R. I. Murchison, Richard Owen, Daubeny, Herschel,
ana Dr. Mantell. Some of these he never knew personally,
but was brought into communication with them through a
common interest in science.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.

1780-1851.

WHEN Audubon's fame was just beginning, " Christopher
North " (Prof. Wilson, of the University of Edinburgh, and
editor of Blackwood's Magazine) wrote, under the form of a
dialogue between himself and the Ettrick Shepherd (James
Hogg, the poet), as follows : *

"North. What a pity, James, that you were not in Edin-
burgh in time to see my friend Audubon's exhibition !

" Shepherd. An exhibition o' what ?

"North. Of birds painted to the life. Almost the whole
American ornithology, true to Nature as if the creatures were
in their native haunts in the forests, or on the seashores. Not
stiff and staring like stuffed specimens, but in every imagina-
ble characteristic attitude, perched, wading, or a-wing — not a
feather, smooth or ruffled, out of its place — every song, chirp,
chatter, or cry made audible by the power of genius.

" Shepherd. Where got he sae weel acquaint wi' a' the
tribes — for do they not herd in swamps and woods where man's
foot intrudes not — and the wilderness is guarded by the rat-
tlesnake, fearsome watchman, wi' nae ither bouets than his
ain fiery eyne ?

"North. For upward of twenty years the enthusiastic Au-
dubon lived in the remotest woods, journeying to and fro on
foot thousands of miles — or sailing on great rivers, great as
any seas — with his unerring rifle, slaughtering only to embalm
his prey by an art of his own, in form and hue unchanged, un-
changeable— and now, for the sum of one shilling, may anybody
that chooses it behold the images of all the splendid and gor-
geous birds of that continent.

* Noctes Ambrosianse (Blackwood's Magazine), No. XXX, January, 1827.

152

J. J. AUDUBON.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. ^3

" Shepherd. Where's the exhibition now ?

" North. At Glasgow, I believe — where I have no doubt it
will attract thousands of delighted spectators. I must get
the friend who gave a glance over Selby's Ornithology to tell
the world at large more of Audubon. He is the greatest artist
in his own walk that ever lived, and can not fail to reap the
reward of his genius and perseverance and adventurous zeal
in his own beautiful branch of natural history, both in fame
and fortune."

John James Audubon was born near New Orleans, May 4,
1780, and died at the present Audubon Park, New York city,
January 27, 1851. His father, the son of a fisherman of La
Vendee, was a French naval officer, who rose to the rank of ad-
miral and came to America with Rochambeau and De Grasse,
was present at the siege of Yorktown, and became an enthu-
siastic American himself. He had purchased a plantation in
Louisiana, then a French province, while the American Revo-
lution was still in progress. A few years later he removed to
Santo Domingo, where his wife* was murdered in an uprising
of the blacks. He then returned to Louisiana, where he mar-
ried a lady of that colony, of Spanish descent, named Anne
Moynette, and not long after took his family to France. The
son imbibed a love of Nature at an extremely early age.
This was probably strengthened by his short residence on the
West Indian plantation, and was not repressed, but mastered
the situation when he was taken to France to be educated. It
is recorded of him that he was accustomed to amuse himself
when a mere child by trying to draw the birds he saw around
him; and that, his crude efforts not being satisfactory, he
used to make a bonfire of them at each birthday. His father
desired him to be qualified for some occupation connected with
the navy or with engineering, and having bought an estate
near Nantes, left him there in charge of his stepmother to be
taught mathematics, drawing, geography, fencing, and music.
His drawing master was the celebrated artist David, who set
him to drawing " horses' heads and the limbs of giants," but
he preferred birds, and improved such opportunities as he
could get to exercise himself upon them, and spent much of

* Little is known about the naturalist's mother. It is thought that she was
a Mile. La Foret.
II

154

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

his time in excursions into the woods, collecting specimens,
and making drawings of them. The real supervision of his
operations was with his indulgent stepmother, who gave him
ample scope for the exercise of his own tastes. When Audu-
bon's father returned from sea he was astonished at the large
collection his son had made, and then asked what progress he
had made in his other studies. The reply not being satisfac-
tory, he took the youth in hand himself, and kept him for a
year in the close study of mathematics. But every opportunity
for natural history rambles was still improved.

Either at this time or during a later stay of a year at
Nantes, young Audubon is credited with having made a hun-
dred drawings of European birds. Three specimens of these
works have come into the hands of Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, who
has described them in The Auk. They are all drawn in a
combination of crayon and water colours, on a thin kind of
drawing paper; are numbered 44, 77, and 96, and represent the
magpie, the coot, and the green woodpecker. The earliest of
the sketches is the magpie, represented as of life-size and
standing on the ground. " The execution is quite crude,
though the naturalist ' sticks out ' in it, for, notwithstanding
the somewhat awkward position the bird is in, there is life
in it." The second picture, that of a coot, "is a marked im-
provement on the magpie. Far more pains have been taken
with the feet, legs, bill, and eye, though little has been gained
in the natural attitude of the bird. . . . Except very faintly in
the wing, no attempt has been made to individualize the feath-
ers, the entire body being of a dead black, worked in either by
burned cork or crayon." Dr. Shufeldt also remarks that, "as
is usually the case among juvenile artists, both this bird and
the magpie are represented upon direct lateral view, and no
evidence has yet appeared to hint to us of the wonderful power
Audubon eventually came to possess in figuring his. birds in
their every attitude." The green woodpecker "is a wonderful
improvement, in every particular, upon both of the others.
The details of the plumage and other structures are brought
out with great delicacy, and refinement of touch ; while the
attitude of the bird, an old male, is even better than many of
those published in his famous work. The colours are soft, and
have been so handled as to lend to the plumage a very flossy
and natural appearance, while the old trunk, upon the side of

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. ^5

which the bird is represented, presents several evidences of an
increase of the power to paint such objects."

When about seventeen or eighteen years old, young Audu-
bon returned to the United States. Since he had no inclina-
tion to the art of war, for which he had been intended, his
father, willing to gratify his now decided tastes, settled him
upon a farm, Mill Grove, which he owned near Philadel-
phia, at the mouth of Perkiomen Creek. Here he had full
opportunity for the gratification of his huntsman's and nat-
uralist's inclination, and improved it so industriously that
he appeared to be good for little else. Desiring to form
a matrimonial engagement with Lucy Bakewell, he was ad-
vised by the father of the young lady to go into business,
and he accordingly entered the employment of a firm in New
York ; but even here it was the study of Nature and not trade
that engaged his attention. " For a period of twenty years,"
he confesses in the biographical preface to his Birds, " my life
was a series of vicissitudes. I tried various branches of com-
merce, but they all proved unprofitable, doubtless because my
whole mind was ever filled with my passion for rambling and
admiring those objects of Nature from which alone I received
the purest gratification." It is in connection with the relation
of the story of a hurricane, while he was living at Henderson,
Ky., years after his Philadelphia experiences, that he says that,
just before the breaking out of the awful storm, his thoughts
were, " for once, at least, in the course of my life, entirely en-
gaged in commercial speculations." He soon gave up his
New York engagement, and shortly afterward formed a part-
nership with Ferdinand Rosier to go into trade at Louisville,
Kentucky. His settlement at this place having been deter-
mined upon, he was married to Miss Bakewell in April, 1808.
This lady was a descendant of the Peverils of the Peak, one
of whom has given name to one of Sir Walter Scott's novels,
and was a relative of the famous British geologist Bakewell.
She proved a congenial wife to the naturalist, and gave him
valuable aid while he had his great work under way, by helping
him to pay the expenses of his enterprise out of the fruits of
her own industry. The farm at Mill Grove was sold, a stock
of goods was purchased with the proceeds, and Audubon re-
moved with his wife to Louisville, making the journey down
the Ohio River in a flatboat, with two rowers. At Louisville,

156 PIONEERS QF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

again, he left business to his partner, and occupied himself
with natural history and his drawings.

In 1810 he was visited at his store by Alexander Wilson,
who came to solicit subscriptions to his Ornithology. He was
about to sign the list, when his partner suggested to him, in
French, that he could make better drawings than Wilson, and
probably knew as much about American birds as he. Wilson
understood the remark, and asked Audubon if he had any
drawings of birds. Audubon exhibited what he had, and, to
Wilson's question if he intended to publish his work, replied
that he had never thought of it. The two naturalists seem
to have spent some time together. Audubon, it is stated, ex-
plored the woods with Wilson, lent him his drawings, and aided
him in various ways ; although Wilson entered in his notes
against Louisville that " science or literature had not one friend
in the place."

As might be expected, the business at Louisville was not
prosperous. After four years, marked by two removals to se-
cure better success, the partnership was dissolved, and Au-
dubon removed to Henderson, Kentucky, in 1812. Another
business adventure, entered into* with his brother-in-law in
New Orleans, failed. Only natural history prospered with
him. A very large proportion of his work in this line, which
bore so noble and so abundant fruit in later years, was done
during his residence in Henderson. Aiming to represent the
birds which he drew in position as far as possible, he adopted
ingenious devices to secure correct views of them as they
looked in Nature. Those which he had to shoot he would
afterward set up and support in natural attitudes, while he
painted them ; others he would view, with their actual sur-
roundings, through a telescope. Audubon's father died about
1812, leaving to him the estate in France and seventeen thou-
sand dollars, which had been deposited with a merchant in
Richmond, Virginia. "Audubon, however, took no steps to
obtain possession of his estate in France, and in after-years,
when his sons had grown up, sent one of them to France for
the purpose of legally transferring the property to his own
sister Rosa." Before Audubon was able to obtain the money
from the merchant in Richmond, the latter died insolvent ; and
so no benefit accrued to the naturalist from either part of his
legacy.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. j^

By this failure of his expectations and other disasters, Au-
dubon was compelled to work for a living. He took up the
drawing of crayon portraits with much success, and seemed to
get a new start in life. In a short time he received an invitation
to become a curator of the museum at Cincinnati, and for the
preparation of birds received a liberal remuneration. In con-
junction with this situation he opened a drawing school in
the same city, and obtained from this employment additional
emolument sufficient to support his family comfortably. His
teaching succeeded well until several of his pupils started on
their own account. The work at the museum having been fin-
ished, Audubon fell back upon his portrait painting and such
resources as his genius could command. Applying for assist-
ance to an old friend whom he had helped into business, the
ungrateful wretch declared he would do nothing for his bene-
factor, and further added that he would not even recommend
one who had such wandering habits. On more occasions than
this his genius for discovery was made an argument against
him.

In October, 1820, Audubon left Cincinnati, and sailed down
the Ohio in company with Captain Cumming, a civil engineer,
who had been appointed to make a survey of the Mississippi
River. He was provided with letters of introduction from
General Harrison and Henry Clay, and intended a long orni-
thological excursion through Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida,
up Red River, and down the Arkansas. At Bayou Sara, in the
following June, he accepted an engagement with Mrs. Perrie
to teach her daughter drawing during the summer months at
sixty dollars a month. Mrs. Feme's real aim is supposed to
have been to provide for Audubon an opportunity to carry on
his pursuits under the guise of an employment which would be
congenial and not interfere with his work. Later in the year
he was invited to join another artist in painting a panorama
of New Orleans. But, he wrote in his journal, " My birds, my
beloved birds of America, occupy all my time, and nearly all
my thoughts, and I do not wish to see any other perspective
than the last specimen of those drawings."

For the first two months of 1822 it is written by his wife in
her Life, " The records of Audubon's life are sparse and imper-
fect, on account of his inability to purchase a book to write his
journal in ! " The one at last obtained was made of thin,

158

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

poor paper, and the records entered are rather in keeping with
his financial difficulties. It took all his means at this time to
supply his family with the necessaries of life ; and in order to
obtain money to educate the children, his wife undertook the
duties of a situation in which she had charge of and educated
the children of a Mr. Brand. They afterward removed to
Natchez, where Audubon drew and taught drawing in the col-
lege at Washington, Mississippi, and Mrs. Audubon taught ;
and then to Bayou Sara, Louisiana, where Mrs. Audubon es-
tablished a school, with the proceeds of which she was enabled
to aid materially in the publication of the Birds, and Audubon
assisted her by teaching music and dancing. A member of
one of the families, in which Mrs. Audubon was a governess
during this period, has furnished Dr. Shufeldt with a child-
hood's reminiscence of the naturalist. " He was with us," she
says, " eight months, but during the greater part of the time
was wandering all over the State, walking almost the entire
time ; no insect, worm, reptile, bird, or animal escaped his no-
tice. He would make a collection, return home and draw
his crayon sketches, when his son John would stuff the birds
and such animals as he wished to preserve."

In the spring of 1824, Audubon, with two hundred draw-
ings, representing about a thousand birds, went to Philadelphia
in order to obtain help to complete his ornithological work.
He was soon satisfied, it is said in Mrs. Audubon's Life, that
the venture would be successful. Having purchased a new
suit of clothes and dressed himself with extreme neatness, he
called upon Dr. Mease, an old friend, and was introduced by
him to several artists, who paid him pleasant attentions. He
was also introduced to Prince Canino, son of Lucien Bona-
parte, " who examined my birds," Audubon writes, " and was
complimentary in his praises. He was at the time engaged on
a volume of American birds, which was soon to be published ;
but this did not prevent him from admiring another natural-
ist's work. — April i2th. Met the prince at Dr. Mease's, and
he expressed a wish to examine my drawings more particu-
larly. I found him very gentlemanly. He called in his car-
riage and took me to Peale, the artist, who was drawing speci-
mens of birds for his work ; but from want of knowledge of
the habits of birds in a wild state, he represented them as
if seated for a portrait, instead of their own lively, animated

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.

ways when seeking their natural food or pleasure. Other nota-
ble persons called to see my drawings, and encouraged me
with their remarks. The Prince Canino introduced me to
the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and pronounced my
birds superb and worthy of a pupil of David. I formed the
acquaintance of Lesueur, the zoologist and artist, who was
greatly delighted with my drawings." Audubon was engaged
by Prince Canino to superintend his drawings intended for
publication ; but his terms being much dearer than Alexander
Wilson's, he was asked to discontinue his work. " I had now,"
he writes, " determined to go to Europe with my * treasures,'
since I was assured nothing so fine in the way of ornithologi-
cal representations existed. I worked incessantly to complete
my series of drawings. On inquiry, I found Sully and Lesueur
made a poor living by their brush. I had some pupils offered
at a dollar per lesson; but I found the citizens unwilling to
pay for art, although they affected to patronize it. I exhibited
my drawings for a week, but found the show did not pay, and
so determined to remove myself."

Thus, notwithstanding the pleasant social aspect of his
reception in Philadelphia, he does not appear to have been en-
couraged in its material promise ; and he met with a misfortune
which would have depressed the spirits of the bravest and
most sanguine. His plates, the fruit of years of labour and
of almost exclusive preoccupation during the whole time, were
destroyed in a single night by rats. He went to work at once,
however, to restore his drawings, and did so. Mr. McMurtrie,
the conchologist, advised him to take his drawings to Eng-
land. Prince Canino advised him to go to France. He pro-
ceeded to New York, having left Philadelphia " free from debt
and free from anxiety about the future." In New York he
visited the museum and " found the specimens of stuffed birds
set up in unnatural and constrained attitudes. This appears
to be the universal practice, and the world owes to me the
adoption of the plan of drawings from animated nature. Wil-
son is the only one who has in any tolerable degree adopted
my plan."

The prospect for having his drawings published in New
York did not appear very encouraging, although it seemed
more hopeful than it had been in Philadelphia. He visited
the Lyceum, and his portfolio was examined by the members

!6o PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

of the Institute, among whom, he writes, " I felt awkward and
uncomfortable. After living among such people I felt clouded
and depressed ; remember that I have done nothing, and fear
that I may die unknown. I feel I am strange to all but the
birds of America. In a few days I shall be in the woods and
quite forgotten." On the next day : " My spirits low, and I
long for the woods again ; but the prospect of becoming known
prompts me to remain another day." He was invited by the
artist, Vanderlyn, to sit for a portrait of General Jackson,
whom his figure was thought to resemble considerably.

From New York he proceeded up the Hudson and into the
lake region, visiting Niagara, but not crossing over to Goat
Island on account of the low state of his finances ; then re-
turned by way of Erie, Pittsburg, and the rivers, to his home
in Bayou Sara. His wife was receiving an income of nearly
three thousand dollars a year from her labours in teaching, and
he took charge of a class in dancing by which he cleared two
thousand dollars ; and with this capital and his wife's savings
he was now able to foresee a successful issue to his great orni-
thological work.

He had determined upon going to England, where, although
he knew no one, he hoped that he might find a way to get his
plates engraved. He sailed from New Orleans in May, 1826,
and arrived in Liverpool on the 2oth of July. He exhibited
his pictures, with satisfaction to his visitors at Liverpool and
Manchester, to their admiration at Edinburgh. He made
friends of Herschel, Sir Walter Scott, and " Christopher North,"
who has left the record of his warm admiration for the man
and his work in two of his essays, and of Cuvier, Humboldt,
and Saint-Hilaire in France. He resolved to go on with the
publication of his works, although his friends advised him that
the risk was too great to venture upon. In 1827 he issued
the prospectus of The Birds of America, to be published in
numbers of five folio plates each, the whole to be included in
four volumes, and to be sold for one thousand dollars a copy.
The entire cost of the work would exceed one hundred thou-
sand dollars; yet when the prospectus was published he had
not money enough to pay for getting out the first number.
With the aid of Sir Thomas Lawrence he sold some pictures,
and was enabled to carry himself over this difficulty ; and this
led the way to his finding a regular means of support while his

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. I6I

enterprise was going on, by painting. He visited Paris in
1828, canvassing for subscribers, and experienced an admira-
tion from illustrious men parallel with that which had greeted
him in England. But he does not appear to have appreciated
the money value of this admiration as highly as what he found
in England, for he wrote : " France is poor, indeed ! This day
I have attended the Royal Academy of Sciences, and had my
plates examined by about one hundred persons. * Fine, very
fine,' issued from many mouths; but they said, also, 'What a
work ! what a price ! who can pay it ? ' I recollected that I
had thirty subscribers at Manchester, and mentioned it. They
stared and seemed surprised ; but acknowledged that England,
the little island of England, alone was able to support poor
Audubon. . . . Now it is that I plainly see how happy, or
lucky, it was in me not to have come to France first ; for if I
had, my work now would not have had even a beginning. It
would have perished like a flower in October ; and I should
have returned to my woods, without the hope of leaving be-
hind that eternal fame which my ambition, industry, and per-
severance long to enjoy." Baron Cuvier was requested by the
Academy of Sciences to make a verbal report on Audubon's
Birds, and he responded, describing the work " as the most
magnificent monument which has yet been erected to ornithol-
ogy." The author, having returned to his own country after
his schooling in France, " thought he could not make a better
use of his talents than by representing the most brilliant pro-
ductions of that hemisphere. The accurate observation neces-
sary for such representation as he wished to make soon ren-
dered him a naturalist. . . . Formerly the European natural-
ists were obliged to make known to America the riches she
possessed; but now Mitchell, Harlan, and Bonaparte give
back with interest to Europe what America had received.
Wilson's history of the Birds of the United States equals in
elegance our most beautiful works on ornithology. If that of
Mr. Audubon should be completed, we shall be obliged to
acknowledge that America, in magnificence of execution, has
surpassed the Old World."

After spending the winter in London, Audubon returned
to the United States in April, 1829, and made his way to his
home in Louisiana, which he reached in November, his journey
having been interrupted by excursions in quest of birds to

X62 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, and the " Great Pine Swamp "
in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. His book, in the
meantime, was going steadily on, and the first volume was
published in London in 1830. It contained one hundred plates,
representing ninety-nine species of birds, with every figure of
the colour and size of life. The whole work was completed
in four volumes, in 1839. It contained four hundred and
thirty-five plates, representing one thousand and sixty-five
distinct specimens of birds — all, from the eagle to the hum-
ming-bird, of the size of life. Again, after three months at
home, spent in hunting and drawing, he visited England in
1830, where he found that he had been elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of London, and on the 6th of May took his seat
in the great hall, and paid his entrance fee of fifty pounds,
" though I felt myself that I had not the qualifications to en-
title me to such an honour." He was shortly afterward joined
by his wife, who accompanied him in his journeys to get new
subscribers. In 1831, anticipating another tour of observation
and study in the South, he visited Washington, to get letters
of introduction to the commanders of frontier posts and offi-
cers along his route. All received him in the kindest manner.
The winter of i83i-*32 was spent in East Florida, in what Au-
dubon called a rather unprofitable expedition, but which fur-
nished the material for several striking " episodes," as his ac-
counts of the events have been designated.

In his subsequent journey Audubon visited the coast of
Maine, accompanied by his family. According to Dr. Gris-
wold's account,* although no reference to the circumstance is
made in Mrs. Audubon's Life, the cholera then prevailing in
the country, he was taken sick in Boston and detained there
for some time. Aside from his illness, his experience in Bos-
ton must have been of the most grateful character, for he
wrote of it, "Although I have been happy in forming many
valuable friendships in various parts of the world, all dearly
cherished by me, the outpouring of kindness which I experi-
enced in Boston far exceeded all that I have ever met with."
With these kindnesses he associated the names of the men
who lent to the Boston of that time its peculiar lustre. Con-
tinuing his journey, he explored the forests of Maine and New

* Prose Writers of America, p. 189.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. ^3

Brunswick and the shores of the Bay of Funday, and then
went by schooner to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Magdalen
Islands, and the coast of Labrador ; and in the latter part of
the season visited Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. In the en-
suing spring, after nearly three years of travel and research,
he went for the third time to England, where, and in Edin-
burgh, he lived a year and a half. As soon as the first volume
of the Birds was published, Audubon began his Ornithological
Biographies, to accompany it ; a work which, besides descrip-
tions of the birds, contained reminiscences of personal adven-
ture, with delineations of scenery and character. It was com-
pleted in five volumes (i83i-'39). It has a literary and his-
torical value apart from that which the accounts of the birds
give it, in that it presents in language warm from his having
been a part of the scenes, a virgin past of our country, and its
forests and prairies, which can never be restored or so well de-
scribed again. In the scientific part of this work he had the
valuable co-operation of Mr. William McGillivray, of Edin-
burgh. Having spent the winter of i836-'37 at Charleston,
with excursions to the Sea Islands, Savannah, and Florida, Au-
dubon, in the spring of 1837, sailed in a revenue cutter for
explorations in the Gulf of Mexico, of which he has left
sketches of scenes in the Louisiana bayous, and in Texas. In
1838 he returned to Edinburgh, where he spent several months
in preparing the fourth and fifth volumes of the Ornithologi-
cal Biographies and in finishing the drawings for the Birds.

In 1839 Audubon came back to the United States for
the last time, bought an estate on the banks of the Hudson
River, which he called Minniesland — now Audubon Park, in
the city of New York — and engaged in the preparation of an
edition of the Birds in volumes of a reduced size. In this edi-
tion the matter was classified, a feature which had not been
found practicable in the method of publication of the original
edition. He had also had in hand for some time a book on
the Quadrupeds of America, for which he, his sons, Victor
Gilford and John Woodhouse Audubon, and the father-in-law
of his sons, the Rev. John Bachman, of Charleston, South
Carolina, had gathered much material. Mr. Bachman took
the same relation to this book that Mr. McGillivray had taken
to the Ornithological Biographies. A trip to the Rocky
Mountains had been planned in connection with this work, but

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

on account of his age Audubon was induced to give it up,
after having gone as far as the Yellowstone River. The first
volume of the Quadrupeds, which was largely the work of his
collaborators, was published in 1846, and the last volume in
1854, after Audubon's death. During the last four years of
his life, Audubon became weak in mind, and not able to do any
regular work. " The interval of about three years," says Mrs.
Audubon, " which passed between the time of Audubon's return
from the West and the period when his mind began to fail,
was a short and sweet twilight to his adventurous career.
His habits were simple. Rising almost with the sun, he pro-
ceeded to the woods to view his feathered favourites till the
hour at which the family usually breakfasted, except when he
had drawing to do, when he sat closely to his work. After
breakfast he drew till noon, and then took a long walk. At
nine in the evening he generally retired. . . . He was very
fond of his grandchildren, and used often to take them on his
knees and sing to them amusing French songs that he had
learned in France when he was a boy. . . . After 1848 the
naturalist's mind entirely failed him, and during the last years
of his life his eye lost its brightness, and he had to be led to
his daily walks by the hand of a servant."

The body of Audubon was placed in a vault in Trinity
Cemetery, which adjoins Audubon Park on the south side. In
1885 Prof. Thomas Egleston, finding the vault much out of
repair, undertook to have it put in better order. He induced
the corporation of Trinity Church to remove it to a more
prominent site, and interested the New York Academy of Sci-
ences in raising a subscription for a monument. The project
was successful, and on April 26, 1893, the monument was un-
veiled. It consists of a Runic cross of blue stone eighteen
feet in height, standing upon a blue-stone die, which rests
upon a granite base. The total height is twenty-five feet.
There is a fine bas-relief bust of Audubon on one side of the
die and an inscription fills the other. The cross is ornamented
with carvings of birds and quadrupeds described in his works.

Various estimates of Audubon's character and work, and
accounts of his appearance have been given us, all to his
praise. Dr. Griswold says, in his Prose Writers of America,
that his highest claim to admiration "is founded upon his
drawings in natural history, in which he has exhibited a per-

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 165

faction never before attempted. In all our climates — in the
clear atmosphere, by the dashing waters, amid the grand old
forests, with their peculiar and many-tinted foliage, by him
first made known to art — he has represented our feathered
tribes, building their nests and fostering their young; poised
on the tip of the spray and hovering over the sedgy margin of
the lake; flying in the clouds in quest of prey, or from pur-
suit; in love, enraged, indeed, in all the varieties of their mo-
tion and repose, and modes of life so perfectly, that all other
works of the kind are to his as stuffed skins to the living
birds. But he has also indisputable claims to a respectable
rank as a man of letters. Some of his written pictures of
birds, so graceful, clearly denned, and brilliantly coloured, are
scarcely inferior to the productions of his pencil. . . . From
the beginning he surrendered himself entirely to his favour-
ite pursuit, and has been intent to learn everything from the
prime teacher Nature. His style as well as his knowledge is
a fruit of his experience." His personal appearance, as a ref-
erence to his portrait will show must have been the case, was
calculated to impress a visitor. He is described as having
been tall and commanding in person, with a countenance
which, from the sharp glance of his eye and the outline of his
features, "suggested a resemblance to the eagle." He is be-
lieved, from his own account, to have been somewhat of a
dandy while living at Mill Grove. " It was one of my fancies,"
he says, "to be ridiculously fond of dress; to hunt in black
satin breeches, wear pumps when shooting, and dress in the
finest ruffled shirts I could obtain from France." When on
his hunting tours, as he records in the relation of a visit to
Niagara, he would allow himself to get into the plight of the
poorer class of Indians, and worse, from not having, like them,
plucked his beard or trimmed his hair in any way. " Had
Hogarth been living, and there, when I arrived, he could not
have found a fitter subject for a Robinson Crusoe. My beard
covered my neck in front, my hair fell much lower at my back ;
the leather dress which I wore had for months stood in need
of repair; a large knife hung at my side; a rusty tin box, con-
taining my drawings and colours, and wrapped up in a worn-
out blanket that had served me for a bed, was buckled to my
shoulders. To every one I must bave seemed immersed in
the depths of poverty, perhaps of despair." Some explanation

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

was needed to convince the landlord of the hotel that he was
a suitable subject for entertainment, but it seems to have been
satisfactory. Christopher North says of him in the Noctes
Ambrosianae, as he appeared at Edinburgh : " The man himself
is just what you would expect from his productions ; full of
fine enthusiasm and intelligence, most interesting in his looks
and manners, a perfect gentleman, and esteemed by all who
know him for the simplicity and frankness of his nature."

In an address delivered on the unveiling of the monument
to Audubon, Prof. Thomas Egleston has said of him : " He was
a woodsman, not a scientific naturalist, according to the ideas
prevalent to-day. He loved to go into the forests and watch
the creatures that dwelt among the leafy lanes and thickets ;
to study the birds in their time of love-making, nesting, and
migration, and to draw their forms upon the canvas. But of
books he was no student ; of the intricate scientific details of
his mighty subject he was unconcerned and indifferent ; suffi-
cient for him it was to learn where and how his feathered
friends lived and moved, and to produce their portraits."

LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ.

LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ.

1780-1834.

DURING colonial times in America, and even down into the
present century, science advanced over a much-obstructed
path. Not having then attained to its present power and es-
teem, there were but few of its votaries whose whole time and
best energies it could command. The explorations by which
the animals, plants, and minerals of the vast Western continent
were made known to science were accomplished in large part
by naturalists who either followed some other vocation as a
means of livelihood, or were mainly occupied by some other
career to which they felt more strongly bound. Franklin was
a printer and later a statesman, being an electrician only at odd
times ; John Bartram was a farmer ; Mitchill, Hosack, and
Barton were physicians ; while Muhlenberg and the subject of
this article were clergymen.

Lewis David von Schweinitz was born, February 13, 1780,
at Bethlehem, Pa., then a Moravian Church settlement which
had been founded by his family in 1741. His father, Baron
Hans Christian Alexander von Schweinitz, came from an an-
cient and distinguished family residing on the ancestral estate
called Leuba in the present limits of Saxony. That he was a
man of stable character may be inferred from the fact that he
performed the responsible duties of a treasurer general for the
Moravian Church in America. The mother of Lewis was Dor-
othea Elizabeth, daughter of Baron (afterward Bishop) John
de Watteville, and Benigna, daughter of Lewis Nicholas,
Count Zinzendorf. It was to Zinzendorf and Watteville that
the renewal and resuscitation of the ancient church of the
Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian Brethren, in the eighteenth cen-
tury was mainly due. In 1722 two families of the Brethren
crossed the frontier of Moravia by night and made their way
to the estate of Count Zinzendorf in Saxony. Here they were

167

l68 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

joined by others, and in a few years the town of Herrnhut was
built by the colonists. Zinzendorf took an interest in this set-
tlement from the start, became a bishop in the church, and de-
voted his life to its service. The efforts of the Brethren were
early turned toward foreign missions, and it was in furtherance
of mission work that Zinzendorf and Watteville came to
America and founded the first Moravian settlements in this
country.

Being so closely connected with the refounders of an an-
cient denomination, the parents of Lewis naturally looked for-
ward to his becoming an able promoter of the interests of their
church. He was their eldest son, of a decidedly intellectual
temperament and an enthusiastic disposition, and when in early
boyhood he developed the habit of addressing short speeches
and little sermons to the family circle, his future seemed to be
definitely marked out.

When a little more than seven years old, Lewis was placed
in the academy of the Moravian community at Nazareth Hall,
where he remained eleven years. Young Lewis received his
first impulse toward scientific study when on a visit to this
school with his grandfather, Bishop de Watteville, before he
entered it as a pupil. Seeing a specimen of the Lichen digitatus
lying on a table, the child examined it with interest, and was
told its name and something about its physiology. From that
moment he was wont to date his interest in the vegetable
kingdom. After entering the school he received some instruc-
tion in the elements of botany. A partial flora of Nazareth
and vicinity, made while he was at this institution, which re-
mained among his manuscripts at his death, is evidence that
this study took immediate hold upon the mind of the youth.
During his school days his powers of language and his vein of
satirical humour were occasionally manifested in poetical effu-
sions. While still a pupil and not yet eighteen years of age
he assisted in teaching some of the younger classes. Lewis
had three brothers and two sisters, none of whom ever turned
to scientific pursuits.

In 1798 Hans von Schweinitz was called to Germany and
took his family with him. Lewis was removed from the Naza-
reth seminary and after the family reached Germany was en-
tered as a student in the theological institution at Niesky, in
what was then known as the province of Lusatia, in Silesia.

LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ.

169

Here he made the acquaintance of Prof. J. B. de Albertini, who
became his fast friend and his fellow-worker in botanical in-
vestigations. After completing his course as a student he
became a teacher in the academy. His leisure at Niesky was
occupied in the pursuit of his favourite science, in general read-
ing and study, and in writing for the literary journals of the
time. In his Memoir of von Schweinitz, read before the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Walter R. Johnson
says of his literary activity at this time, " Scarcely any im-
portant topic in the wide field of science escaped his notice,
and especially did the constitution and management of the
affairs of his social and religious fraternity call forth from his
pen many able and spirited articles."

The first published botanical work of von Schweinitz ap-
peared in 1805, when he was twenty-five years of age. From
the beginning of his residence at Niesky he had given especial
attention to the fungi, previously little studied. The associa-
tion with Albertini had continued and the discoveries of the
two friends in this field had been so many as to warrant the
publication of a volume of about four hundred pages on the
fungi of Lusatia embodying the results of their united efforts.
It was written in Latin, as was still the custom for scientific
works in Europe, and the twelve plates, containing figures of
ninety-three new species, with which it was illustrated, were
drawn and engraved by von Schweinitz's own hands. In this
work the authors creditably refrained from the then too com-
mon practice of giving new names to the already known plants
included in their descriptions. They were convinced that nat-
ural history had been grievously burdened by the accumulation
and confusion of synonyms, many of which promoted no other
purpose than an unworthy ambition.

Soon after this Mr. von Schweinitz began to preach, and in
1807 was called to the Moravian settlement at Gnadenberg,
not far from Niesky. " Considered as literary performances,"
says Johnson, in the memoir already cited, " his sermons were
characterized by the utmost simplicity, both in style and de-
livery, and were addressed more to the heart than to the head.
His discourses were invariably practical, not argumentative —
experimental, not speculative." It was now the time of Na-
poleon's continental wars, and troops were quartered at Gna-
denburg. The inhabitants found the presence of the soldiery

12

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

irksome, but the happy disposition and winning deportment of
the young pastor had much influence in preventing collisions.
The next year he was invited to Gnadau, in Saxony, where he
remained four years, performing the duties of his clerical office
and teaching the boys of the community who were destined for
learned professions.

In 1812 Mr. von Schweinitz, being then thirty-two years of
age, was appointed general agent of the Moravian Church in
the southern United States. Before starting for this country
he married, at Niesky, Louiza Amelia Le Doux, who belonged
to a French family residing at Stettin. The continental sys-
tem of Napoleon rendering direct communication with the
United States extremely hazardous, Mr. von Schweinitz and
his wife were compelled to go through Denmark to Sweden
and embark there. The trouble of making this roundabout
journey was, as it chanced, not without its compensation. The
travellers were obliged to make a stay of some length at Kiel,
in Holstein, during which von Schweinitz formed an enjoyable
acquaintance with several of the professors in the university
there. His attainments, moreover, so impressed the authori-
ties of this seat of learning that they conferred upon him the
honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy. When, at length,
the voyage was begun the United States had declared war
with England and the sea swarmed with privateers. The pas-
sage abounded with thrilling adventures and providential
escapes. While still in European waters the vessel fell in with
a French privateer and narrowly avoided capture by taking
refuge under the guns of a Danish fort. A fierce cannonade
between the Danes and the Frenchman followed, many of the
balls passing over and through the ship. Later it was actually
captured by a British frigate, but escaped in the darkness and
fog of a stormy night. Much tempestuous weather was met
with, and the climax came in a terrible storm which dismasted
the vessel. Nevertheless, it finally entered port in safety, being
the only one of fifteen or twenty American vessels sailing from
Sweden on the same day that ever reached America.

The principal church settlement of the district to which
von Schweinitz had been assigned was at Salem, N. C., and
there he took up his residence. Although not a native of
North Carolina, he had a strong predilection for that State,
having often heard his father and grandfather speak of their

LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ.

I/I

visits to its early settlements. His official duties were very
arduous. He was a member of the governing board of the
Moravian Churches in North Carolina, a trustee of the Salem
Female Academy, the administrator of the very large landed
estates owned by the church in the State, and he frequently
preached in Salem and other places. Yet he found time to
continue his botanical researches, which he could now carry on
in a dominion, scientifically speaking, all his own. On one of
his exploring trips he discovered among the Sauraton Moun-
tains, in Stokes County, a most beautiful waterfall, which still
bears his name. Among his scientific correspondents at this
time were Dr. Reichenbach, of Dresden ; Kunze, of Leipsic ;
Major Le Conte, United States Army ; Blumenbach, of Got-
tingen ; Elliott, of South Carolina ; Schwaegrichen, of Leip-
sic; and Hooker, of England. The first fruit of his botanical
work in the South was a synopsis of the fungi of North Caro-
lina, written in Latin, which was given to the world in 1818
through the Society of Naturalists at Leipsic, under the edi-
torial care of Dr. D. F. Schwaegrichen. Among the thirteen
hundred and seventy-three species described in this synopsis,
there are three hundred and fifteen that were new to science.
In the same year his duties required him to attend a synod
of his religious brethren at Herrnhut. On his way he visited
England, France, and Holland, and established correspond-
ences which were of great value to him after he returned to
America and began the formation of a regular herbarium. In
1821 von Schweinitz published at Raleigh, N. C., a pamphlet
containing descriptions of seventy six species of Hepaticce (liv-
erworts), among them being nine discovered by him. In the
same year he contributed to the American Journal of Science,
then in its fifth volume, a Monograph on the Genus Viola, in
which five new species were described. This was a valuable
paper, and was often cited by European botanists. In it he
made the interesting statement that among the thirty species
of violets then known in America there was not one exactly
like any of the twenty European species.

During his residence at Salem, von Schweinitz had been
offered the presidency of the University of North Carolina.
The acceptance of this honourable position would have neces-
sitated giving up his service in the Moravian Church, and so,
feeling that the Brethren had the best claim upon his energies,

172 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

he declined it. At the beginning of the year 1822 he removed
to Pennsylvania, and took up his residence in his native village
of Bethlehem. Here he undertook the charge of the Mora-
vian girls' seminary at that place, and the secular office of gen-
eral agent for the Brethren was retained. His botanical studies
were not suffered to languish. " The beautiful slopes and val-
leys about Bethlehem and Nazareth," says Johnson, " the ro-
mantic banks of the Delaware, and the precipitous rocks of the
Lehigh, all yielded up to him a tribute of their hitherto unex-
plored treasures. The high estimation set upon his works by
men of science had procured his election as an honorary mem-
ber in several societies devoted to natural history, both in
Europe and America. His correspondence increased, and the
formation of his herbarium advanced with great rapidity."
About this time Major Long's expedition to the sources of the
St. Peter's River, in the Northwest Territory, returned. It
had been arranged that the plants collected on this trip by
Thomas Say should be described by Nuttall. The work was
begun by this naturalist, but he was obliged to go to Europe,
and was prevented from returning in season to do any more.
The plants were accordingly put in the hands of von Schwei-
nitz, who described them most acceptably.

Toward the end of 1823 the then well-known botanist com-
municated to the Lyceum of Natural History (now the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences), of New York, a key or analytical
table for determining the American species of Carex — the
largest genus of the sedges. This production, though small in
bulk, could result only from ample knowledge and exact dis-
crimination. In 1824 the American Journal of Science pub-
lished a short paper by him on the rarer plants of Easton, Pa.
There was another synod at Herrnhut this year which it was
necessary for him to attend, and, having a Monograph of the
North American Carices about completed, he put the manu-
script, together with a large collection of specimens, into the
hands of Dr. Torrey, in order that the monograph might be
communicated to the Lyceum of Natural History in his ab-
sence. He gave full liberty for making any additions or alter-
ations warranted by Dr. Torrey's later discoveries. When he
found, on returning, that his editor had made important addi-
tions to the number of species described, von Schweinitz, with
characteristic conscientiousness, requested that the paper

LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ.

173

should be published as their joint production, saying that "the
judicious and elaborate amendments he has proposed, and the
mass of new and valuable matter he has added, entitle Dr.
Torrey to a participation in the authorship of the work." The
whole number of species described was one hundred and thir-
teen, of which six were new. This and the analytical table of
the Carices were both printed in the first volume of the Annals
of the Lyceum. In his absence a paper in which he described
fifteen new American species of Sphczriaz, one of the largest
genera of fungi, was communicated to the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia, and appeared in vol. v of its Journal.

Von Schweinitz was absent till near the end of 1825. After
his return he resumed his labours as general agent for the Breth-
ren ; the charge of the school, however, had been given up
some time before. The great work to which he now devoted
his attention was a Synopsis of North American Fungi. He
had intended this for publication in one of the European jour-
nals, but was induced to present it, in 1831, to the American
Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. In this work three
thousand and ninety-eight species, belonging to two hundred
and forty-six genera, were described, of which twelve hundred
and three species and seven genera had been discovered by
the author. If to these discoveries we add those made by von
Schweinitz in other orders of plants, we have a total of nearly
fourteen hundred new species added to botanic science by the
talents and industry of a single observer. The whole number
of species known at his death was estimated at sixty thousand.

Until he was about fifty years of age his health had been
excellent. But the various and increasing cares of his official
position finally had their effect. The sedentary work involved
in writing a dissertation on the affairs of his community, which
prevented for a time his usual out-of-door exercise, was the im-
mediate cause of a severe cough and other alarming symptoms
of decline. His spirits, which had been uniformly cheerful, be-
came depressed. A journey to the West to establish a branch
community of the United Brethren in Indiana was temporarily
beneficial, but his system was undermined and the progress of
disease could not be stayed. On February 8, 1834, came the
end of what his memoirist calls " a life of various, constant,
and unobtrusive usefulness."

A widow and four sons survived him. All the sons entered

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the Moravian ministry. The eldest, Emil Adolphus de Schwei-
nitz, was born in Salem, N. C, in 1816. He filled various
ecclesiastical offices in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, was
made a bishop in 1874, and died in 1879. The second son,
Robert, was born in Salem, in 1819. He has filled various
charges and was for many years president of the executive
board of the American Moravian Church. Since his retirement
from the active ministry he has been general treasurer of the
Church and of its Foreign Mission Department. The third
son, Edmund Alexander, was born in Bethlehem in 1825, and
died there in 1887. He also became a bishop, and was the
author of several books on the history and polity of the Unitas
Fratrum. In 1856 he established a weekly journal for the
Moravians in America, which he edited for ten years. His
life was one of great activity and usefulness. Bernard, the
youngest son, was born at Bethlehem, in 1828, and died at the
age of twenty-six years, being at the time in charge of a church
on Staten Island. During the latter years of the father's life
he used de in place of von in his name, and the sons have always
used the new form.

Von Schweinitz was of high stature, erect carriage, and
robust habit. The accompanying portrait is a copy of a mini-
ature painted some years before his death, and consequently
represents him in the prime of life. He had an unusually
amiable and attractive disposition, which made him a general
favourite with high and low. His conversational powers were
of a high order, and contributed much to an ease of inter-
course which was an important factor of his usefulness. Hu-
mour, anecdote, and repartee were always at his command,
while the varied and exciting scenes through which he had
passed and the prominent personages with whom he had come
in contact furnished him an inexhaustible fund of interesting
reminiscences. Strange to say, considering his German ex-
traction, he was devoid of any appreciation for music. He
spoke and wrote in English, German, French, and Latin, and
was also acquainted with Greek.

A notable feature of his scientific work was its systematic
character. Evidence of this is furnished by the synoptical
tables attached to his several monographs, and by the fact that
the analytical table of the Carices was one of his productions.
The cryptogams had for him an attraction that they do not

LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ.

175

have for many. We owe most of our knowledge of this series
of plants to German, Danish, and Swedish investigators.
Knowledge that may not be read by him who runs but must
be delved for, as is the case with that relating to the fungi
and their near allies, seems to have an especial attraction for
Northern minds.

Among his well-deserved honours was the naming after him
of Schweinitzia odorata (sweet pinesap), by Stephen Elliott.
This is a small plant, found from Maryland southward, and
bears a spike of flesh-coloured flowers which exhale the odour
of violets.

A general characterization of the botanist's work can not
be given better than in the following words of Walter R. John-
son :

" When we consider the extreme difficulty of the particular
departments of botany to which Mr. Schweinitz devoted his
chief attention, the prodigious number of facts which he has
accumulated, the vast amount of minute and delicate investi-
gation demanded by the nature of the objects of his study, the
labour of preparing for the press the materials which he had
brought together ; when we recollect that, with the exception
of Dr. Muhlenburg, of Lancaster, no American botanist had
ventured far upon this wide and unexplored dominion of Na-
ture, and when we remember that this science was his relaxa-
tion, not his profession — his occasional pursuit, not his daily
duty — we are forcibly struck with the high order of his talents
for the pursuit of physical science, and can not but regret that
more of his time and energies could not have been devoted to
this favourite occupation."

Von Schweinitz bequeathed his collection of plants to the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. It comprised
twenty-three thousand species of phanerogams and many thou-
sand cryptogams. A large portion of the specimens were from
the most remote parts of the world, having been obtained by
exchange with American and European explorers. They in-
cluded the " Baldwin collection " from Florida, Brazil, and La
Plata, which von Schweinitz had bought, and in which he had
found three thousand species not before in his herbarium. The
examination and .arrangement of these plants had been one of
his last scientific labours.

ROBERT HARE.

1781-1858.

THE name of Robert Hare, said the American Journal of
Science at the time of his death, " has for more than half a cen-
tury been familiar to men of science as a chemical philosopher,
and to the cultivators of the useful arts throughout the civi-
lized world." Dr. Hare was born in Philadelphia, January 17,
1781, and died in the same place, May 15, 1858. His father,
the proprietor of a large brewery in Philadelphia, was an Eng-
lishman of strong mind, occupying a prominent position in so-
ciety, and enjoying the confidence of his fellow-citizens. The
management of this concern shortly fell into the hands of the son.
He was soon drawn away from it, however, by the strength
of his predilection for scientific pursuits ; and before he was
twenty years old he was enrolled as an attendant of the course
of lectures on chemistry and physics in Philadelphia, and be-
came a member of the Chemical Society of that city. There
he found Priestley, Sybert, and Woodhouse among his associ-
ates. To this society he communicated in 1801 a description
of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, which was then called the hy-
drostatic blowpipe, and which Prof. Silliman, who had been
engaged with him in 1802 and 1803 in a series of experiments
with the instrument, afterward called the compound blowpipe.
On his return from Philadelphia, in 1803, Prof. Silliman con-
structed for Yale College the first pneumatic trough combin-
ing Dr. Hare's invention ; an apparatus which was afterward
figured and described by Dr. Hare in his memoir on the Fu-
sion of Strontia and the Volatilization of Platinum — a paper
which was republished in London and in the Annales de Chimie.
This apparatus, according to Prof. Silliman, was the earliest and
most remarkable of Dr. Hare's original contributions to sci-
ence. It revealed to the chemical student a source of artificial

176

ROBERT HARE.

ROBERT HARE. ^7

power far transcending anything he had ever known before ;
and this, though the facts on which it was based were not un-
known.

Lavoisier had directed a jet of oxygen on charcoal and had
burned the elements of water together ; but even he, and in the
face of these experiments, had failed to comprehend the power
of this heating apparatus, and it was left for the acumen of
Hare to demonstrate it and make it practically applicable.
The author of the biography in the American Journal of Sci-
ence says of it, " In our view, Dr. Hare's merit as a scientific
philosopher is more clearly established upon this discovery
than upon any other of the numerous contributions he has
made to science." Dr. Hare's original experiments were re-
peated in 1802 and 1803 in the presence of Dr. Priestley and
Messrs. Silliman, Woodhouse, and others. In recognition of
the discovery, Dr. Hare received the Rumford medal from the
American Academy of Science at Boston. An attempt was
afterward made, in 1819, by Dr. Clarke, of Edinburgh, to rob
him of the credit of this discovery ; and though he showed
that the oxhydrogen apparatus had been before the public
several years, no attention was paid to his protests. The
calcium and Drummond lights also furnish instances of most
important applications of Dr. Hare's invention, in which
no reference is made to him. He himself led the way to
these devices by constructing an apparatus on a gigantic
scale, with large vessels of wrought iron, capable of sustain-
ing the pressure of the Fairmount Water Works, with which
he was able to fuse at one operation nearly two pounds of
platinum, with a resultant production of metal greatly pu-
rified.

He devoted much labour and skill to the construction
of new and improved forms of the voltaic pile; "and it
is easy to show," Prof. Silliman says, " that owing to his
zeal and skill in this department of physics American
chemists were enabled to employ with distinguished success
the intense powers of extended series of voltaic couples long
in advance of the general use of similar contrivances in
Europe."

In 1816 Dr. Hare constructed an instrument called the calo-
rimeter, in which great extent of surface was obtained by com-
bining many large plates of zinc and copper into one series,

i;8 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

and plunging the whole at once into a tank of dilute acid.
Great magnetic and heating effects were obtained with this in-
strument, and it was many years before any other voltaic ap-
paratus was constructed'in which the movement of so great a
volume of heat was attained with so low a projectile or inten-
sive force. By it large rods of iron or platinum were ignited
and fused with splendid exhibitions, while the intensity of the
current was so low that hardly a visible spark could be made
to pass by it through poles of carbon. The magnetic effects
were afterward shown by Prof. Henry to be attainable from a
single cell, if combined with suitable conductors. Instead of
Cruikshank's cumbrous battery of alternating zinc and copper
plates, which Davy used in the experiments that resulted in
the discovery of the metallic bases of the alkalies, Hare found
a way of obtaining a corresponding amount of surface and its
resultant power with a single roll of metal, and in 1820 intro-
duced the deflagrator, in which any series, however extended,
could be instantaneously brought into action or rendered pas-
sive at pleasure. This apparatus consists of a large sheet of
copper having several hundred square feet of surface and a
similar one of zinc, separated by a piece of felt or cloth satu-
rated with acidulated water, and then rolled up in the form of
a cylinder. Faraday bore testimony, in his Experimental Re-
searches, to the merit of this invention when, in 1835, he ac-
knowledged that, having worked exhaustively to perfect the
voltaic battery, finding that Hare had anticipated him many
years before, and had accomplished all that he had attempted,
he at once adopted his instruments, as embodying the best re-
sults then possible.

With one of Hare's deflagrators, Prof. Silliman, in 1823,
first demonstrated the volatilization and fusion of carbon, a
result then considered so extraordinary that it was a consider-
able time before it was fully credited. It was with these bat-
teries that the first application of voltaic electricity to blasting
under water was made in 1831 in experiments conducted under
Dr. Hare's direction.

Dr. Hare was also distinguished in chemistry as the author
of a process for denarcotizing laudanum, and of a method for
detecting minute quantities of opium in solution. He was in-
terested, too, in the discussions of philosophical chemistry, as
was most notably shown in the earnestness with which he con-

ROBERT HARE.

179

tested what he conceived were the errors of the salt radical
theory.

He made studies in meteorology, and had a theory of whirl-
winds and storms founded on an electrical hypothesis, which
he opposed to the rotary theory of W. C. Redfield. At the
second meeting of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science he explained his own views on this subject,
while he controverted those of Mr. Redfield. This gentleman
was present and heard his remarks, but made no reply then.
He was not a speaker, and did not address the public except in
writing.

In 1818 Dr. Hare was chosen Professor of Chemistry and
Natural Philosophy in William and Mary College, and in the
same year was made Professor of Chemistry in the medical
department of the University of Pennsylvania. He held the
latter position till 1847. His teachings were marked by the
originality of his experiments and the extent and variety
of the apparatus he employed. He spared no labour or
expense in his operations, and, being a handy mechani-
cian, he was able to bestow much ingenuity in the con-
struction of novel devices for experiment and illustration.
He accumulated instruments and material with astonishing
profusion. To these he added graphic illustrations and
lucid descriptions to make his lectures intelligible and inter-
esting. When he resigned his professorship, he gave all
the apparatus he had accumulated to the Smithsonian In-
stitution.

He was a man of literary tastes, fond of poetry, and himself
wrote verses occasionally. He also sometimes wrote articles
on the political and financial questions of the day, and con-
tributed moral essays to The Portfolio, under the signature of
" Eldred Grayson."

In person he had a robust frame, a large head, and an im-
posing figure and presence.

In his family and among his friends, according to Prof.
Silliman, he was very kind, and his feelings were generous,
amiable, and genial ; yet, in the absence of mind occasioned
by his habitual abstraction, and when absorbed in thought, his
manner was occasionally abrupt. With his keen and active
mind, conversation would sometimes seem to awaken him
from an intellectual reverie. He had great colloquial pow-

l8o PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ers, but to give them full effect it was necessary that they
should be aroused by a great and interesting subject, and the
effect was heightened by the injection of antagonism. He
would then discourse with commanding ability, and his
hearers were generally as ready to listen as he to speak. He
was a man of unbounded rectitude, a faithful friend, and a
lover of his country and its best interests, without thought of
personal emolument or political advancement. He was a volu-
minous scientific writer. For many years his contributions to
the American Journal of Science were more numerous than
those of any other correspondent. The full list of them in-
cludes about one hundred and fifty articles, in forty-eight vol-
umes of that journal, the record of the titles of which occupies
five columns in the General Index of the first fifty volumes.
Besides notices of the various substances he discovered or ex-
perimented with, and descriptions of apparatus, we find among
these articles some that touch the principles of chemical and
physical philosophy — as on the nature of acids and salts ; con-
cerning Faraday's views on atoms ; on chemical nomenclature,

. a subject which is also discussed in a letter to Berzelius; on
some inferences from the phenomena of the spark in Thomp-
son's work on heat and electricity ; on the error that electric

* machines must communicate with the earth; on a new theory
of galvanism ; on the cause of heat ; a reply to Prof. D. Olm-
sted's views on the materiality of heat; Reply to Matter is
Heavy, as demonstrated by W. Whewell ; on meteorological
topics — storms of the Atlantic coast; reviews of Redfield's
theory of storms and of Dove's essay on storms ; an account
of a storm or tornado in Rhode Island, August, 1838, "and
others"; on Causes of Storm, Tornado, and Waterspout;
among accounts of experiments and new methods — blasting
rocks by galvanic ignition ; apparatus for producing ebullition
by cold ; process for fulminating powder, consisting of cyano-
gen and calcium; mode of obtaining the specific gravity of
gases; analysis of gaseous mixtures; method of dividing
glass by friction ; and apparatus for decomposition and re-
composition of water. He was also author of a Brief View of
the Policy and Resources of the United States (1810); Chem-
ical Apparatus and Manipulations (1836) ; Compendium of the
Course of Chemical Instruction in the Medical Department of
the University of Pennsylvania (1840) ; Memoir on the Ex-

ROBERT HARE. jgj

plosiveness of Nitre (1850); and Spiritualism Scientifically
Demonstrated (1855).

He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society, and was
one of the few life-members of the Smithsonian Institution.
He received the honorary degree of M. D. from Yale in 1806
and from Havard in 1816.

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE.

1783-1840.

IT is now more than seventy years since the most learned
of our early naturalists, and the most persistent of travellers,
crossed the Falls of the Ohio and stood on Indiana soil. He
came on foot, with a notebook in one hand and a hickory
stick in the other, and his capacious pockets were full of wild
flowers, shells, and toads. He wore "a long, loose coat of
yellow nankeen, stained yellower by the clay of the roads,
and variegated by the juices of plants." In all respects of
dress, manners, and appearance he would be described by the
modern name of "tramp." Nevertheless, no more remarkable
figure has ever appeared in the annals of America or in the
annals of science. To the writer it has always possessed a
peculiar interest ; and so, for a few moments, I wish to call up
before you the figure of Rafinesque, with his yellow nankeen
coat, " his sharp, tanned face, and his bundle of plants, under
which a peddler would groan," before it recedes into oblivion.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was born in Constantinople
on the 22d of October, in the year 1783. His father was a
French merchant from Marseilles, doing business in Constan-
tinople, and his mother was a German woman, born in Greece,
of the family name of Schmaltz. Rafinesque himself, son of 3
Franco-Turkish father and a Graeco-German mother, was an
American. Before he was a year old his lifelong travels be-
gan, his parents visiting ports of Asia and Africa on their way
to Marseilles. As a result of this trip we have the discovery,
afterward characteristically announced by him to the world,
that " infants are not subject to seasickness." At Marseilles
his future career was determined for him ; or in his own lan-
guage : " It was among the flowers and fruits of that delight
ful region that I first began to enjoy life, and I became a
botanist. Afterward the first prize I received in school was a

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE.

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. ^3

book of animals, and I became a zoologist and a naturalist.
My early voyage made me a traveller. Thus, some accidents
or early events have an influence on our fate through life, or
unfold our inclinations."*

Rafinesque read books of travel, those of Captain Cook, Le
Vaillant, and Pallas especially ; and his soul was fired with the
desire " to be a great traveller like them. . . . And I became
such," he adds tersely. At the age of eleven he had begun a
herbarium, and had learned to read the Latin in which scientific
books of the last century were written. " I never was in a reg-
ular college," he says, " nor lost my time in the dead languages ;
but I spent it in reading alone, and by reading ten times more
than is read in the schools. I have undertaken to read the
Latin and Greek, as well as the Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese,
and fifty other languages, as I felt the need or inclination to
study them." At the age of twelve he published his first scien-
tific paper, Notes on the Apennines, as seen from the back of
a mule on a journey from Leghorn to Genoa. Rafinesque was
now old enough to choose his calling in life. He decided to
become a merchant ; for, said he, " commerce and travel are
linked." At this time came the first outbreaks of the French
Revolution, when the peasants of Provence began to dream of
" castles on fire and castles combustible " ; so Rafinesque's
prudent father sent his money out of France and his two sons,
Constantine and Anthony, to America.

In Philadelphia, it is said, " No one knew where he came
from, no one knew where he went on his return." According
to his own story, Constantine Rafinesque became a merchant's
clerk, and his spare time was devoted to the study of
botany. He tried also to study the birds ; but he says,
" The first bird I shot was a poor chickadee, whose death
appeared a cruelty, and I never became much of a hunter."
During his vacations Rafinesque travelled on foot over parts
of Pennsylvania and Virginia. He visited President Jefferson,
who, he tells us, asked him to call again. In 1805, receiv-
ing an offer of business in Sicily, Rafinesque returned to
Europe. He spent ten years in Sicily — the land, as he sums it

* This and most of the other verbal quotations in this paper are taken
from an Autobiography of Rafinesque, of which a copy exists in the Library
of Congress. A few quotations have been somewhat abridged.

!84 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

up, " of fruitful soil, delightful climate, excellent productions,
perfidious men, and deceitful women." His will, published
fifty years after his death, gives a key to this statement. The
deceitful woman was his wife, Josephine Vaccaro, and the per-
fidious man, the actor Giovanni Pizzalour, with whom she
ran away when Rafinesque left Sicily to resume his American
travels.

It was in Sicily that Rafinesque discovered the medicinal
squill, which, aided by the equally medicinal paregoric, was
once the great specific for all childish ailments. He com-
menced gathering this in large quantities for shipment to Eng-
land and Russia. The Sicilians thought that he was using
it as a dyestuff; "and this," said he, "I let them believe."
Nearly two hundred pounds had been shipped by him before
the secret of the trade was discovered, since which time the
Sicilians have prosecuted the business on their own account.
He began to turn his attention to the animals of the sea,
and here arose his passion for ichthyology. The red-shirted
Sicilian fishermen used to bring to him the strange creatures
which came in their nets. In 1810 he published two works
on the fishes of Sicily, and for our knowledge of very many
of the Mediterranean fishes we are indebted to these Sicilian
papers of Rafinesque. It is unfortunately true, however, that
very little of real gain to science has come through this knowl-
edge. Rafinesque's descriptions in these works are so brief,
so hasty, and so often drawn from memory, that later natural-
ists have been put to great trouble in trying to make them out.
A peculiar, restless, impatient enthusiasm is characteristic of
all his writings — the ardour of the explorer without the pa-
tience of the investigator.*

In Sicily, Rafinesque was visited by the English ornitholo-
gist William Swainson. Swainson seems to have been a great
admirer of " the eccentric naturalist," as he called him. Of
him Rafinesque says : " Swainson often went with me to the
mountains. He carried a butterfly net to catch insects with,
and was taken for a crazy man or a wizard. As he hardly

* Dr. Elliott Coues has wittily suggested that as the words " grotesque,"
" picturesque," and the like are used to designate literary styles, the adjective
" rafinesque " may be similarly employed for work like that of the author now
under consideration.

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. jgij

spoke Italian, I had once to save him from being stoned out
of a field where he was thought to seek a treasure buried by
the Greeks." Rafinesque now invented a new way of distill-
ing brandy. He established a brandy distillery, where, said
he, " I made a very good brandy, equal to any made in Spain,
without ever tasting a drop of it, since I hate all strong liquors.
This prevented me from relishing this new employment, and
so I gave it up after a time."

Finally, disgust with the Sicilians and fear of the French
wars caused Rafinesque, who was, as he says, "a peaceful
man," to look again toward the United States. In 1815 he
sailed again for America, with all his worldly goods, including
his reams of unpublished manuscripts, his bushels of shells,
and a multitude of drawings of objects in natural history. Ac-
cording to his own account, the extent of his collections at that
time was enormous, and from the great number of scattered
treatises on all manner of subjects which he published in later
years, whenever he could get them printed, it is fair to sup-
pose that his pile of manuscripts was equally great. A consid-
erable number of his notebooks, and of papers for which, for-
tunately for scientific nomenclature, he failed to find a pub-
lisher, are now preserved in the United States National Mu-
seum. These manuscripts are remarkable for two things — the
beauty of the quaint French penmanship and the badness of
the accompanying drawings. His numerous notebooks, writ-
ten in French, represent each the observations of a busy sum-
mer ; and these observations, for the most part unchecked by
the comparison of specimens, he prepared for the press during
the winter. To this manner of working, perhaps unavoidable
in his case, many of Rafinesque's errors and blunders are cer-
tainly due. In one of these notebooks I find, among a series
of notes in French, the following remarkable observation in
English : " The girls at Fort Edward eat clay ! " In another
place I find a list of the new genera of fishes in Cuvier's Regne
Animal (1817), which were known to him. Many of these are
designated as synonymous with genera proposed by Rafinesque
in his Caratteri in 1810. With this list is the remark that these
genera of Cuvier are identical with such and such genera "pro-
posed by me in 1810, but don't you tell it ! "

Rafinesque was six months on the ocean in the second
voyage to America. Finally, just as the ship was entering Long
13

!86 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Island Sound, the pilot let her drift against one of the rocks
which lie outside the harbour of New London. The vessel
filled and sank, giving the passengers barely time to escape
with their lives. " I reached New London at midnight," says
Rafinesque, " in a most deplorable situation. I had lost every-
thing— my fortune, my share in the cargo, my collections and
labours of twenty years past, my books, my manuscripts, and
even my clothes — all I possessed, except some scattered funds
and some little insurance money. Some hearts of stone have
since dared to doubt of these facts, or rejoice at my losses.
Yes, I have found men vile enough to laugh without shame at
my misfortunes instead of condoling with me. But I have met
also with friends who have deplored my loss and helped me in
need." It was after this shipwreck that his wife deserted him,
preferring a comedian to a madman, and taking with her his
only daughter, Emily, who became a singer in a Sicilian opera.

I shall pass rapidly over Rafinesque's career until his
settlement in Kentucky. He travelled widely in America — in
the summer always on foot. " Horses were offered me," he
said, " but I never liked riding them, and dismounting for
every flower. Horses do not suit botanists." He now came
westward, following the course of the Ohio, and exploring for
the first time the botany of the country. He came to Indiana,
and for a short time was associated with the community then
lately established by Owen and Maclure at New Harmony, on
the Wabash. Though the New Harmony experiment was a
failure, as all communities must be in which the drone and the
worker alike have access to the honey cells, yet the debt due
it from American science is very great. Although far in the
backwoods, and in the long-notorious county of Posey, New
Harmony was for a time fairly to be called the centre of Amer-
ican science; and even after half a century has gone by, its
rolls bear few names brighter than those of Thomas Say, David
Dale Owen, and Charles Alexander Lesueur.

Rafinesque soon left New Harmony, and became Professor
of Natural History and the Modern Languages in Transylvania
University at Lexington, Kentucky. He was, I believe, the
first teacher of natural history in the West, and his experiences
were those of most pioneers. They would not give him at
Lexington the degree of Master of Arts, he says, " because I
had not studied Greek in a college, although I knew more Ian-

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. ^

guages than all the American colleges united. But it was
granted at last ; but that of Doctor of Medicine was not
granted, because I would not superintend anatomical dissec-
tions." He continues:

" Mr. Holley, the president of the university, despised and
hated the natural sciences, and wished to drive me out alto-
gether. To evince his hatred against science and its discov-
eries he had broken open my rooms in my absence, given one
to the students, and thrown all my effects, books, and collec-
tions into the other. He had deprived me of my situation as
librarian, and tried to turn me out of the college. I took lodg-
ings in town, and carried there all my effects, leaving the col-
lege with curses both on it and Holley, which reached them
both soon after ; for Holley died of yellow fever in New Or-
leans, and the college burned with all its contents."

In one of his summer trips Rafinesque became acquainted
with Audubon, who was then painting birds and keeping a
little " grocery store " down the river, at Henderson, Kentucky.
Rafinesque reached Henderson in a boat, carrying on his back
a bundle of plants which resembled dried clover. He acciden-
tally met Audubon, and asked him where the naturalist lived.
The ornithologist introduced himself, and Rafinesque handed
him a letter from a friend in the East, commending him to Au-
dubon as an " odd fish, which might not be described in the
published treatises." The story of the interview is thus de-
scribed by Audubon :

" His attire struck me as exceedingly remarkable. A long,
loose coat of yellow nankeen, much the worse for the many
rubs it had got in its time, hung about him loosely, 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 part of which was buttoned down over his ankles.
His beard was long, and his lank black hair hung loosely over
his shoulders. His forehead was broad and prominent, indicat-
ing a mind of strong power. His words impressed an assur-
ance of rigid truth ; and as he directed the conversation to the
natural sciences, I listened to him with great delight.

" That night, after we were all abed, I heard of a sudden a
great uproar in the naturalist's room. I got up and opened
the door, when to my astonishment I saw my guest running
naked, holding the handle of my favourite Cremona, the body

1 88 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

of which had been battered to pieces in attempting to kill the
bats which had entered the open window ! I stood amazed ;
but he continued jumping and running around and around
until he was fairly exhausted, when he begged me to procure
one of the animals for him, as he felt convinced that they be-
longed to a new species. Although I was convinced of the
contrary, I took up the bow of my demolished violin, and, giv-
ing a smart tip to each bat as it came up, we soon had speci-
mens enough."

A part of the story of this visit, which Audubon does not
tell, may be briefly related here : Audubon was a great artist,
and his paintings of birds and flowers excited the wonder and
admiration of Rafinesque, as they have that of generations
since his time. But Audubon was something of a wag withal,
and some spirit of mischief led him to revenge the loss of his
violin on the too ready credulity of his guest. He showed him
gravely some ten grotesque drawings of impossible fishes which
he had observed " down the river," with notes on their habits,
and a list of the names by which they were known by the
French and English settlers. These Rafinesque duly copied
into his notebooks, and later he published descriptions of them
as representatives of new genera, such as Pogostoma, Aplocen-
trus, Litholepis, Pilodictis, Pomacampis, and the like.

These singular genera, so like and yet so unlike anything
yet known, have been a standing puzzle to students of fishes.
Various attempts at identification of them have been made, but
in no case have satisfactory results been reached. Many of
the hard things which have been said of Rafinesque's work rest
on these unlucky genera,* " communicated to me by Mr. Au-
dubon." The true story of this practical joke was told me by
the venerable Dr. Kirtland, who in turn received it from Dr.
Bachman, the brother-in-law and scientific associate of Audu-
bon. In the private notebooks of Rafinesque I have since
found his copies of these drawings, and a glance at these is
sufficient to show the extent to which science through him has
been victimized.

* I am informed by Dr. J. A. Allen that there are also some unidentified
genera of herons, similarly described by Rafinesque from drawings kindly
shown him by Mr. Audubon. Apparently these also date from the same un-
lucky practical joke.

CONST ANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. jgg

About this time Rafinesque turned his mind again toward
invention. He invented the present arrangement of coupon
bonds, or, as he called it, " the divitial invention." Savings
banks were projected by him, as well as " steam ploughs,"
"aquatic railroads," " artificial leather," fireproof houses, and
other contrivances which he was unable to perfect. He took
much delight in the study of the customs and languages of the
Indians. In so doing, if the stories are true, he became, in a
way, associated with the origin of Mormonism ; for it is said
that his theory that the Indians came from Asia by way of
Siberia, and were perhaps the descendants of the ten lost
tribes of Israel, gave the first suggestion to Solomon Spaulding
for his book of the prophet Mormon. In any case, whether
this be true or not, it is certain that Rafinesque is still cited as
high authority by the Latter-Day Saints when the genuineness
of the Book of Mormon is questioned.

Rafinesque now returned to Philadelphia, and published
The Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge, Annals of
Nature, and other serials, of which he was editor, publisher,
and usually sole contributor. After a time he became sole
subscriber also — a condition of affairs which greatly exas-
perated him against the Americans and their want of apprecia-
tion of science. He published several historical treatises, and
contemplated a Complete History of the Globe, with all its
contents. An elaborate poem of his, dreary enough, is en-
titled The World; or, Instability. He made many enemies
among the American botanists of his time by his overbearing
ways, his scorn of their customs and traditions, and especially
by his advocacy of crude and undigested though necessary
reforms, so that at last most of them decided to ignore his
very existence. In the words of Dr. Baldwin, "these bota-
nists possessed independence enough to reject the wild effusions
of a literary madman." In those days, in matters of classifi-
cation, the rule of Linnaeus was supreme, and any effort to
recast his artificial groupings was looked at as heretical be-
yond all toleration. The attempt at a natural classification
of plants, which has made the fame of Jussieu, had the full
sympathy of Rafinesque ; but to his American contemporaries
such work could lead only to confusion. Then, again, in
some few of its phases, Rafinesque anticipated the modern
doctrine of the origin of species. That the related species of

190

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

such genera as JKosaJ Quercus, and Trifolium have had a com-
mon origin — a view the correctness of which no well-informed
botanist of our day can possibly doubt — Rafinesque then main-
tained against the combined indignation and disgust of all his
fellow-workers. ** New species and new genera," he said, " are
continually produced by derivation from existing forms."
His writings on these subjects read better to-day than when,
fifty years ago, they were sharply reviewed by one of our then
young and promising botanists, Dr. Asa Gray.

But the botanists had good reason to complain of the ap-
plication of Rafinesque's theories of evolution. To him the
production of a new species was a rapid process — a hundred
years was time enough — and when he saw tendency in diverg-
ing varieties toward the formation of new species, he was eager
to anticipate Nature (and his fellow-botanists as well), and
give it a new name. He became a monomaniac on the subject
of new species. He was uncontrolled in this matter by the in-
fluence of other writers — that incredulous conservatism as to
another's discoveries which furnishes a salutary balance to en-
thusiastic workers. Before his death so much had he seen, and
so little had he compared, that he had described certainly
twice as many fishes, and probably nearly twice as many plants
and shells, as really existed in the regions over which he had
travelled. He once sent for publication a paper seriously de-
scribing, in regular natural history style, twelve new species of
thunder and lightning which he had observed near the Falls of
the Ohio.

Then, too, Rafinesque studied in the field, collecting and
observing in the summer, comparing and writing in the winter.
When one is chasing a frog in a canebrake, or climbing a cliff
in search of a rare flower, he can not have a library and a mu-
seum at his back. The exact work of our modern museums
and laboratories was almost unknown in his day. Science cares
little for information which is not absolutely exact. Then,
again, he depended too much on his memory for facts and de-
tails; and, as Prof. Agassiz used to say, "the memory must
not be kept too full, or it wilt spill over." It is, moreover,
true that Rafinesque was very severe on other botanists, who
repaid his scorn with generous interest. One example will
serve, as told by Dr. Meehan. An interesting plant was found
on the Wissahickon, near Philadelphia. Dr. Kuhn, a former

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. igi

pupil of Linnaeus, was giving botanical lectures there. He
sent the plant to his master, who named it Kuhnia. Rafi-
nesque made this comment : " Kuhn was but a poor botanist,
and hardly deserved to have so fine a plant named for him.
He did not find the plant, but only took it to Linnaeus, who was
flattered because his students gave the first botanical lectures
in America; but Kuhn has written nothing."

Thus it came about that the name and work of Rafinesque
fell into utter neglect. His writings, scattered here and there
in small pamphlets, cheap editions published at his own ex-
pense, had been sold as paper-rags, or used to kindle fires for
those to whom they were sent, and late authors could not find
them. His Ichthyologia Ohiensis, once sold for a dollar, is now
quoted at fifty dollars, and although it has been my fortune to
be reviewer and re-editor of this work and to show its claims
for a place in modern science, I have seen but two copies of it.
The restoration of Rafinesque to his proper place in ichthy-
ology is a thankless but necessary piece of work which some
fourteen years ago fell to my lot. It has been the fortune of
Prof. E. L. Greene, of the University of California, to fix Rafi-
nesque's place in American botany. In the absence of means
to form a just opinion of his work, it became the habit to pass
him by with a sneer, as the " inspired idiot, . . . whose fertile
imagination has peopled the waters of the Ohio." Until lately,
only Prof. Agassiz * has said a word in mitigation of the harsh
verdict passed on Rafinesque by his fellow-workers and their
immediate successors. Agassiz says, very justly :

" I am satisfied that Rafinesque was a better man than he
appeared. His misfortune was his prurient desire for novelties,
and his rashness in publishing them. . . . Tracing his course
as a naturalist during his residence in this country, it is plain
that he alarmed those with whom he had intercourse by his
innovations, and that they preferred to lean upon the authority
of the great naturalist of the age (Cuvier), who, however, knew
little of the special history of the country, rather than to trust
a somewhat hasty man who was living among them, and who

* So early as 1844 Prof. Agassiz wrote to Charles Lucien Bonaparte: "I
think that there is a justice due Rafinesque. However poor his descriptions,
he first recognised the necessity of multiplying genera in ichthyology, and this
at a time when the thing was far more difficult than now."

I92

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

had collected a vast amount of information from all parts of
the States upon a variety of subjects then entirely new to sci-
ence."*

Prof. Herbert E. Copeland has said :

" To many of our untiring naturalists, who sixty years ago
accepted the perils and privations of the far West to collect
and describe its animals and plants, we have given the only
reward they sought — a grateful remembrance of their work.
Audubon died full of riches and honour, with the knowledge
that his memory would be cherished as long as birds should
sing. Wilson is the * father of American ornithology,' and his
mistakes and faults are forgotten in our admiration of his
great achievements. Lesueur is remembered as the 'first to
explore, the ichthyology of the great American lakes.' La-
bouring with these, and greatest of them all in respect to the
extent and range of his accomplishments, is one whose name
has been nearly forgotten, and who is oftenest mentioned in
the field of his best labours with pity and contempt."

Dr. Goode, still later, has said : " Perhaps the time has not
yet come when full justice can be done to the memory of Con-
stantine 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 prime, he far surpassed his American con-
temporaries in versatility and comprehensiveness of grasp.
He lived a century too soon. His spirit was that of the pres-
ent period. In the latter years of his life, soured by disap-
pointments, he seemed to become unsettled in his mind ; but
as I read the story of his life his eccentricities seem to me the
outcome of a boundless enthusiasm for the study of Nature."

"I have often been discouraged," Rafinesque says, "but I
have never despaired long. I have lived to serve mankind,
but have often met with ungrateful returns. I have tried to
enlarge the limits of knowledge, but have often met with jeal-
ous rivals instead of friends. With a greater fortune, I might
have imitated Humboldt or Linnaeus."

It is doubtless true that while, as Prof. Agassiz has said,
Rafinesque "was a better man than he appeared," and while
he was undoubtedly a man of great learning and of greater

* Agassiz, American Journal of Science and Arts, 1854, p. 354.

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. ^3

energy, his work does not deserve a high place in the records
of science. And his failure seems due to two things : first, his
lack of attention to details, a defect which has vitiated all of
his work ; and, second, his versatility, which led him to attempt
work in every field of learning. As to this, he says him-
self:*

" It is a positive fact that in knowledge I have been a bota-
nist, naturalist, geologist, geographer, historian, poet, philoso-
pher, philologist, economist, philanthropist ; by profession a
traveller, merchant, manufacturer, brewer, collector, improver,
teacher, surveyor, draughtsman, architect, engineer, pulmist,
author, editor, bookseller, librarian, secretary, and I hardly
know what I may not become as yet, since, whenever I apply
myself to anything which I like, I never fail to succeed, if de-
pending on myself alone, unless impeded or prevented by the
lack of means, or the hostility of the foes of mankind."

But a traveller Rafinesque chiefly considered himself ; and
to him all his pursuits, scientific, linguistic, historical, were but
episodes in a life of travel. Two lines of doggerel French were
his motto :

" Un voyageur des le berceau,
Je le serai jusqu'au tombeau."

" A traveller from the cradle,
I'm a traveller to the tomb."

On the medal granted him by the French Geographical So-
ciety is another motto, evidently original with him :

" De Linne
Le Ge*nie
II a choise pour guide."

" The spirit of Linnaeus he chose as his guide."

From this medal, which he hoped would remain as the pride
of his family and successors, long since turned as old gold into
the United States Mint, the only known portrait of Rafinesque
has been taken.

Long before the invention of railroads and steamboats he
had travelled on foot tens of thousands of miles over most of
southern Europe and eastern North America, when eastern
North America was as new as Zululand is now. Without money,

* American Naturalist, 1876.

194 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

except as he earned it, he had gathered shells and plants and
fishes on every shore from the Hellespont to the Wabash.

Concerning one element of Rafinesque's character I am
able to find no record. If he ever loved man or woman, except
as a possible patron and therefore aid to his schemes of travel,
he himself gives no record of it. He speaks kindly of Audu-
bon ; but Audubon had furnished him with specimens and
paintings of flowers and fishes. He speaks generously of Clif-
ford, at Lexington ; but Clifford had given him an asylum
when he was turned out of the Transylvania University. No
woman is mentioned in his Autobiography except his mother
and sister, and these but briefly. His own travels, discoveries,
and publications filled his whole mind and soul. Were it not
for his will, recently discovered and published by Thomas Mee-
han, nothing would have been known of his family or children.
From this will we learn that his son, Charles Linnaeus Rafinesque,
died in 1815. His wife, in the same year, married a comedian,
who squandered his property, and who was supported by the
earnings of the daughter, Emily Rafinesque, who was a singer
in the Palermo theatre.

In his will he says, " I leave my immortal soul to the Crea-
tor of the Universe, the Supreme Ruler of millions of worlds
soaring through space, to be sent to whatever world he may
deem fit, according to his wise laws." His body he left to be
burned, not to contaminate the earth. " My ashes, if they can
be collected," he says, I wish deposited in an urn to be kept
with my collections."

His property, consisting of inventions and specimens, was
to be divided between his sister, his daughter, and a school
for orphan girls on the plan of Girard College.

These plans were not carried out, for his sister died before
him ; his daughter seems to have entered no claim ; the inven-
tory of the sales of his herbarium and books as waste paper,
the sale by auction of his black bottles, boxes, and demi-
johns, clothing, gold medal, and all, shows that after all was
paid and the executor and cataloguer had received their per-
centage, Rafinesque was still indebted to the world in the sum
of thirteen dollars and forty-three cents.

Rafinesque died in Philadelphia, in 1840, at the age of fifty-
six. He had lived obscurely in miserable lodgings; for his
dried plants, and his books, published at his own expense,

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. ^5

brought him but a scanty income. His scientific reputation
had not reached his fellow-lodgers, and his landlord thought
him "a crazy herb doctor." He died alone, and left no visible
assets ; and his landlord refused to allow his friends — such
friends as he had — to enter the house to give him a decent
burial. He wished to make good the unpaid rent by selling
the body to a medical college. At night, so the story goes,
Dr. Bringhurst, who had studied botany with Rafinesque, got
a few friends together, broke into the garret in which the body
had been locked, and let it down out of the window by a rope.
Then they carried it away and buried it in a little churchyard
outside the city limits. This place has lately been identified
as Ronaldson's Cemetery, on the corner of Ninth and Catharine
Streets. Which was his grave we know not, for in the growth
of Philadelphia the whole cemetery has been almost obliterated
and forgotten.

American naturalists have greater honour now than fifty
years ago. Rafinesque died unnoticed, and was buried only by
stealth. A whole nation wept for Agassiz. But a difference
was in the men as well as the times. Both were great natural-
ists and learned men. Both had left high reputations in Eu-
rope to cast their lot with America. Agassiz's great heart
went out toward every one with whom he came in contact ;
but Rafinesque loved no man or woman, and died, as he lived,
alone. If some one who loved him had followed him to the
last, it might have been with Rafinesque as with Albrecht
Diirer : " l fimigravit* is the inscription on the headstone where
he lies." But there was no one; and there is neither head-
stone nor inscription, and we know not even the place where
he rests after his long journey.

The last recorded words of Rafinesque were these : " Time
renders justice to all alike " ; and to the justice of time we may
leave him.

JAMES POLLARD ESPY.

1785-1860.

METEOROLOGY is one of the youngest of the sciences.
Most of what is settled and systematized has been developed
within the memory of men who are still living. The contribu-
tions of Americans to research in this branch have been among
the most important. Of the earlier labours in this field none
deserve or have received wider recognition than those of Prof.
Espy. He may, indeed, be regarded with justice as the founder
of the science as at present cultivated in relation to storm pre-
dictions.

James P. Espy was born in Westmoreland County, Pa., May
9, 1785, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 24, 1860. While
he was still an infant his father moved to the Blue Grass region
of Kentucky ; but, on finding the institution of slavery antag-
onistic to the principles inherited from his Huguenot ancestry,
he removed after a few years to the Miami Valley in Ohio.
One of his daughters had in the meantime married a Kentuck-
ian of Mount Sterling, and James, remaining with this sister
for the sake of the opportunity, became, at eighteen years
of age, a student in Transylvania University, at Lexington.
Here he was visited in 1805 by an elder brother, who was en-
gaged in the practice of the law in Pennsylvania, who wrote of
him : " I met my brother James, whom I had not seen since he
was an infant. I found him at the university, where he had
made considerable progress in the dead languages and in gen-
eral science. He shows an ardent desire for knowledge, and
promises to be both intelligent and useful." He was graduated
in 1808, and went to Xenia, Ohio, where he taught school and
studied law. Of this part of his career, Mrs. L. M. Morehead,
his niece, in her Few Incidents * of his life, says that " his

* A Few Incidents in the Life of Prof. James P. Espy, by his Niece, Mrs.
L. M. Morehead, Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.

196

JAMES P. ESPY.

JAMES POLLARD ESPY. Igy

love for teaching amounted to enthusiasm, and, although he
completed his law studies, he finally abandoned the idea of
choosing the law as his profession, and determined to follow
the bent of his inclination, and become a conscientious in-
structor of youth." To his latest years " he considered this a
noble profession, and even in old age was fond of drawing out
young students to talk over their lessons with him, both hear-
ing them and asking them questions." Either before or after
this — the authorities differ — he filled creditably and satisfac-
torily the position of principal of the academy at Cumberland,
Md., where he married Miss Margaret Pollard, who afterward
gave him her full sympathy and encouragement in his meteoro-
logical researches. She was physically delicate and, although
younger than her husband, died ten years before him. They
had no children.

In 1817 Mr. Espy became a teacher in the classical depart-
ment of the Franklin Institute, a position in which, according
to Prof. Dallas Bache, he became known as " one of the
best classical and mathematical instructors in Philadelphia,
which at that day numbered Dr. Wylie, Mr. Sanderson, and
Mr. Crawford among its teachers. Impressed by the researches
and writings of Dalton and of Daniell on meteorology," Prof.
Bache continued, in a eulogy before the Regents of the Smith-
sonian Institution, " Mr. Espy began to observe the phenomena
and then to experiment on the facts which form the ground-
work of the science. As he observed, experimented, and
studied, his enthusiasm grew, and his desire to devote himself
exclusively to the increase and diffusion of the science finally
became so strong that he determined to give up his school,
and to rely for the means of prosecuting his researches upon
:his slender savings and the success of his lectures, probably
the most original which have ever been delivered on this
subject. His first course was given before the Franklin Insti-
tute of Pennsylvania, of which he had long been an active
member, and where he met kindred spirits, ready to discuss the
principles or the applications of science, and prepared to ex-
tend their views over the whole horizon of physical and me-
chanical research. As chairman of the Committee on Meteor-
ology, Mr. Espy had a large share in the organization of the
complete system of meteorological observations carried on by
the Institute under the auspices and within the limits of the

198

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

State of Pennsylvania." Mrs. Morehead quotes from the ac-
count of a friend who visited him in Philadelphia a description
of Prof. Espy's method of pursuing his atmospheric calcula-
tions, which necessarily had to be carried on out of doors. The
high fence inclosing the small yard was of smooth plank, paint-
ed white, while the space inclosed was filled with vessels of
water and numerous thermometers for determining the dew-
point. The white fence, when last seen by the narrator, was
so covered with figures and calculations that not a spot re-
mained for another sum or column. Prof. Espy's theory of
storms was first developed in successive memoirs in the Jour-
nal of the Franklin Institute, containing discussions of the
changes of temperature, pressure, and moisture of the air, and
of the direction and force of the wind, and other phenomena
attending remarkable storms in the United States and on the
ocean adjacent to the Atlantic and Gulf coast. "Assuming
great simplicity," says Prof. Bache, " as it was developed, and
founded on the established laws of physics, and upon ingenious
and well-directed experiments, this theory drew general atten-
tion to itself, especially in the United States. A memoir sub-
mitted anonymously to the American Philosophical Society of
Philadelphia gained for Mr. Espy the award of the Magellanic
premium in the year 1836, after a discussion remarkable for
ingenuity and closeness in its progress, and for the almost per-
fect unanimity of its result."

In 1840 Prof. Espy, by invitation, visited England for the
purpose of explaining his theory of storms before the British
Association. He presented it, in an elaborate paper, in Sep-
tember, 1840, Prof. Forbes being the presiding officer of the
meeting, after which it was subjected to a lively discussion, in
which some of the most eminent British scientific men of the
day took part, some sustaining it and some presenting objec-
tions to it. He afterward visited Paris, and presented a com-
munication to the Academy of Sciences. The committee to
whom the communication was referred, consisting of MM.
Arago, Pouillet, and Babinet, at the conclusion of their report,
admitted that the memoir " contains a great number of well-
observed and well-described facts. His theory in the present
state of science alone accounts for the phenomena, and when
completed, as Mr. Espy intends, by the study of the action of
electricity when it intervenes, will leave nothing to be desired.

JAMES POLLARD ESPY.

In a word, for physical geography, agriculture, navigation,
and meteorology, it gives us new explanations, indications
useful for ulterior researches, and redresses many accredited
errors. The committee expresses, then, the wish that Mr.
Espy may be placed by the Government of the United States
in a position to continue his important investigations, and to
complete his theory, already so remarkable, by means of all
the observations and all the experiments which the deductions
even of his theory may suggest to him in a vast country,
where enlightened men are not wanting to science, and which
is, besides, the home of those fearful storms. The work of
Mr. Espy causes us to feel the necessity of undertaking a re-
trospective examination of the numerous documents already
collected in Europe, to arrange them, and draw from them de-
ductions which they can furnish, and more especially at the
present period, when the diluvial rains which have ravaged the
southeast of France have directed attention to all the possible
causes of similar phenomena. Consequently, the committee
proposes to the Academy to give its approbation to the labours
of Mr. Espy, and to solicit him to continue his researches,
and especially to try to ascertain the influence which elec-
tricity exerts in these great phenomena, of which a complete
theory will be one of the most precious acquisitions of modern
science."

This report was incorporated in full in the introduction to
The Philosophy of Storms — " not merely," as the author says
with characteristic independence of opinion, " for the purpose
of showing the reader that I have the highest authority on my
side — for I do not submit to authority myself — but to exhibit
a beautiful analysis of my theory by three of the most dis-
tinguished philosophers in Europe. As a matter of authority,
however, I should be justified in bringing forward the report
to rebut authority. It had been sneeringly said before a large
audience, by a distinguished professor, that I had failed to
convince men of science of the truth of my theory, and that I
had appealed to the people, who are incapable of judging. It
became, therefore, necessary to obtain authority against au-
thority."

The origin of the studies upon which the theory of storms
is based is traced in the opening paragraph of the Philosophy
to the result described by Dalton, that the quantity of vapour

200 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

in weight, existing at any time in a given place, could be deter-
mined by means of a thermometer and a tumbler of water cold
enough to condense on its outs.ide a portion of the vapour in
the air. "It occurred to me at once," Prof. Espy says, "that
this was the lever with which the meteorologist was to move
the world. I immediately commenced the study and exami-
nation of atmospheric phenomena, determined to discover, if
possible, what connection there is between rain and the quan-
tity of vapour in the atmosphere." Prof. Espy prefaced his
paper in the British Association by saying that he had found,
by examining simultaneous observations in the middle of storms
and all round their borders, that the wind blows inward on all
sides of a storm toward its central parts ; toward a point if the
storm is round, and toward a line if the storm is oblong, ex-
tending through its longest diameter. The theory is, in brief,
that every atmospheric disturbance begins with the ascension
of air that has been rarefied by heat. The rising mass dilates,
and, as its temperature falls, precipitates vapour in the form
of clouds. Owing to the liberation of the latent heat, the dila-
tation continues with the rising till the moisture of the air form-
ing the upward current is practically exhausted. The heavier
air flows in beneath, and, finding a diminished pressure above
it, rushes upward with constantly increasing violence. The
great quantity of aqueous vapour precipitated during this
atmospheric disturbance gives rise to heavy rains. Much of
this theory still holds good ; but it has been found that the
motion of the wind in storms is rotary.

Besides his explanation and proofs of this theory, Prof.
Espy presented to the British Association a paper on Four
Fluctuations of the Barometer. The theory was more fully
elaborated in The Philosophy of Storms, which was published
in a large octavo volume by Little, Brown & Co., Boston, in
1841, and was re-enforced by detailed descriptions of a large
number of storms occurring on the land and the ocean, the
course of which the author had been able to follow and study
with considerable accuracy. It also contained his answers to
the criticisms which had been made against his theory in the
British Association and elsewhere by prominent men of science
and rival meteorologists. In it, furthermore, he defended his
theory that storms could be produced by large fires making
local disturbances in the equilibrium of temperature, whence

JAMES POLLARD ESPY. 2OI

follow ascending currents, cloud, and rain. He spent much
effort in trying to secure an experimental demonstration of this
scheme, and made unsuccessful petitions to Congress and the
Legislature of Pennsylvania for appropriations to enable him
to carry them out on an adequate scale. The scheme was not
regarded as practicable, and he became the object of some
ridicule for his enthusiasm — to which he replied in his book
with the self-possession of a man who believes to the full in
his purposes: "Gentlemen have made their puns on this
project, and had their laugh: and I am sorry to see, by let-
ters which I have received, that my friends and relations at a
distance are much troubled by these innocent laughs ; but let
them be consoled: I have laughed too, well knowing that
those who laughed the most heartily would be most willing to
encourage the experiment as soon as they discovered they had
nothing to laugh at. As a proof that I was right in this antici-
pation, I may be permitted to say that I have lately received
a letter from a highly distinguished member of the American
Legislature,* who laughed as heartily as any one when my
petition was presented them, containing many kind expres-
sions, and promising me, by way of amends for his levity, to
avail himself of the earliest opportunity of being better in-
formed on the subject of my new philosophy. Such conduct
as this is all I want ; I fear not the strictest scrutiny." The
same confident spirit is exhibited in his letter to his superior in
the War Department, suggesting a second year of employment
in the official study of storms, and which is given in facsimile
on the following page.

In 1843 Prof. Espy was given a position in the War Depart-
ment, where he could pursue his investigations in atmospheric
currents and disturbances, and receive reports from distant
points of observation. He instituted a service of daily weather
reports, out of which our present Signal-Service system has
grown ; and, on the basis of this enterprise, as Mrs. Morehead
relates in her book, Prof. Henry once remarked to her that
there was no question in his mind that " Prof. Espy should be
regarded as the father of the present Signal Service of the
United States, his Theory of Storms having led the way to its
establishment and present success." Prof. Henry added that

* Hon. J. J. Crittenden.

202 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the charts now used in the service were identical (with some
modifications) with those that the " Old Storm King " constructed
for use in the Meteorological Bureau of the War Department

.f>-i~. SO .

/?**>•*.

when he was at its head. A similar acknowledgment was made
by General Myer. Prof. Espy was for several years a regent
of the Smithsonian Institution, and was brought into close re-
lations and friendship with Prof. Henry. On the occasion of

JAMES POLLARD ESPY. 203

his death, Prof. Bache pronounced his eulogy in the Board of
Regents, and the regents passed memorial resolutions, one of
which describes him as " one of the most useful and zealous of
the meteorologists co-operating with the Institution, whose
labours in both the increase and diffusion of knowledge of
meteorology have merited the highest honours of science at
home, and have added to the reputation of our country
abroad."

Prof. Espy delivered many lectures in the towns, cities, and
villages of the United States, explaining his theories and the
results of his observations. These efforts were very success-
ful, and, according to Prof. Bache, by their originality attract-
ed more attention to his views than could have been obtained
in any other way. " He soon showed remarkable power in ex-
plaining his ideas. His simplicity and clearness enabled his
hearers to follow him without too great effort, and the earnest-
ness with which he expressed his convictions carried them
away in favour of his theory." He was also remarkably suc-
cessful in gaining the sympathy of public men, and, through
them, in obtaining from the Government continued opportuni-
ties for study, research, and the comparison of observations.
His reports to the Surgeon-General of the Army, to Congress,
and to the Secretary of the Navy, are mentioned as among his
latest efforts in this direction.

Prof. Espy is charged with the one scientific defect that,
with his deep conviction of the truth of his theory, and the
enthusiasm it fed in him, he could not pass beyond a certain
point in its development, and for the same reasons his deduc-
tions were often unsafe. He was not prone to examine and
re-examine premises and conclusions, but considered what had
once been passed upon by his judgment as finally settled.
" Hence his views did not make that impression upon cooler
temperaments among men of science to which they were en-
titled, obtaining more credit among scholars and men of gen-
eral reading in our country than among scientific men, and
making but little progress abroad." But, toward the close of
his life, he was induced, by the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, to re-examine the various parts of his theories,
and to insert in his Fourth Report, while it was going through
the press, an account of his most mature views.

Prof. Espy thought much on subjects of mental and moral

2O4

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

philosophy, and after his death his relatives in Cincinnati pub-
lished his short Treatise on the Will, which is described as em-
bodying some original and striking ideas.

Personally, according to Prof. Bache, " Prof. Espy was emi-
nently social, full of bonhomie and enthusiasm, easily kindling
into a glow by social mental action. In the meetings and free
discussions of a club formed for promoting research, and espe-
cially for scrutinizing the labours of its members, and of which
Sears C. Walker, Prof. Henry, Henry D. Rogers, and myself
were members, Mr. Espy found the mental stimulus that he
needed, and the criticism which he courted, the best aids and
checks to his observations, speculations, and experiments.
But there was one person who had more influence upon him
than all others besides, stimulating him to progress, and urg-
ing him forward in each step with a zeal which never flagged —
this was his wife." Mrs. Morehead says that " he never seemed
impatient or concerned at the slow recognition of his discov-
eries as means of practical use in commerce or other national
needs. He would say, ' I leave all this to the future, sure
that its adaptation to the uses of life must one day be seen and
acknowledged.' "

THOMAS NUTTALL.

THOMAS NUTTALL.

1786-1859.

IT has often happened that a young man who has begun
life as a printer has afterward attained to distinction in some
more intellectual pursuit. So it was with Benjamin Franklin,
and so it was with him whose story is now to be told. Whether
this is due to the information which the young printer obtains
from the matter constantly passing through his hands, or
whether it is because the most intellectual of the young men
who learn a mechanical trade take to printing, it would be
difficult to say. The fact only need be noted here.

Thomas Nuttall was born in 1786, in the market town of
Settle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. His parents
were probably in humble circumstances, for at an early age
he was apprenticed to the printer's trade, either in his native
town or in Liverpool. In the latter place he had an uncle en-
gaged in this business, for whom he worked as a journeyman
several years ; then, having had a disagreement with him, young
Nuttall went to seek employment in London. He was not for-
tunate in the metropolis, and sometimes went to bed with-
out knowing where he would get his breakfast the next
morning.

When twenty-two years of age he came to America, land-
ing in Philadelphia. He must have devoted a large part of
his spare moments to study during his early life, for he has
been described on his arrival in this country as a well-informed
young man, knowing the history of his country and somewhat
familiar with some branches of natural history and even with
Latin and Greek. A testimony to his early studious habits
came to notice sixteen years later. It is thus recorded in the
biographical notice of Nuttall, read by Elias Durand before
the American Philosophical Society, which has been taken as
the basis of this article:

2o6 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

"When, in 1824, Prof. Torrey was preparing for publica-
tion his Flora of the Northern and Middle States, which he
dedicated to his friend Thomas Nuttall, with high compli-
ments, the printer who was engaged upon it asked the pro-
fessor who was that Nuttall so frequently referred to in his
work, adding that he had once worked with a printer of that
name, who spent the greatest part of his time reading
books, and he would not be surprised if he were the same
man. Prcf. Torrey rejoined that 'his surmise was correct;
the printer of former times had proved a most arduous
labourer in the field of science, and was now a distinguished
botanist and an officer of one of the first scientific institu-
tions of the country.' "

That Nuttall knew nothing of botany when he landed in
the United States is shown by an anecdote that he used to tell
of himself. Taking a walk in the outskirts of Philadelphia
the morning after his arrival, he noticed a common greenbrier
(Smilax rotundi folia). " Egad ! " said he to himself, " there is
a passion-flower"; and he plucked some branches of it, which
he brought home for inquiry. His fellow-boarders could not
satisfy him, but referred him to a certain Prof. Barton, a great
botanist, whose residence was near. With his treasured branch
in his hand, Nuttall called at once upon Prof. Benjamin S.
Barton, who received him courteously and pointed out the dif-
ference between the genera Smilax and Passiflora. Then, per-
ceiving the intelligence of the young man, Prof. Barton went
on to tell him some of the general principles of botany and
how much pleasure could be derived from its pursuit. This
conversation made Nuttall a botanist, and Barton became his
friend and patron. It was then early spring, and throughout
the season of flowers he took frequent rambles over the neigh-
bouring fields, eagerly gathering specimens, which he brought
to Barton, studying them with him and preparing them for the
herbarium. Soon he began to extend his excursions, going first
down into the lower part of the peninsula between the Dela-
ware and Chesapeake Bays, and later to the coasts of Virginia
and North Carolina. When occupied with his favourite pur-
suit, serious discomfort could not distract him. At one time,
while collecting in the southern swamps, his face and hands
became covered with mosquito bites, so that when he ap-
proached a human habitation the people of the house would

THOMAS NUTTALL. 2O?

not at first admit him, believing that he had the smallpox,
and it was with great difficulty that he convinced them of the
contrary.

Returning from this trip, he made the acquaintance of Mr.
John Bradbury, a Scotch naturalist, who had come to America
to collect objects of natural history in the interior. Nuttall
eagerly offered to accompany Bradbury, and his proposition
was accepted. Proceeding to St. Louis, they set out from that
city on the last day of December, 1809, crossed the Kansas and
Platte Rivers, passed through the Mandan villages, where
Lewis and Clarke had spent the winter of i8o4-'o5, and as-
cended the Missouri River still higher, returning after an ex-
perience full of the greatest fatigues and dangers. They were
pursued and robbed by the Indians, and Bradbury, who was
captured by them, only saved himself from being killed by
taking his watch to pieces and distributing the works among
them. Nuttall, overcome by fatigue and hunger in the wilder-
ness, laid himself down to die, but was found by a friendly In-
dian, who took him in his canoe down the Missouri to the first
settlement of white men. In spite of these misadventures, he
was able to bring with him on his return, in the beginning
of 1811, ample treasures of seeds, plants, minerals, and other
natural objects.

For the next eight years he remained in Philadelphia, dur-
ing the winter months studying the collections made by him in
summer excursions to various parts of the country east of the
Mississippi, from the Great Lakes to Florida. Being absorbed
in his studies and naturally reserved, Nuttall's social inter-
course was limited. The families of the botanists and horti-
culturists of the time in Philadelphia — Prof. Barton, Zaccheus
Collins, Reuben Haines, McMahon, from whom he named his
genus Mahonia^ William Bartram, and Colonel Carr — were
almost his only acquaintances. To these he made visits, often
of several days, from time to time. In Colonel Carr's house a
room was expressly reserved for him. During this period he
prepared also the descriptions for his Genera of the North
American Plants. Upon this work, which appeared in 1818,
the reputation of Mr. Nuttall as a botanist principally rests.
Prof. Torrey, in the preface to his Flora, declared that it had
"contributed more than any other work to the advance of the
accurate knowledge of the plants of this country." Nuttall

208 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

turned his early trade to account by setting the type for the
greater part of his book.

In 1817 Mr. Nuttall, already a Fellow of the Linnsean Society
of London, was elected a member of the American Philosoph-
ical Society at the same meeting with Say and Schweinitz. He
was made a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia in the same year, and began to pub-
lish essays in the journal of the academy. Among his earliest
contributions was a description of Collinsia, a new genus of
plants, named in honour of his friend and patron, Z. Collins.

Nuttall had long desired to visit the Arkansas country, and
soon after his American Plants was published Messrs. Correa
de Serra, Z. Collins, William Maclure, and John Vaughan pro-
cured him the means of performing this long journey. Start-
ing from Philadelphia on October 2, 1818, he reached the
mouth of the Arkansas River about the middle of January and
Port Bellepoint on April 24th. Thence he made expeditions
in several directions, returning with abundant collections. He
was on one of these trips in the middle of August, when, ex-
hausted by long and difficult marches, made under the rays of
a burning sun and in constant dread of the Indians, having
suffered from thirst, insufficient food, and exposure to the
night dews, he was seized with a violent fever among the
Osage tribe. The Indians robbed him of his effects and even
threatened his life, but he finally reached the garrison at Belle-
point, where he remained sick until the middle of October.
He made one more trip and then set out for home, reaching
New Orleans February 18, 1820. He had then in sixteen
months made a journey of more than five thousand miles,
mainly over a country never visited before by scientific ex-
plorers, and still in the undisputed possession of the Indians.

Getting back to Philadelphia early in the spring of 1820, he
immediately set about arranging his Arkansas collections and
preparing his Journey into the Interior of Arkansas in 1818
and 1819, which he published in the following year. In the
course of the years 1820 to 1822 he contributed several
memoirs to the Journal of the Academy of Natural Science,
among them being one On the Serpentine Rocks of Hoboken
and the Minerals which they Contain, for he was giving some
attention to mineralogy at this time. He also lectured on
botany to classes of young men. His lecturing was not re-

THOMAS NUTTALL. 2OQ

markable for eloquence, but he always communicated to his
pupils something of his own passion for his favourite
science.

At the end of 1822 Mr. Nuttall was called to Harvard Col-
lege. The fund of the college for a professorship of natural
history not being sufficient to support a professor, he was ap-
pointed merely Curator of the Botanic Garden, and but light
duties of instruction were assigned to him. In consequence
the greater part of his time was devoted to the culture of rare
plants and to* his own studies, in which mineralogy and orni-
thology were included. In Cambridge, as in Philadelphia, he
led a retired life.

In editing the Letters of Asa Gray Mrs. Gray remarks:
"The garden was laid out by Dr. Peck in 1808, and the house
built for him was finished in 1810. Mr. Nuttall, the botanist
and ornithologist, who boarded in it while giving instruction
in botany, left some curious traces behind him. He was very
shy of intercourse with his fellows, and having for his study
the southeast room, and the one above for his bedroom, put in
a trapdoor in the floor of an upper connecting closet, and so
by a ladder could pass between his rooms without the chance
of being met in the passage or on the stairs. A flap hinged
and buttoned in the door between the lower closet and the
kitchen allowed his meals to be set in on a tray without the
chance of his being seen. A window he cut down into an outer
door, and with a small gate in the board fence surrounding the
garden, of which he alone had the key, he could pass in and
out safe from encountering any human being."

Aware that he was doing little for science, Mr. Nuttall be-
came dissatisfied with his position at Cambridge; he used to
say that he was only vegetating, like his own plants. Con-
genial occupation was furnished him for a time by the sug-
gestion of Mr. James Brown, who was probably his only inti-
mate friend in Cambridge, that he write a. book on ornithol-
ogy. He had given more or less attention to this science dur-
ing almost the whole of his residence in America, and readily
adopted the suggestion. He set to work with great zeal, and
in 1832 produced his Manual of the Ornithology of the United
States and Canada. It was published in two volumes of about
six hundred pages each and illustrated with excellent wood-
cuts. In the course of his residence at Cambridge he contrib-

210 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

uted papers to the various scientific periodicals of the time, and
issued a little book entitled An Introduction to Systematic and
Physiological Botany.

About the beginning of 1833 Mr. Nuttall went to Philadel-
phia with a collection of plants gathered by Captain Wyeth
during a journey overland to the Pacific Ocean. Captain
Wyeth was soon to start on a second expedition, to establish
posts for the Columbia Fishing and Trading Company, and
Nuttall wished to accompany him. Not being able to obtain
a sufficiently long leave of absence from Cambridge, he re-
signed his position at the college and spent the interval be-
fore the departure of the expedition in Philadelphia studying
the collection already referred to and his own Arkansas plants.

Mr. Nuttall and Mr. John K. Townsend, a young natural-
ist sent out jointly by the American Philosophical Society and
the Academy of Natural Sciences, joined Captain Wyeth's party
at Independence, Mo., from which place the start was made
April 28, 1834. The details of the journey are given in Town-
send's Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains
to the Columbia River, etc. On September 3d they came to
the Columbia, and, descending it, reached Fort Vancouver.
Here the two naturalists remained for the rest of the autumn
to explore the surrounding region. Then desiring to pass the
winter months where inclemency of the season would not in-
terfere with their pursuits, they took passage on a Boston brig
for the Sandwich Islands, where they arrived January 5,

1835-

Here for the first time Mr. Nuttall enjoyed the beauties of

a tropical vegetation. He remained two months collecting
plants and seashells on the several islands, and then, separat-
ing from his companion, sailed for California. He spent a
great part of the spring and summer on the Pacific coast, then
returned to the Sandwich Islands, where he embarked on a
Boston vessel to come home by way of Cape Horn. It hap-
pened to be the ship on which Mr. Dana was serving his " two
years before the mast," and the latter relates in his book that
when rounding Cape Horn Nuttall's passion for flowers was
aroused by the near view of land. He entreated the captain to
put him ashore, if only for a few hours, that he might become
acquainted with the vegetation of this dreary spot, although
the wind was blowing furiously and the ship was surrounded

THOMAS NUTTALL. 2II

with icebergs. When his persistent requests were sternly
refused he was much disappointed and displeased, being
unable to comprehend such indifference to the cause of
science.

He arrived in October, 1835, and again took up his abode
in Philadelphia to work up the rich treasures gathered on his
long journey. For several years he and Dr. Pickering worked
harmoniously together at the Academy of Natural Sciences —
the former on his own collections, the latter on the Schweinitz
herbarium. Two important memoirs based upon the fruits of
the trip across the continent were published about 1840 in the
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Con-
chology was a new subject of study to Nuttall, and he became
much absorbed in it. He did not trouble himself much about
his meals when at work, and Dr. Pickering would often return
after an hour's absence from the academy hall in the middle
of the day and find him stooping over a case of shells in the
same place and position as when he left him.

Nuttall was a remarkable looking man. His head was very
large, bald, and bore the signs of a vigorous intellect ; his fore-
head was expansive, but his features small, and his gray eyes
looked out from under fleshy brows. His complexion was fair,
and sometimes very pale from close application to study and
lack of exercise. He was above medium height, his person
stout, with a slight stoop, and his walk peculiar and mincing,
resembling that of an Indian.

He was naturally shy and reserved, but, if silent and per-
haps morose in the presence of those toward whom he felt no
attraction, yet with congenial companions he was communica-
tive and agreeable. It will readily be surmised that his devo-
tion to science frequently led him into actions that were
strangely at variance with the circumstances of the moment.
In one of his solitary digressions in the wilderness he got lost.
The party he was with resumed its march, sending out some
friendly Indians to find him and bring him to rejoin it. The
Indians performed their duty faithfully. Looking upon him,
however, as a great medicine man, they were afraid to come
close to him, so they surrounded him, keeping at a respectful
distance. Nuttall soon became aware that he was watched by
savages, and, not knowing whether they were friends or foes,
became intensely alarmed. From what he had already ex-

212 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

perienced at their hands he had the utmost horror of Indians.
Therefore hiding himself, and taking advantage of every
ravine, every tree and bush, he succeeded in regaining the
track of the caravan, which he followed for three days without
food or sleep, when, to his infinite delight, he overtook it and
was relieved from his anxieties.

On another occasion he was rambling in the vicinity of the
camp when a band of Indians, apparently hostile, made its ap-
pearance. The alarm was immediately given, with orders to
prepare for an expected attack. Nuttall was nowhere to be
seen, and a friend ran in search of him. It was not long
before he perceived the naturalist at some distance, quietly
examining a specimen. He hailed him with signs to return
quickly. " We are going to have a brush with the Indians,"
said his friend ; " is your gun in good order ? " Alas ! the gun
had been freely used to uproot plants, and was filled with earth
to the muzzle. Had Nuttall fired it in this condition it would
inevitably have burst in his hands and killed or severely
wounded him.

On his journey to the Pacific the caravan separated into
two parties to cross the Rocky Mountains by different routes.
One of the parties had the good fortune to meet with plenty of
buffalo cows, upon whose meat they became fat. The other,
to which Nuttall belonged, suffered much from fatigue, and
found scarcely anything to eat except a few lean grizzly bears.
When the parties reunited, Nuttall had lost so much flesh that
his old companions could scarcely recognise him. Upon one
of these expressing his surprise at the great change in his ap-
pearance, he heaved a sigh of inanition and retorted, " Yes,
indeed, you would have been just as thin as myself if, like me,
you had lived for two weeks upon old Ephraim (grizzly bear),
and on short allowance of that too ! "

At Christmas, 1841, Nuttall returned to England, where he
resided for the remaining seventeen years of his life. An uncle
who had prospered in business, having no family of his own,
bequeathed to him an estate called Nutgrove, in the neighbour-
hood of Liverpool. A condition attached to the bequest was
that Nuttall should reside in England at least nine months of
the year for the rest of his life. He had been thirty-four
years in the United States and become much attached to
this country, so that, although he had visited England in 1811

THOMAS NUTTALL.

and 1822, returning to reside permanently in the land of his
birth seemed to him like going into exile. He therefore hesi-
tated for some time to accept the inheritance, but considera-
tion for his sisters and their families finally induced him to
take it. Becoming a British landed proprietor did not make
Mr. Nuttall wealthy. The Nutgrove estate was encumbered
with annuities, besides which there was a heavy income tax to
pay. Dr. Pickering and other American friends who visited
him found him living in the fashion of a plain farmer, working
and eating with his men like one of them. But his interest in
botany was not allowed to die out. He made use of the
opportunity which the possession of ample grounds afforded
for the cultivation of rare plants, especially rhododen-
drons, which his nephew, Mr. Thomas J. Booth, brought
him from the mountains of Assam and Butan. Various
new species of these were described by him in British scien-
tific journals.

Shortly before leaving the United States Nuttall was in-
duced to write a supplement to Michaux's Sylva in three vol-
umes. In the beautifully written preface to the work his own
wanderings are vividly sketched. Owing to various delays the
edition was not issued till 1846.

Nuttall returned only once to America. As he could not
be absent more than three months in any one year, he took the
last three months of 1847 and the first three of 1848 — not a
very desirable season for a botanist's outing. Nevertheless, he
managed to do some congenial work. He studied at the Phila-
delphia Academy the plants brought by Dr. William Gamble
from the Rocky Mountains and Upper California, and prepared
a paper on them which was published in the journal of the
academy.

His death occurred on September 10, 1859. In his eager-
ness to open a case of plants received shortly before from Mr.
Booth he overstrained himself, and from that time steadily de-
clined until he died. Through his love of Nature, joined with
untiring industry and great firmness of purpose, he had raised
himself from the condition of an unknown artisan to the fore-
most rank of American men of science. No student begins
upon the study of systematic botany without being struck by
the frequency with which his name is met. His friends and
colleagues, Profs. Torrey and Gray, have testified to their ap-

214 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

preciation by attaching his name to a beautiful genus of the
Rosacea. Elias Durand said of him immediately after his
death : " No other explorer of the botany of North America
has personally made more discoveries ; no writer on American
plants, except perhaps Prof. Asa Gray, has described more new
genera and species."

r Mr, MAS SAY.

THOMAS SAY.

1787-1834.

Ac ACT we torn toward l\miifliimi aad a Quaker family
to trace the extraction of an American pioneer of science.

Thomas Say, the father of American entomology, was born
in Philadelphia, July 27, 1787. His great-grandfather, William
Say, was an early Quaker mfaw* His grandfather, who had
the same name as the naturalist, followed the calling of an
apothecary. He helped to found the Pennsylvania Hospital,
and was prominent in other philanthropic undertakings. When
a young man he supposed that he visited heaven in a trance.
An account of this vision and other matters was published by
his son, Dr. Benjamin Say, who succeeded him in the apothe-
cary business. The son was equally public-spirited with his
father. In 1781, the year after taking his medical degree, his
name is found among those of the " fighting Quakers," who
were disowned by the general body of the Friends for their ac-
tive sympathy with the military operations of the colonists in
the Revolution, Dr. Say was a founder of the College of Phy-
sicians, of Philadelphia, and its treasurer for eighteen years.
He was a contributor to the Pennsylvania Hospital, a founder
of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, and for many years Presi-
dent of the Humane Society. He served in Congress from 1808
to 1811.

The naturalist was a son of Dr. Benjamin Say and his wife
Anna, daughter of Benjamin Ronsall, of Kingsessing. William
Bartram was still living at the famous botanic garden at King-
sessing during Thomas Say's boyhood, and Thomas with other
boys was enlisted by a family connection in gathering natural
curiosities for Bartram's museum. This pursuit young Say
found very congenial

At an early age the boy was placed in a boarding school
under the control of the Friends, but he did not take kindly to

m

2i6 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the instruction there provided, and acquired nothing but a
most intense dislike for his teachers and for all ordinary
branches of study. We are justified in ascribing this antipathy
on his part to the incompetency of the instructors, for in
after years Say showed an ability and a desire to learn which
only the most repressing circumstances could have checked in
his youth. As he had no predilection for any of the learned
professions, young Say, after leaving school, was placed for a
time behind the counter of his father's shop. After he had
acquired some knowledge of the drug business, his father
established him in trade with John Speakman. Through
Speakman, who was a member of the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences of Philadelphia, Say was induced to join the society, and
with this act he began a life of science which has left its im-
press on every branch of natural history.

The academy was founded early in 1812, and Say, who was
elected to membership in April of that year, was enrolled as
one of the founders by a vote of the society. His first at-
tendance at a meeting was on April i6th. What was his sur-
prise, on entering the temple of science, to find the whole col-
lection of specimens consisting of " some half a dozen common
insects, a few madrepores and shells, a dried toadfish, and a
stuffed monkey ! — a display of objects of science calculated
rather to excite merriment than to procure respect." In fact,
the academy was largely a social organization. This is shown
by its first constitution, the preamble of which recites that, " con-
sidering that the expense of obtaining and preserving in a
suitable place and conveniently for perusal and use the many
important periodical publications and scientific papers of the
lettered world, with the requisite collections and apparatus for
repeating notable experiences and following up in due series
experiments for the elucidation of remarkable physical truths,
an expense that esocietarily might demand the fortune of a
prince, but which in a society where gratuitously many are
capable of rendering to the general interest without injury to
their professional distribution of time essential services, and
many competent to fill indispensable offices without detriment
to their private concerns, may be defrayed by a most trifling
pecuniary contribution," they had determined to establish this
society. With the advent of Say to membership this was
soon changed, and the academy took its place among the

THOMAS SAY.

217

scientific bodies of the world, a place which it has since
occupied.

Long before entering the academy, Say had acquired a
familiarity with the forms of beetles and butterflies, but without
reducing his knowledge to systematic order. Now, on joining
a scientific society, he began those investigations on the Amer-
ican fauna which only ceased with his death. In the second
year of his membership he gave a series of original lectures on
the elements of entomology. His partner, Speakman, fully
sympathized with his passion for Nature, and willingly did the
labour of both in the shop, so that Say might devote all his time
and energies to his favourite studies. However, this com-
fortable arrangement did not last long.

" Through indorsement for unfortunate friends," says Dr.
Ruschenberger, in his Notice of the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences, " the firm and business of Speakman & Say were at an
end ; and it is related of these servants of science that they
retained scarcely anything for themselves ; and that Mr. Say
gave to those to whom they had become debtors by indorse-
ment the contents of his pocketbook and even the loose
change in his purse. After this he resided in the hall of the
academy, where he made his bed under the skeleton of a horse,
and fed himself on bread and milk ; occasionally he cooked a
chop or boiled an egg; but he was wont to regard eating as an
inconvenient interruption to scientific pursuits, and often ex-
pressed a wish that he had been made with a hole in his side in
which he might deposit, from time to time, the quantity of
food requisite for his nourishment. He lived in this manner
several years, during which time his food did not cost, on
an average, more than twelve cents a day." Had he, like
Thoreau, given an account of his life at this time, it would
have been a highly interesting chapter.

In 1816 he projected a work on American entomology, and
in the next year six plates and the accompanying text were
printed, but, from a lack of proper pecuniary support, the
project for the time fell through, and the work was not prop-
erly published until a later date. In 1817 William Maclure
was elected president of the academy. Through his efforts and
those of several other men of influence and property who had
joined the society, the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences of Philadelphia was started, and Say began his long
15

2i8 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

series of contributions to knowledge. No complete list of his
papers has been published, but the number aggregates nearly
one hundred.

In 1818 Say, in company with William Maclure, George
Ord, and Titian R. Peale, visited Georgia and Florida on a
collecting expedition, and in the next year Say received an
appointment as naturalist on Long's expedition to the Rocky
Mountains, with Peale as an assistant. Long's expedition left
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in May, on a steamboat built for the
purpose, and proceeded as far as Council Bluffs, Iowa, where
they spent the winter. During the next year they went to the
Rocky Mountains, and, returning toy another route, broke up
at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in November. Say appears to
have been unfortunate on this expedition. At one time he
was in charge of a party of five, making a trip on foot, when
the packhorse broke loose, and they lost both horse and bag-
gage. Later, in charge of another party, he fell in with a
number of Kansas Indians, and again lost horses, baggage,
and camp equipments. The narrative of Long's expedition
was published in two octavo volumes and folio atlas (Philadel-
phia, 1823), and some of Say's descriptions of the animals and
" animal remains found in a concrete state " were given in foot-
notes scattered through both volumes.

After the disruption of the party, Say, in company with one
or two others, went to New Orleans, and soon returned to
Philadelphia. His next journey was with Long's second expe-
dition, which explored the sources of the Mississippi River;
but, with the exception vof this and one or two minor trips,
the next few years were spent in Philadelphia. His share in
Long's two expeditions included, besides his own specialty,
various matters having little or no connection with this. He
was the historian of all classes of facts collected by the detach-
ments under his command ; in the second expedition he made
the whole of the botanical collection ; and, although not a
philologist, he obtained the vocabulary of the Killisteno lan-
guage.

In 1825 Say left his native city, never to return. William
Maclure, who was a man of wealth and refinement, but con-
siderably eccentric withal, had an idea that the " community
system " was the true way of living, and, unlike some other
dreamers, he proceeded to put his plans into execution. He

THOMAS SAY.

219

joined Robert Owen in his famous scheme, a large tract of
land was purchased at New Harmony, Indiana, and there the
community was started. His plan included a college of sci-
ence in which Say was to be one of the instructors. Num-
bers of people, influenced by the arguments of the projectors
and the glowing accounts of the happy life to be led by a
people possessing all things in common and working for a
common good, removed themselves and theirs to this mod-
ern Utopia. The community, however, did not prosper; in-
ternal dissensions, as might have been expected, sprang up,
and the aid of the courts was invoked. Maclure, utterly dis-
gusted, went to Mexico, and left Say at New Harmony as his
agent, to attend to the settling of the affairs of the community.
This was not an agreeable task, but, without other means of
support, Say was obliged to accept, and continued in this posi-
tion until his death. This stay at New Harmony was not a
period of scientific idleness on the part of Say, as the numer-
ous contributions which proceeded from his pen attest. Say's
maltreatment of his stomach was continued in the West, and
doubtless weakened his constitution. In one of Maclure's let-
ters has been found the statement that for a considerable time
these two men lived on six cents a day each.

At his death his collections and library came into the pos-
session of the Philadelphia Academy. The insects were sub-
mitted to another entomologist for arrangement, but through
an unpardonable neglect were allowed to go to complete ruin
before their return to the academy, and the types of hundreds
of species were thus irrevocably lost. The remainder of his
type specimens are as religiously preserved with his own labels
as are those of Linne" and Fabricius in London, or of Herbst in
Berlin. The number of new species which Say described has
probably never been exceeded, except in the cases of those
two exceedingly careless workers, John Edward Gray and
Francis Walker, of the British Museum. There is this in Say's
favour, which can not be said of the two just mentioned, that
his descriptions are, almost without exception, easily recog-
nised, and almost every form which he described is now well
known. Working as he did without books, and without that
traditional knowledge which obtains among the Continental
workers, it was unavoidable that he should redescribe forms
which were known before ; but, owing to the clear insight he

220 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

possessed, and the discrimination he exercised in selecting the
important features of the form before him, his work has never
caused that confusion in synonymy which many in much more
favourable circumstances have produced.

Say's work was almost wholly the scientific description of
the forms which came under his eye, and there is scarcely any-
thing in his writings concerning the habits of animals, or which
appeals in the slightest to the popular taste. Having been
intolerant of literary studies in his youth, he never attained
to a happy command of language. An extract from his Amer-
ican Entomology will illustrate this : " During the progress
of Major Long's expedition up the Missouri, that enterprising
and excellent officer intrusted me with the direction of a small
party of thirteen persons, destined to explore the country on
the south side of that extended river. After encountering
many obstacles and privations, which it is unnecessary to enu-
merate, the party arrived at the village of the Konza Indians,
hungry, fatigued, and out of health. Commiserating our situ-
ation, these sons of Nature, although suffering under the injus-
tice of white people, received us with their characteristic hos-
pitality, and ameliorated our condition by the luxuries of re-
pletion and repose. Whilst sitting in the large earth-covered
dwelling of the principal chief, in presence of several hundred
of his people, assembled to view the arms, equipments, and
appearance of our party, I enjoyed the additional gratification
to see an individual of this fine species of Blaps running
toward us from the feet of the crowd. The act of impaling
this unlucky fugitive at once conferred upon me the respectful
and mystic title of ' medicine man ' from the superstitious faith
of that simple people."

Say's two principal works, published separately, were his
American Entomology in three volumes (Philadelphia, 1824-
1828), with fifty-four coloured plates ; and his American Con-
chology, of which only six parts appeared previous to his death.
Two volumes of the former appeared before the author went
to New Harmony and a third volume three years after; it was
then left uncompleted. The work on entomology was a credit
to himself and to the printer, while almost the only merit pos-
sessed by the latter work was the fine plates from the pencil
of Mrs. Say. Mr. Say's other published papers will be found
in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila-

THOMAS SAY. 221

delphia, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,
Maclurean Lyceum, Nicholson's Encyclopaedia, American Jour-
nal of Science and Art, Western Quarterly Reporter, reports
of Long's expeditions, and several papers which were published
separately at New Harmony. His entomological papers have
been collected and reprinted, with annotations, by Dr. John L.
Le Conte, in two octavo volumes (New York, 1869). He was a
foreign member of two English learned societies — the Linnaean
and the Zoological.

Besides the work which appears in connection with his own
name, almost all of the publications of Prince Charles Lucien
Bonaparte, while in America, were corrected and arranged for
the press by Say. This and other work made such calls upon
his time that nearly all of his own work was the product of the
midnight hours; and this, in connection with his wicked disre-
gard of the demands of his stomach, so undermined his con-
stitution that, when attacked by a fever in his Western home,
he had not the strength to rally, and on October 10, 1834, he
passed away.

According to the testimony of all who knew him, Mr. Say
was a most pleasant and agreeable companion, a thorough
student, and a man of the most unpretentious manner. Al-
ways ready to assist a friend, his stores of knowledge were
freely opened to those who asked, and information was cheer-
fully granted to all inquirers. He was tall and spare of habit,
somewhat muscular, with a dark complexion, and black hair.
Two portraits in oil in the possession of the academy repre-
sent a face of more than average attractiveness. While at
New Harmony he married Miss Lucy W. Sistare, of New York,
who survived him. She was a highly cultured woman and an
excellent artist. She had the distinction of being the first
woman ever admitted to membership in the Academy of
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, although many have been
elected since.

A marked feature of Say's character was his modesty,
which was almost excessive. It led to habits of retirement
and in some respects unfitted him for the intercourse of gen-
eral society. His distrust of his own powers was a perpetual
barrier to material advancement. He declined a professor-
ship of natural history on the plea that he would not be able
to lecture satisfactorily. WThen Dr. Baldwin, the botanist and

222 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

historian of Major Long's first expedition, died, Say refused
the opportunity, which his commander offered him, of continu-
ing the journal of the expedition, alleging that he was incom-
petent for this responsible employment. His sister and step-
mother, who survived him, bore strong testimony to his do-
mestic virtues. The soul of honour himself, he had the strong-
est aversion to deceit or dishonesty in others, yet he had so
little insight into character that the most barefaced impostor
would have little difficulty in securing his confidence.

WILLIAM CRANCH BOND.

WILLIAM CRANCH BOND.

1789-1859.

IN seconding the obituary resolutions of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences on the first director of the Har-
vard College Observatory, ex-President Quincy used these
words : " It is not too much to say that the extent of his
knowledge, the winning urbanity of his manners, and his ex-
emplary exactness in life and as an observer, in a great de-
gree effected the attainment of those large means and increased
powers which ultimately raised to its present prosperous state
the observatory over which through subsequent life he watched,
and which he left at death honoured and improved by his
labours and genius." Let us briefly trace the career which
could deserve such a testimonial.

William Cranch Bond was born in Portland, Me., Septem-
ber 9, 1789, being the youngest son in a family of several chil-
dren. His parents, Hannah (Cranch) and William Bond, were
natives of England and were married there. The Bond family
can be traced to the time of William the Conqueror, by whom
Brandon Manor is said to have been granted to the contem-
porary ancestor of that line. William Bond was born in Plym-
outh, and became a clockmaker and silversmith. Having been
induced to emigrate to America, he located at Portland, then
called Falmouth, and engaged in cutting ship timber which he
sent to England. In a short time he brought over his family,
but the timber business not proving successful, he removed to
Boston in 1793 and took up again his former occupation. His
shop stood on one of the two corners of Milk and Marlboro
(now Washington) Streets, the other being occupied by the Old
South Church. William C. Bond was then a Boston boy from
the age of four years. He had little opportunity to attend
school, for the circumstances of the family, as he afterward
told Josiah Quincy, " obliged me to become an apprentice to

224

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

my father before I had learned the multiplication table." But,
judging from his later achievements, young William must have
been the kind of boy that picks up knowledge, so his lack of
set schooling was not so great a misfortune as it might
seem.

His eldest sister described him as having been, at the age
of fourteen, " a slender boy with soft gray eyes and silky brown
hair, quick to observe, yet shrinking from notice, and sensi-
tive to excess." She adds, in reference to his early developed
tastes : " The first that I remember was his intense anxiety
about the expected total eclipse of the sun of June 16, 1806.
He had then no instrument of his own, but watched the event
from a house top on Summer Street through a telescope be-
longing to Mr. Francis Gray, to which somehow he got access.
In so doing he injured his eyes, and for a long time was troubled
in his vision."

An elder brother writes of him at this early period, " He
was the mildest and best-tempered boy I ever knew, and his
remarkable mechanical genius showed itself very early." He
adds that in devising and making bits of apparatus that boys
use in their sports, William was chief among his comrades.
Before he was fifteen years old he had constructed at odd
times a reliable shop chronometer. He had no model to go
by, but made it after a description of an instrument used by
La Perouse, the navigator, which he had found in an old
French book. Not having a suitable spring to put into it, he
contrived to run it by weights. About a year later he made
a good working quadrant out of ebony and boxwood, the best
materials he had. His son, George Phillips Bond, has thus
described this instrument : " It is no rude affair, but every
part, especially the graduation, the most difficult of all, shows
the neatness, patience, and accuracy of a practised artist. A
better witness to the progress he had already made in astron-
omy could not be desired. It is all that the materials would
admit of, and proves that he must have been, even then, irrev-
ocably devoted to astronomy."

About the time he became of age his father took him into
partnership, and the clock-making business was expanded to
include the rating, repairing, and making of chronometers.
The first seagoing chronometer constructed in America was
made by him in 1812. It at once went into service, and satis-

WILLIAM CRANCH BOND.

225

factorily stood the test of a voyage to and from the East Indies.
In 1810 the Bonds removed their business to Congress Street,
and the family took up its abode in Dorchester.

Mr. Bond regarded his watching of the eclipse when he was
seventeen years of age as the event that determined his pur-
suit of astronomy. Certain it is that he never afterward aban-
doned it. Five years later he came under the notice of older
astronomers, and in this way : Prof. John Farrar, of Harvard
College, having caught sight of a comet on September 4, 1811,
watched its subsequent progress and published a paper on it in
the memoirs of the American Academy. Dr. Nathaniel Bow-
ditch, of Salem, to whom he communicated this discovery, did
the same, and the comet was watched also by others. Before
presenting his paper to the academy, Prof. Farrar learned that
young Bond had seen the comet in the preceding April. He
mentioned this fact in the account of his own observations and
added the following notes, with which, he says, Mr. Bond had
" obligingly favoured " him :

"I remarked on the 2ist of April a faint, whitish light near
the constellation Canis Major projecting a tail about one de-
gree in length, and set down its place as follows : right ascen-
sion, 106°; declination, 7° or 8° south. Its motion and the
situation of its tail convinced me that it was a comet. I noticed
it several times in May, and supposed that its motion was
toward the western part of the constellation Leo."*

These observations on the comet brought the young chro-
nometer-maker the acquaintance of scientific men and facili-
ties for his favourite pursuit. Up to this time his observations
had been made with the rudest appliances. The elder brother
already quoted says of these early days : " I suppose it would
cause the astronomer royal to laugh could he see the first
transit instrument used by us at Dorchester — a strip of brass
nailed to the east end of the house, with a hole in it to see a
fixed star and note its transit; this in 1813. When we moved
into the Hawes house, he procured a good granite block ; we
dug a deep hole and placed it at the west end of the house,

* Much of the material here employed is derived from a historical sketch
of the Harvard College Observatory, prepared by Mr. Daniel W. Baker, which
first appeared as a series of newspaper articles, and was afterward reprinted in
pamphlet form as one of the official publications of the observatory.

226 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

and got Mr. Alger to cast a stand for the transit instrument,
a small one, which I think belonged to Harvard College. From
this time he began to live among the stars."

Bond's sister also gives an account of the setting up of the
first telescope used by him at Dorchester, and says that through
it could be seen the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn.
She adds that in the pursuit of astronomy " he had had no
assistance whatever, except from the genial kindness of Hon.
Josiah Quincy, who had early recognised the future astronomer
in the unpretending boy in the watchmaker's shop on Congress
Street, and whose kindness and encouragement never failed
throughout the subsequent years."

The obstacles in the path of the young astronomer were
now rapidly removed. The leading men of science in Boston
and vicinity gave him their aid and counsel. " He has men-
tioned," writes his son, " the names of Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch,
Prof. Farrar, and Tutor Clapp as those from whom he received
most encouragement to continue the cultivation of astronomy.
Upon his friendly intercourse with the eminent mathematician
and astronomer first named he often dwelt with peculiar pleas-
ure and warmth of feeling."

Although instruction in astronomy had been given and
astronomical observations had been made by the Professor of
Natural Philosophy at Harvard for a century or more, the col-
lege had not as yet been able to erect an observatory. In 1805
John Lowell, uncle of the founder of the Lowell Institute, had
obtained from Delambre in Paris advice as to a building and
its equipment. But nothing further was done at that time.
Ten years later the 'college authorities took up the subject
anew and appointed a committee to form a plan for an observ-
atory. Mr. Bond was then about to make a trip to England,
and his friends Farrar and Bowditch procured for him a com-
mission as agent of the college to obtain information as to the
construction and instrumental equipment of the observatory
at Greenwich, and to make such drawings as would be needed
in constructing an observatory for the college. He was re-
quested also to obtain from the makers the prices of instru-
ments like the principal ones used at Greenwich. " He per-
formed the service," says the writer of the sketch above re-
ferred to, " and reported in detail in the following year. That
nothing practical came of iff or a quarter of a century was not

WILLIAM CRANCH BOND.

227

owing to the will but, comparatively speaking, to the poverty
of the college.

" This result followed, however, that, upon his return, Mr.
Bond constructed the model of an astronomical dome, the
operative plan of which was the same as that of the great dome
built in 1844, and which has been in satisfactory use at Cam-
bridge to the present time. The chief peculiarity of its
mechanism is in the method of rotation by means of smoothly
turned spheres of iron. The dome rests on these at equidis-
tant points, and, being set in motion by suitable gearing, the
iron balls sustaining its weight roll along a level, circular track
of iron, the circumference of which is equal to that of the
dome. The method was unlike that previously in use. It ap-
pears to have been original with Mr. Bond, as is perhaps
evinced by a remark in his report for 1848 referring to the
matter : * If carefully examnied, it will be found that this
arrangement is as perfect in theory as it is appropriate and
convenient in practice.' Experience has shown that spheres
of hard bronze are more serviceable than those of iron, and
bronze is now used."

While Mr. Bond was abroad, he married, July 18, 1819, his
cousin, Selina Cranch, of Kingsbridge, in Devonshire. Return-
ing home, he went to live in Dorchester near his father's resi-
dence in a house which he bought. On these premises he
erected, about 1823, a small wooden building which he care-
fully equipped for astronomical observations. This building
is the one mentioned in the official reference to the " observa-
tory at Dorchester " found in various publications. Its posi-
tion, as given,by Mr. Bond in 1833, was o° 3' 15* east of Har-
vard Hall in Cambridge.

Mr. Bond now advanced rapidly in his favourite pursuit.
"As soon as his circumstances permitted," writes his son, "he
imported more perfect apparatus from Europe, and continued
to add to his collection until it was the best in the country."
In his little observatory "no eclipse or occultation escaped
him, though occupied in business during the day in Boston."
After gathering for several years materials for investigating
the comparative rates of chronometers at sea and on shore, he
presented a paper to the American Academy in which he
effectually disposed of the scientific question involved, so far
as it related to the interests of navigation. Mr. G. P. Bond,

228 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

who records this, states that his father investigated also the
influence of changes of temperature in the presence of large
surfaces of iron upon the performance of chronometers, and,
"although the conclusions arrived at were at variance with the
opinions of men high in authority in such matters, they are
now known to be correct."

About this time the Navy Department sent out the Wilkes
Exploring Expedition, the purpose of which in part was to
establish the latitudes and longitudes of uncharted places in
distant parts of the world where American commerce was ex-
tending, and in part to investigate natural phenomena, includ-
ing the facts of terrestrial magnetism. In connection with
this expedition, Mr. Bond was engaged to make at his private
observatory investigations to fix a zero of longitude, whence
final reference to Greenwich might be had, and to make a con-
tinuous record of magnetic observations at Dorchester for
comparison with like records obtained at distant points by the
expedition itself. As preliminary to the latter work Mr. Bond
tested the magnetic instruments with which the expedition was
to be equipped.

Josiah Quincy, who had given Mr. Bond early encourage-
ment, was now President of Harvard College. It occurred to
him, to use his own words, " that if Mr. Bond could be induced
to transfer his apparatus and residence to Cambridge and pur-
sue his observations there, under the auspices of the university,
it would have an important influence in clearing the way for
the establishment of an efficient observatory in connection with
that seminary."

There was little inducement for Mr. Bond to make the
change. His business was prosperous and his home life among
friends and neighbours whom he had known for years was very
pleasant. The college could offer him no salary — only the
use of a house. In his excessive modesty he feared that the
arrangement proposed would arouse great expectations that he
with the facilities at his command would be unable to satisfy.
He made other objections, but all were overcome, and on No-
vember 30, 1839, he entered into a contract with the college
corporation, agreeing to make the transfer as proposed. A
subscription was at once raised for fitting up a dwelling owned
by the college to be occupied by Mr. Bond. This building,
known as the Dana House, was the first observatory of Har-

WILLIAM CRANCH BOND.

229

vard College. It still stands upon its original site at the south-
east corner of what are distinctively called the college grounds,
and is remembered by many Harvard graduates as the resi-
dence for a term of years of the Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody. Its
cupola was placed upon it to accommodate one of Mr. Bond's
telescopes, and at that time was suitably domed.

Mr. Bond's chief work at Cambridge for the first two or
three years was a continuation and extension of his observa-
tions for the Navy Department in regard to the earth's mag.

FIG. 4.— THE DANA HOUSE. First observatory of Harvard College.

netism. He was assisted by his son, W. C. Bond, Jr., whose
death in 1842 was regarded as a loss to science. Renewed ex-
ertions were now made to secure an adequate observatory and
set of instruments. The site was purchased in 1841. A bril-
liant comet that appeared in 1843 furnished a favourable occa-
sion for raising a subscription. The best telescope that could
be produced in Europe, a refractor of fifteen inches aperture,
equatorially mounted, was ordered from Merz & Mahler, of
Munich, and ground was broken for a pier for it in the sum-
mer of the same year. In September, 1844, the instruments
were removed from the Dana House to the new observatory,
and Mr. Bond entered upon a series of observations for deter-
mining the latitude and longitude of the new station.

230

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Mr. Bond's first recorded observation in Cambridge was of
date December 31, 1839, and his appointment as director of
the observatory dates from February 12, 1840. During the
first eight years of his connection with Harvard College he is
to be regarded as a benefactor rather than an employee of the
institution. The official report for 1846 states that up to that
time the labours of Mr. Bond had been " entirely unrequited,
except by the gratification of his love of science and of home,"
and suggests that this devotion to the institution at Cambridge
was the more marked in that during the preceding spring he
had declined " the almost unlimited offers made to him by the
administration at Washington to induce him to take charge of
the observatory there." It is known also that frequent ex-
penditures of his own money were made during this period for
current expenses and for things convenient in conducting the
observatory — sums small severally, no doubt, but consider-
able in the total. In 1846 a sum equal to the proposed salaries
for the next two years was subscribed by citizens of Boston,
and in 1849 the official board was able to report that " through
a bequest of one hundred thousand dollars made by Edward
Bromfield Phillips they should thereafter be relieved from
anxiety as to the payment of salaries and current expenses."

The fifteen-inch equatorial was set up in June, 1847, and has
done splendid service for now nearly half a century. At last
the skill of Prof. Bond was furnished with a fitting implement.
In reply to an inquiry from Edward Everett, who had become
president of the college the year before, Prof. Bond wrote speci-
fying several interesting things that could be seen with it, and
ended by saying : " But I must recollect that you require of me
only a brief account of our telescope. The objects revealed
to us by this excellent instrument are so numerous and inter-
esting that it is difficult to know where to stop." In a subse-
quent letter he wrote to the president, " You will rejoice with
me that the great nebula in Orion has yielded to the powers
of our incomparable telescope." Besides this and other nebulae
the planet Saturn was an early subject of investigation. On
September 19, 1848, Prof. Bond discovered the eighth satellite
of this planet, which long remained the only addition to the
solar system made on the continent of America.

When Bond was determining the position of the Harvard
Observatory, Commodore Owen, of the British navy, was mak-

WILLIAM CRANCH BOND. 231

ing an official survey in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
The latter, desiring to use the observatory as his zero point,
co-operated with Bond in making a transfer of twelve chro-
nometers to and from Greenwich, England. Afterward other
chronometer expeditions were conducted by Bond in co-opera-
tion with the United States Coast Survey, the final one being
in 1855. In the summing up of results, seven hundred and
twenty-three independent chronometer records were used.
The magnitude of this undertaking, as a whole, surpassed any-
thing ever attempted in any other country.

As early as 1848 Prof. Bond mentions, in his report as
director of the observatory, some experiments with the daguer-
reotype and talbotype processes for obtaining pictures of the
sun, which, though encouraging, could hardly be called suc-
cessful. But in his report for 1850 he is able to say: "With
the assistance of Mr. J. A. Whipple, daguerreotypist, we have
obtained several impressions of the star Vega. We have rea-
son to believe this to* be the first successful experiment ever
made either in this country or abroad." Some daguerreo-
types of the moon and certain stars were exhibited in the
World's Fair of the following year at London, and received a
council medal.

The inventive skill which won success for Bond as an artisan
appears in certain astronomical appliances and methods devised
by him. The great telescope is poised thirteen feet above the
floor of the observatory's dome. It has a vertical sweep of
more than ninety degrees, and can, of course, make a complete
revolution about its axis of support. An observer would evi-
dently have to be something of an acrobat to use it success-
fully, unless a suitable chair could be obtained. There was
none in the world that filled all the requirements, so Prof.
Bond invented and made one. It is in use unchanged to this
day, and by means of its ingeniously combined wheels, cogs,
and pulleys the observer can quickly and easily place himself
anywhere along the vertical quarter-circle and horizontal full-
circle traversed by the eyepiece of the telescope.

Certain experiments for determining differences of longi-
tude by the aid of the telegraph were undertaken by the Coast
Survey in 1848, Prof. Bond being one of the special assistants
whose services were secured for this work. While engaged
in these experiments the idea occurred to him, as it had to

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE.

1791-1872.

THE inventor of the telegraph ! From Franklin to Edison
no American has won so much honour from scientific achieve-
ments as he. Doubtless the wondrous character of the works
wrought by these three men is due to the fact that they all
dealt with the still mysterious though now familiar force elec-
tricity. Morse's life, indeed, seemed a continuation of Frank-
lin's, for he was born but little over a mile from the Ameri-
can philosopher's birthplace and but little over a year after
he died.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born at the foot of Breed's
Hill, in Charlestown, Mass., now a part of Boston, April 27,
1791. His earliest paternal ancestor in this country was An-
thony Morse, who came from Wiltshire, England, and settled at
Newbury, Mass. In the sixth generation from Anthony was
Jedediah Morse, D. D., father of Samuel. He was pastor of
the First Congregational Church in Charlestown, author of the
American Geography and a Gazetteer of the United States,
and was very active in the work of establishing religious and
benevolent institutions, such as the Andover Theological Sem-
inary, the American Board of Foreign Missions, the American
Bible Society, the American Tract Society, and various re-
ligious periodicals. Dr. Eliot said of him, "What an aston-
ishing impetus that man has ! " President Dwight declared,
" He is as full of resources as an egg is of meat " ; and Daniel
Webster spoke of him as "always thinking, always writing,
always talking, always acting." He married, May 14, 1789,
Elizabeth Ann Breese, daughter of Rebecca (Finley) and Sam-
uel Breese. Rebecca Finley was a daughter of Dr. Samuel
Finley, President of Princeton College. To Dr. and Mrs.
Morse eleven children were born, of whom only Samuel and
two younger brothers survived infancy.

>] ewTork , I) . Applet OIL & G o ,

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 235

When four years old Samuel was sent to a little school
kept by an old lady known as " Old Ma'am Rand." The mis-
tress was unable to get about much, and controlled her flock
from her chair with the aid of a rattan long enough to reach
across her little domain. She also punished her pupils by pin-
ning them to her dress. Young Samuel once incurred the lat-
ter penalty for scratching a picture of Ma'am Rand on a chest
of drawers with a pin. He was not a quiet prisoner and was
soon at the farther side of the room, dragging part of the old
lady's gown after him, but not far enough away to escape a
smart caning from the rattan.

At seven years of age the boy was sent to the school of a
Mr. Foster at Andover, Mass., from which he passed to the
Phillips Academy in the same place, to prepare for college.
At fourteen he was admitted to Yale College, his father's alma
mater, whither his brothers soon followed him. The Rev. Tim-
othy Dwight, D. D., was then president, and being a warm
personal friend of their father, took especial interest in the
Morse boys. Here under Jeremiah Day, Professor of Natural
Philosophy, and the elder Silliman, whose lectures on chemistry
included the subject of galvanism, Finley Morse gained his
first knowledge of electricity, which he was destined to use to
such marvellous advantage. His letters home give abundant
evidence of his interest in his studies, with frequent especial
references to the electrical experiments exhibited by his in-
structors.

The picture of " Old Ma'am Rand " scratched by young
Finley in her little schoolroom was a real indication of artistic
talent, which became plainly manifest during the young man's
college course. Although wholly untaught, he was able to
produce miniature portraits which his fellow-students (not
very critical, perhaps) were willing to pay moderate prices for.
Immediately after his graduation, in July, 1810, he wrote home
that he was confirmed in the opinion that he was made for a
painter, and asks that arrangements be made for him to study
with Washington Allston, who was to return to England the
following year. Although Dr. Morse had intended his son's
college course as a preparation for a learned profession, he,
acquiesced in this change of plan.

In July, 1811, young Morse set sail with Mr. and Mrs. All-
ston for England. His first letter home contains an ardent

236 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

wish for what his great invention years afterward made pos-
sible. His words are :

" / wish that in an instant I could communicate the information,
but three thousand miles are not passed over in an instant, and
we must wait four long weeks before we can hear from each
other."

Allston introduced Morse to Benjamin West, then seventy-
three years old and President of the Royal Academy. West
accepted him as a student, and showed him many favours
because he was an American. Allston continued also to act
the part of friend and critic. The young student remained in
England four years, within which time the War of 1812 took
place. The hostilities, however, made no enmity against him.
In 1813 he won the gold medal of the Society of Arts for a
figure representing the Death of Hercules, and a large paint-
ing which he made of the same subject was admitted to the
exhibition of the Royal Academy. It was highly praised, one
of the British newspapers ranking it among the best nine paint-
ings in a gallery of nearly a thousand.

Returning home in the summer of 1815, Mr. Morse opened
a studio in Boston, where he exhibited a large painting, The
Judgment of Jupiter, and waited for orders for historical pic-
tures. After a year had passed without his obtaining employ-
ment he started out as a travelling portrait painter and achieved
a moderate success. Within that year of waiting, however, his
genius for invention became manifest. In conjunction with
his brother Sidney he invented a modification of the common
suction pump, which could be adapted to the forcing pump
in the fire engine, and secured a patent for it. In his travels
as a portrait painter he met Miss Lucretia P. Walker, daughter
of Mr. Charles Walker, of Concord, N. H., and married her
October i, 1818. The winter before and that following his
marriage he spent at Charleston, S. C., in the pursuit of his
profession. In the winter of i8i9-'2o he painted a portrait of
President Monroe, for which he had received an order from the
Common Council of Charleston. His father having resigned
bis charge and removed to New Haven, Mr. Morse spent the
following summer there with his wife and infant daughter.
The next winter he executed a great picture of the House of
Representatives, in which were eighty portraits of mem-
bers.

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE.

237

Several years of struggle — in Albany, New York, and other
places — followed. During this period his inventive faculty
was not idle. He devised a machine for carving in marble
copies of any model, and was revolving other ideas in his
mind. In February, 1825, he was in Washington painting a
full-length portrait of Lafayette for the city of New York,
when his father wrote him that his beloved wife had died of a
heart disease on the yth of that month. She was only twenty-
five years of age, and there is abundant testimony that she
was a woman of great loveliness. But little more than a year
afterward Morse's father passed away. He was sixty-five
years of age, and had long been loved and honoured by a wide
circle.

After his wife's death Morse had again repaired to New
York and made gradual progress with his brush. His broth-
ers had been there since 1823, had established the New York
Observer, and were steadily building it up. His three children
were now in the care of various relatives. Morse was one of
the leading spirits in establishing, during the winter of i825-'26,
the National Academy of Design, the prime object of which
was to provide art students the facilities that were then chur-
lishly denied them by the American Academy of Arts. He
was its first president, and was continued in the office until
1845, when he retired from it to give his attention to his tele-
graphic researches.

In the early part of 1827 Morse attended a course of lec-
tures on electro-magnetism, delivered before the New York
Athenaeum, by Prof. James Freeman Dana, with whom he was
well acquainted. At these lectures experiments were shown to
illustrate the power of a straight wire carrying a current of
electricity to induce magnetism, and the increased effect of
such a wire bent into a ring, into a series of rings forming a
spiral, and into a flat spiral or volute. Prof. Dana died soon
after giving these lectures, and the subject apparently passed
out of Morse's thoughts for a time.

Morse was now at thirty-six years of age a successful
artist. He had been honoured by his fellows with repeated
elections to the presidency of the National Academy, and had
made many warm friends among the wealthy and influential
citizens of the metropolis. But the determination to rise yet
higher was as strong as when he began his studies. He de-

238 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

termined to go to Italy and study the works of the old masters.
Accordingly, he secured commissions amounting to nearly three
thousand dollars for pictures to be painted abroad, and sailed
from New York, November 8, 1829. He was absent three years,
spending about two-thirds of his time in Rome and a year in
Paris. In the latter city he renewed his acquaintance with
Lafayette, and before returning to America crossed over to
London, where he met again several of his artist friends of
early days, and where he was duly honoured as the President
of the American National Academy of Design.

We come now to the masterly application of science by
which Morse eclipsed his artistic triumphs. A younger art-
ist, Mr. R. W. Habersham, of Georgia, and James Fenimore
Cooper, were both intimate with Morse in Paris. Each of
these men has put on record most positive recollections that
Morse early in 1832 mentioned to him in conversation the idea
of conveying intelligence by means of electricity. The in-
ventor's own recollection did not carry his conception of a tel-
egraph back earlier than October, 1832, when he was returning
to America on board the packet Sully, in company with Hon.
William C. Rives, minister to France, Dr. Charles T. Jackson,
of Boston, and others. The incident which led up to the in-
vention is thus described by Morse's biographer, Dr. S. Irenaeus
Prime :

" In the early part of the voyage conversation at the din-
ner table turned upon recent discoveries in electro-magnetism,
and the experiments of Ampere with the electro-magnet. Dr.
Jackson spoke of the length of wire in the coil of a magnet,
and the question was asked by some one of the company, < If
the velocity of electricity was retarded by the length of the
wire ? ' Dr. Jackson replied that electricity passes instantane-
ously over any known length of wire. He referred to experi-
ments made by Dr. Franklin, with several miles of wire in cir-
cuit, to ascertain the velocity of electricity ; the result being
that he could observe no difference of time between the touch
at one extremity and the spark at the other. At this point
Mr. Morse interposed the remark, ' If the presence of elec-
tricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no
reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instanta-
neously by electricity.' The conversation went on. But the
one new idea had taken complete possession of the mind of

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 239

Mr. Morse. It was as sudden and pervading as if he had re-
ceived at that moment an electric shock."

The invention was already complete as to its main features
— a current of electricity passing through a wire between two
places, and signals to be made at one terminus by making and
breaking the circuit at various intervals at the other. As soon
as opportunity offered Morse set about sketching in his note-
book details of apparatus and a scheme of dot-and-dash signals
for numbers and words. He showed his drawings to his fel-
low-passengers and to the captain of the ship, and told them
what he hoped to accomplish. Arrived in New York Morse
had before him the problem of devising an apparatus to em-
body his ideas. He could devote but little time or money to
the task, as he was dependent on his painting and his pupils
for a livelihood. Two or three years passed, during which he
experimented as he had opportunity.

In 1835 he was appointed Professor of the Literature of the
Arts of Design in the University of the City of New York, and
a studio was assigned to him on the third floor in the north
wing of the original building in Washington Square. Here he
prosecuted his experiments, and here, in order to economize
his scanty means, he slept and took his meals, prepared by
himself. In January, 1836, he gave one of his colleagues at
the university, Prof. Leonard D. Gale, a private view of his first
practicable instrument, represented in Fig. 5. His transmitter
is shown in the lower part of the figure. He did not trust his
hand to move the key, O, at the proper intervals, but tripped
it by toothed " type " set in the rule, M, which was carried on
a belt of cloth passing over the wheels L, L. The key was
hung on an axle at N, and bore a weight at P. The circuit
was closed and broken by means of a bent wire attached to
one end of the key, by which it was dipped into and raised
from two cups of mercury, J, K, connected with the poles of
the battery, I. The receiver was a clumsy affair. For frame-
work it had a canvas-stretcher nailed upright against the edge
of a table. The paper ribbon was drawn from the roll, A, by
means of the clockwork, D, driven by the weight, E. The sus-
pended frame, F, carried an armature at a point opposite the
electro-magnet, h, and a weighted pencil in the tube, g.

Prof. Morse worked on through 1836 and half of 1837, oc-
cupied mainly with trying various modifications of the mark-

240

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ing apparatus and in devising the relay instrument. In these
experiments he was assisted by Prof. Gale. Having set up his
telegraph so as to operate through about a third of a mile of

FIG> 5. — Prof. Morse's first telegraph instrument.

wire stretched back and forth in the cabinet of the university,
he showed it to parties of visitors in the latter part of the
summer of 1837. Among those who saw it was Mr. Alfred

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE.

241

Vail, a recent graduate of the university. His father, Judge
Stephen Vail, and his brother George, were proprietors of large
machine works at Speedwell, N. J., where he had himself ac-
quired skill in brass-working before he went to the university.
He inquired further into the matter, and soon entered into a
partnership with Prof. Morse, receiving a one-fourth interest
in the patent to be secured, in return for providing means and
facilities for developing the invention.

Prof. Morse now filed a caveat at the Patent Office, and,
together with young Vail and Prof. Gale, who was admitted
to the partnership, enthusiastically renewed his exertions.
Several valuable modifications of the invention are due to the
ingenuity of Mr. Vail. In February, 1838, he took an im-
proved instrument to Washington, and exhibited the telegraph
on a ten-mile circuit to President Van Buren and his cabinet,
members of Congress, foreign ministers, and men of science.
His petition to Congress for an appropriation of thirty thou-
sand dollars to defray the expense of a specimen line of fifty
miles was not acted upon when Congress adjourned in March.
The Hon. F. O. J. Smith, of Maine, was now admitted to the
partnership. He and Prof. Morse drew the specifications for
the American patent and then both sailed for Europe to pro-
cure patents there.

In England Morse met with the opposition of Prof. Wheat-
stone and Mr. Cooke, who had recently patented a telegraph
requiring six wires and making signals by deflecting five mag-
netic needles, but producing no record on paper. His applica-
tion was rejected by the attorney general on the ground that
an account of it had been published in England, although this
account gave none of the essential details. He was further
told by that official that " America was a large country, and he
ought to be satisfied with a patent there " ! Proceeding to
Paris, he was cordially received by Humboldt, Arago, Gay-Lus-
sac, and other distinguished savants, and readily procured a
French patent.

Prof. Morse had met M. Daguerre in Paris, and each had
shown the other his invention. As an artist Morse became
much interested in the daguerreotype process, and, after it was
made public in the summer of 1839, obtained from the in-
ventor instructions which enabled him to introduce it in
America. Morse and John W. Draper soon applied the pro-

242 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

cess to the taking of portraits — for which its inventor had
doubted its being applicable. After actively pursuing the art
for about six months, Prof. Morse laid it aside to devote his
attention to the telegraph more closely, but during several
years made occasional experiments and improvements upon
the process.

The year 1839 was crowded with discouragements. A pro-
visional arrangement to introduce the telegraph into Russia,
which Morse had made with an agent of the Russian Govern-
ment while he was in Paris, failed to receive the approval of
the Czar. A Mr. Chamberlain who had undertaken to exhibit
the telegraph to the governments of eastern Europe, lost his
life in an excursion on the Danube before he had effected any
results of pecuniary value. Meanwhile the rival schemes of
Wheatstone in England and Steinheil in Bavaria were making
progress.

The years 1840 and 1841 dragged through without any
improvement in Morse's prospects. In the spring of 1840 he
completed the formalities required, which he had interrupted
on departing for Europe in 1838, and received his patent.
Wheatstone had actually secured an American patent for some
of his devices at an earlier date, and was urging his scheme
upon Congress. Morse's partners had suffered financial re-
verses and were no longer able to help him. Almost despair-
ing, he worked on constructing improved instruments with his
own hands, and obtaining a precarious livelihood by giving
lessons in painting. The long session of Congress in i84i-'42
wore away without any attention being secured for the tele-
graph. He had not had the money since 1838 to make an-
other prolonged stay in Washington, but the next winter, de-
termined to stake all upon a last personal appeal to Congress,
he proceeded to the capital. Again he carefully strung his
wires and set up his instruments ; day after day he patiently
explained the operation of his invention to members of Con-
gress, officers of the Government departments, and other vis-
itors. He had a few active friends at Washington ; one of
these was Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, a college classmate, who was
now Commissioner of Patents. Hon. Charles G. Ferris, of New
York city, undertook to push the bill relating to the telegraph
through the House. He secured a favourable report from the
Committee on Commerce December 3oth. When the short

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE.

243

session was within a fortnight of its close, February 23d, the
bill passed the House. There was a great amount of business
before the Senate, and the telegraph bill had not been reached
when the last day of the session opened. All that day and
into the evening Prof. Morse sat in the gallery of the Senate.
Then, assured by his friends that there was no longer any
hope, he left the Capitol well-nigh broken-hearted. The next
morning he was met at breakfast with congratulations. A few
minutes before midnight the bill had been taken up and
passed !

Prof. Morse's suggestion that the specimen line run be-
tween Washington and Baltimore was accepted, and before
the month was out preparations for its construction were
actively under way. Prof. Morse appointed as his assistants
Profs. L. D. Gale and J. C. Fisher. To Mr. Vail he assigned
the duty of buying materials and constructing instruments.
The wire, carefully insulated, was inclosed in lead pipe, and Mr.
Ezra Cornell (afterward the founder of Cornell University) was
engaged to lay the pipe underground with a machine which he
had invented for the purpose. It was soon found that the in-
sulation of the wire was destroyed by the method employed for
inclosing it in the pipe, and the plan of stretching the wire on
posts was adopted. Steinheil had discovered that the ground
could be used as one half of a galvanic circuit, and Morse
found before he had proceeded far with the work that he could
get better results by utilizing this discovery than with a com-
plete circuit of wire. After the line had reached a railroad
station halfway to Baltimore, Vail would get news from pas-
sengers on trains from Baltimore and telegraph it ahead to
Morse in Washington. Much interest was aroused in this way,
especially when the news of Henry Clay's nomination for the
presidency by the Whig Convention held at Baltimore in May
was known in Washington before the passengers on the train
could bring it.

On May 24, 1844, many of the highest officers of the Gov-
ernment assembled with the personal friends of Prof. Morse in
Washington to witness the first operation of the telegraph over
the completed line. To the daughter of Commissioner Ells-
worth, who had been the first to inform him of the passage of
the appropriation for the telegraph, Prof. Morse had promised
that she should give the first message to be sent over the fin-

244 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ished line. At the suggestion of her mother she chose the
text, " What hath God wrought," which was transmitted by
Prof. Morse to Mr. Vail in Baltimore, and by him instantly re-
turned. The toil and struggles of twelve years were now
crowned with success, and the inventor received the richly
merited congratulations of the assembled company. Two days
later the complete line had its first public test. The National
Democratic Convention met in Baltimore and nominated James
K. Polk for the presidency, and the Hon. Silas Wright, then
a senator from New York, for the vice-presidency. Vail
promptly secured the news and telegraphed it to Morse, by
whom it was communicated to Mr. Wright, who was in
Washington. Within a short space of time the convention was
astounded at receiving a message from Mr. Wright saying that
he respectfully declined the nomination. Most of the mem-
bers were incredulous as to the genuineness of the message,
and the convention accordingly adjourned over to the follow-
ing day, so that a committee might go to Washington and con-
firm or disprove it. The committee returned in the morning,
and its report fully established the correctness and capacity
of the telegraph.

The public was allowed to test the telegraph gratuitously
for about a year. On April i, 1845, a charge of one cent for
each four characters was established by the Postmaster-Gen-
eral, after which the telegraph was used more for business
purposes than when the service was free. The proprietors
now offered to sell the invention outright to the Government
for a hundred thousand dollars, but fortunately for them and
the country the offer was declined and the development of the
American telegraph was left to private enterprise. They then
appointed the Hon. Amos Kendall, ex-Postmaster-General,
their agent, and under his management the Magnetic Tele-
graph Company was organized in May " for the purpose of
constructing a line of said telegraph from New York to Wash-
ington."

Prof. Morse sailed from New York early in August to pre-
sent his telegraph again to European nations under much more
favourable auspices than before. Accomplishing nothing in
England, he visited Hamburg and afterward Paris, but re-
turned to America in November, having received many honours,
but nothing more substantial. Meanwhile numerous lines were

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 245

in construction at home, and in the next year trie telegraph
reached from Washington through Philadelphia and New York
to Boston, from New York to Buffalo by way of Albany, and
there were many branch lines in operation. Morse's system
had been adopted by the Austrian Government early in the
year.

That success has its perils was early shown in the case of
the telegraph. Unauthorized attempts to use Morse's system,
in whole or in part, began soon after its value was demon-
strated. They rapidly became numerous and appeared in the
most varied forms, and were often accompanied by malicious
defamation of the inventor and barefaced denials of his claims
to originality and priority. Mr. Kendall was vigilant in de-
fending the legal rights of the Magnetic Telegraph Company
and entirely successful. The first suit for infringement was
brought against one Henry O'Rielly, who had built a line to
the West under license from the company and then attempted
to establish a branch line without authority. The suit was
tried in the summer of 1848 at Louisville, Ky., and Morse's
patent^was sustained. O'Rielly and his associates then made
attempts to evade the injunction granted against them and
finally carried the matter to the Supreme Court of the United
States. All the historical and expert evidence that could be
brought to bear on the matter was now passed in review, with
the result that on January 30, 1854, Chief Justice Taney de-
livered an opinion, Justices Daniel, Catron, and McLean con-
curring, in which Samuel F. B. Morse was declared to be the
first and sole inventor of the electro-magnetic recording tele-
graph, although it was denied that he had the right to the ex-
clusive use of electro-magnetism for a recording telegraph.
The minority opinion differed in the direction of being more
favourable to Morse. Other suits were decided in the same
way, and the rights and achievements of Morse were impreg-
nably established.

In 1847 Prof. Morse bought a tract of two hundred acres
on the Hudson River just below Poughkeepsie. Naming his
place Locust Grove, he built a tasteful mansion upon it and
gathered his children and grandchildren about him. He had
never been able to enjoy a home since he left his father's roof
up to this time, for even when his little family was established
at New Haven he could be there but little. The next year he

246 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

married Miss Sarah E. Griswold. Her mother was a cousin
of Prof. Morse, and her father was an army officer. The lady
was a mute. While Prof. Morse could now enjoy comfort and
happiness he was by no means idle. The constant attempts to
displace or infringe upon his invention entailed upon him a
great amount of labour in correspondence, and in collecting
and arranging evidence to combat them. Yet he was able to
enjoy considerable compensation for his many years of toil and
privation. And his own invention ministered to his pleasure
and comfort, for with a telegraphic instrument on his library
table he could converse with friends and correspondents in
every important place in his own land, and in later years could
exchange messages with those on the opposite side of the At-
lantic. Several years later he bought for a winter residence a
beautiful house in New York, No. 5 West Twenty-second Street.
The building is now marked with a tablet bearing this inscrip-
tion : " In this house S. F. B. Morse lived for many years and
died."

Prof. Morse was one of the few great inventors who re-
ceive an adequate pecuniary reward for their services to the
world, and to whom merited honours come while they are alive.
He received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale College,
and was elected to membership in learned societies of the
United States, France, Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Orders and decorations were bestowed upon him between 1848
and 1864 by the sovereigns of Turkey, Prussia, Wurtemberg,
Austria, France, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. This
list stands in chronological order. It will be observed that
the Sultan of Turkey took precedence in honouring the invent-
or of the telegraph over the rulers of many more pretentious
nations, while England does not appear at all. We may well
believe the statement of his biographer that " Prof. Morse re.
ceived a greater number of honorary distinctions than were
ever bestowed upon any other private citizen."

The idea of laying telegraphic lines under water was con-
ceived by Prof. Morse early in the history of his invention ; he
was known to have mentioned it in 1837 and 1838. His first
submarine cable was laid by him from a rowboat, between
Castle Garden and Governor Island in New York harbour one
moonlight night in 1842, and was picked up on the anchor of a
vessel the next morning and broken while Morse was sending

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 247

his first message over it. The matter rested until in 1854 it
received an impulse from Newfoundland. Mr. F. N. Gisborne,
of that province, had sought to interest Mr. Matthew D. Field,
of New York, in a project for connecting the island with the
mainland. Several cables connecting Great Britain with Ire-
land and with the continent of Europe were then in operation.
Mr. Field consulted his brother, Cyrus W. Field, to whom this
idea suggested the greater undertaking of crossing the Atlan-
tic with a telegraphic line. Strong companies were soon or-
ganized on both sides of the ocean to co-operate in the work.
The first link in the chain — a sixty-mile cable from Nova
Scotia to Newfoundland — was attempted unsuccessfully in
1855, and laid in the next year. In the summer of 1856 Prof.
Morse went to England to superintend some of the preparations
for the cable across the Atlantic, and in connection with this
trip made a tour through France, Germany, Denmark, and
Russia. Presentations at royal courts, and honours by men of
science and affairs, attended his whole progress. Perhaps the
greatest triumph was a public dinner given to him in London,
where a very cold shoulder had been his portion eighteen years
before. Mr. W. F. Cooke, who had been the partner of his
chief English rival, presided at the dinner.

The preparations having been completed, a fleet of British
and American vessels left Valentia Bay, Ireland, early in Au-
gust, 1857, laying the cable as they went. When about three
hundred miles had been paid out the cable parted. The next
June a second attempt was made. This time the two vessels
bearing the cable steamed to midocean, and when the two
halves of the line had been joined, the vessels set out in oppo-
site directions. Only two hundred miles had been laid when
another break occurred. A month later the third attempt was
made, and on August 5, 1858, both ends of the cable were suc-
cessfully landed— the American in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland,
the European at Valentia. Enthusiastic celebrations followed.
Mr. Field and Prof. Morse were the lions of the civilized world.
The rejoicings over this success had not ceased when, on Sep-
tember ist, the cable ceased to work. This last accident
caused many persons to lose faith in the project; then the
civil war came on and another attempt was not made until the
summer of 1865, when the Great Eastern, starting from Va-
lentia, laid twelve hundred miles and then the cable parted.

248 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

The Great Eastern started with another cable on Friday, July 13,
1866 (ominous day !), and on Friday two weeks later the Ameri-
can end was safely landed. From that day to this telegraphic
communication across the Atlantic has been uninterrupted.

While the early attempts to lay an Atlantic cable were in
progress, Prof. Morse had, by the advice of friends holding high
official stations, issued a memorial asking for compensation
for the use of his telegraph in the various countries of Europe.
He had the best claim on France, for he had actually obtained
a patent in that country, but the Government, which had a
monopoly of transmitting intelligence, had declined to use his
invention for some years and had afterward adopted it without
compensation to him. Negotiations followed which resulted
in a sum equal to eighty thousand dollars being awarded to
him by a conference of representatives of ten European gov-
ernments— Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Pied-
mont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany, and Turkey.
Morse's telegraph had now come into use to the exclusion of its
rivals everywhere except to a limited extent in Great Britain.

In 1866 Prof. Morse took some of his younger children to
Europe for a course of study, remaining abroad two years.
During his stay he accepted a pressing invitation to serve as
one of the committee on telegraphic instruments at the Paris
Exposition. As on repeated former visits, he was everywhere
the recipient of distinguished honours. And marked honours
awaited- him from his fellow-citizens at home. Toward the
close of December, 1868, a splendid banquet, at which two
hundred gentlemen of mark in their respective walks in life
were present, was given him in New York. It was presided
over by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who had been the leading
counsel against Prof. Morse in the first lawsuit brought for in-
fringement on the telegraph patent. No small part of the value
of Prof. Morse's invention was that it created a new means of
gaining .a livelihood, which has been an inestimable boon to
tens of thousands of men and women throughout the world.
In 1869 a movement was started by the operators in Allegheny,
City, Pa., to bestow a testimonial upon the inventor for this
service. A sum of money was raised, mostly in one-dollar sub-
scriptions, sufficient to erect a bronze statue of Prof. Morse,
which was placed in Central Park, New York. It was unveiled
on June 10, 1871, with inspiring and enthusiastic exercises.

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE.

249

When wealth came to him Prof. Morse was not backward
in conferring benefactions upon worthy persons and institutions.
He was a man of firm religious convictions, and gave many
donations to churches, theological seminaries, and missionary
societies. A love for his early art clung to him throughout his
life. The honours received for his artistic talents were espe-
cially prized by him, and in his later years he encouraged
struggling artists of ability by purchasing their pictures, and
gave aid to art societies and institutions.

Throughout his long life he had suffered little from sick-
ness. In his latter years he became subject to neuralgia,
which in the winter of 18^1-^2 concentrated its attacks in his
head. After weeks of intense pain he fell into a stupor from
which he partly aroused at times, and finally passed away April
2, 1872. At his funeral and afterward high honours were paid
to his memory by the States of New York and Massachusetts,
the Congress of the United States, the great telegraphic com-
panies, by many cities, by the societies of which he was a mem-
ber, and by assemblages of individuals.

" In person," says his biographer, " Prof. Morse was tall,
slender, graceful, and attractive. Six feet in stature, he stood
erect and firm, even in old age. His blue eyes were express-
ive of genius and affection. His nature was a rare combina-
tion of solid intellect and delicate sensibility. Thoughtful,
sober, and quiet, he readily entered into the enjoyments of
domestic and social life, indulging in sallies of humour, and
readily appreciating and greatly enjoying the wit of others.
Dignified in his intercourse with men, courteous and affable
with the gentler sex, he was a good husband, a judicious father,
a generous and faithful friend. . . . He was as gentle as he
was great. Many thought him weak because he was simple,
childlike, and unworldly. Often he suffered wrong rather than
resist, and this disposition to yield was frequently his loss."

What Morse accomplished for the advance of civilization
was due chiefly to an unbounded perseverance which enabled
him to endure the grievous hardships and triumph over the
enormous obstacles that lay in his path. It has been well said
that " the genius and labour of such a man reflect glory upon
his country, so that his name becomes part of the national
heritage and treasure."

17

DENISON OLMSTED.

1791-1859.

PROF. OLMSTED, the American Journal of Science said, in
its obituary notice of him, " regarded his most appropriate
sphere of effort, in the circumstances in which he was placed,
not so much to cultivate science as to teach and diffuse it."
The circumstances mentioned in this sentence called him to be
a teacher, whatever lines of work he may have planned to pur-
sue. Although his mind at different times in his life turned to
other occupations and he began to prepare for them, he was as
often called back to teaching by agencies outside of himself.
He was a successful and superior teacher. But his achieve-
ments in independent and original research, for which he
seemed to have a natural taste, were not few nor insignificant ;
and we can not doubt that, if he had been permitted to devote
himself to that line, he might have arrived at great distinction
in it.

Denison Olmsted was born in East Hartford, Conn., June
18, 1791, and died in New Haven May 13, 1859. His father
was descended from James Olmsted, one of the first settlers of
the colony of Connecticut, who died about four years after
Hartford was founded. His mother was a daughter of Deni-
son Kingsbury, of Andover, Conn., from whom he seems to
have received his Christian name. His father was a farmer in
moderate circumstances. He died when the son was a year
old, and the care of the boy's education devolved upon his
mother, who is highly spoken of as having been a lady of
native strength of mind, sound judgment, and uncommon piety
and benevolence. He was early trained to habits of order,
diligence, and perseverance, for which he was distinguished
throughout his life.

The neighbourhood school was not all that was desired,
and Mrs. Olmsted, in order to give her son better facilities

250

DENISON OLMSTED.

DENISON OLMSTED. 25 1

for instruction, obtained a place for him, when he was about
twelve years old, in the family of Governor Treadwell, as a chore
boy, with the understanding that he should attend the district
school. He was, according to the Rev. Dr. Porter, of Farm-
ington, Conn., a very lovely, intelligent boy, and soon engaged
the affections of the family. Governor Treadwell became in-
terested in him, and took pains to help him along in his stud-
ies. Only reading, spelling, and writing were taught in the
school. A proposition of Governor Treadwell to teach him
arithmetic was readily accepted, and the boy made good prog-
ress under this sympathetic attention. Young Olmsted was
put into a country store at Farmington, in which Governor
Treadwell's son was a partner, and then at Burlington, where
he had the same employer. When sixteen years old he became
desirous of obtaining a liberal education. He had already
acquired a considerable knowledge of English literature, and
made creditable progress in the elementary mathematics.
With the consent of his guardian and his mother he went to
Litchfield South Farms, to attend the school of James Morris.
He undertook the care of a public district school for a short
time ; completed his fitting for college under the Rev. Dr.
Noah Porter at Farmington, and entered Yale College in 1809
He took rank at once among the best scholars in his class,
being apparently nearly equally proficient in all his studies,
excelling also in writing, and cultivating a taste for belles-
lettres and poetry. He was graduated with the highest
honours in 1813, when he was appointed one of the orators in
a class of seventy, of which only ten received that distinction.
The subject of his graduation address was the Causes of In-
tellectual Greatness.

After graduation, Mr. Olmsted obtained a position as a
teacher in the " Union School " at New London, Conn., a pri-
vate institution for boys which had been supported by a few
families of the place for several generations. In 1815 he was
appointed a tutor in Yale College. Here he joined a small
class in theology, instructed by Dr. Dwight, with the intention,
which he had formed a short time before — having come under
strong religious influence — of entering the ministry. Dr.
Dwight died within a year, and Mr. Olmsted published a mem-
oir of him in The Portfolio for November, 1817. The theo-
logical studies were terminated in 1817 by Mr. Olmsted's

252 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

appointment to be Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and
Geology in the University of North Carolina.

During his tutorship at Yale in 1816, Mr. Olmsted delivered
the Master's Oration on the occasion of taking his second de-
gree, taking as his subject The State of Education in Connecti-
cut. In this oration he brought out his plan for a normal
school, which, so far as appears, was then a complete novelty,
and was wholly original with him. He pointed to " the igno-
rance and incompetency of schoolmasters " as the primary cause
of the low condition of public schools, and appealed to public
and private liberality to establish and support institutions of
a higher grade, where a better class of teachers might be
trained for the lower schools. He has himself, in one of his
letters, given an account of the origin of his conception of
this scheme of " a school for schoolmasters." It was while
engaged in the Union School at New London, where he had
pupils of various ages pursuing a great variety of studies; so
that, while the number of pupils was small, the classes were
many. He discovered a marked difference in intelligence and
capacity between those who were studying the languages and
mathematics, preparatory to entering college, and who devoted
only a small part of the day to the common rudimentary
branches, such as English grammar, geography, reading, writ-
ing, and spelling, and those who spent all their time in these
elementary studies. "I was surprised to find that the former
excelled the latter even in a knowledge of those very studies;
they read better, spelt better, wrote better, and were better
versed in grammar and geography. One inference I drew
from the observation was that an extended course of studies,
proceeding far beyond the simple rudiments of an English
education, is not inconsistent with acquiring a good knowledge
of the rudiments, but is highly favourable to it, since, on ac-
count of the superior capacity developed by the higher branches
of study, the rudiments may be better learned in less time ;
and a second inference was that nothing was wanted in order
to raise all our common schools to a far higher level, so as to
embrace the elements of English literature, of the natural
sciences, and of the mathematics, but competent teachers and
the necessary books. I was hence led to the idea of a semi-
nary for schoolmasters." His plan was outlined in accordance
with this thought. Another encouraging feature in his scheme,

DENISON OLMSTED. 253

as it appeared to him, was that " no sooner would the supe-
rior order of schoolmasters commence their labours, than the
schools themselves would begin to furnish teachers of a higher
order. The schoolmasters previously employed were for the
most part such as had received all their education at the com-
mon schools, and could only perpetuate the meagre system of
beggarly elements which they had learned ; but it was obvious
that schools trained in a more extended course of studies
would produce teachers of a corresponding character — that is,
if we could once start the machine, it would go on by its own
momentum." He was contemplating a series of newspaper
articles in advocacy of his plan, and communications concern-
ing it with eminent men interested in education, when he was
called to another enterprise. The idea of normal schools was
afterward taken up by other men and brought by them before
the public under much more favourable circumstances than he
could have commanded had he remained in Connecticut and
continued his advocacy at that time.

At a later time, as a member of the Board of Commission-
ers of Common Schools for Connecticut, in 1840, in drafting
the annual report, he observed that " wherever normal schools
have been established and are adequately sustained, the experi-
ment has uniformly resulted in supplying teachers of a superior
order. As in every other art whose principles are reduced to
rule and matured into a system, the learner is not limited to
the slow and scanty results of his single unaided experience,
but is at once invested with the accumulated treasures of all
who have laboured in the same before him."

Preparatory to going to his professorship in North Carolina,
Mr. Olmsted engaged in private studies in geology with Prof.
Silliman. He found at his new post two of his old friends,
Yale men like himself, occupying professorial chairs : Elisha
Mitchell, his former classmate, that of Mathematics and Natu-
ral Philosophy, and Ethan A. Andrews that of Languages, and
here he spent seven happy years.

In 1821 he laid before the Board of Internal Improvements
of North Carolina a proposition to undertake a geological sur-
vey of the State, offering to perform the entire work himself
gratuitously, but suggesting an appropriation of one hundred
dollars to defray his necessary expenses in travelling, to be
afterward renewed or not at the pleasure of the board. The

254 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

proposition was declined by the Board of Internal Improve-
ments, but the survey was afterward made under the direction
of the State Board of Agriculture. To this board Prof. Olm-
sted addressed his report, which was published in two parts, in
1824 and 1825, and filled in all about one hundred and forty
octavo pages. The American Journal of Science observes of
this survey that, regarded especially as the gratuitous vacation
work of a single individual, and in view of the state of geolog-
ical science in this country at the time, it " must certainly be
looked upon as creditable in the highest degree both to the
enterprise and to the scientific ability of its projector; and it
has undoubtedly been of great benefit, not only to the State
which authorized it, but to the country and to science gen-
erally, by the stimulus which it afforded to similar enterprises
in other States." It was the first instance of one of the United
States instituting a geological survey. In the course of his
work Prof. Olmsted gave the first geological description of the
Deep River coal beds and of the new red sandstone accom-
panying them, and referred the strata correctly to the same
age with that of the Richmond coal beds and the Connecticut
River sandstones.

Prof. Olmsted began researches to determine the practica-
bility of obtaining illuminating gas from cotton seed, but re-
moved to the North before he had secured definite results.

In 1825 Prof. Olmsted was appointed Professor of Mathe-
matics and Natural Philosophy in Yale College. In 1836 this
chair was divided at his request, and the professorship of
Mathematics was assigned to A. D. H. Stanley. As a professor
in Yale he performed an unbroken service of thirty-four years,
till it was interrupted by his illness. His labours as a teacher
during the last twenty years of his life consisted, as described
by Dr. Woolsey in The New-Englander, " in teaching astronomy
by a text-book, and in three courses of lectures — experimental
ones on natural philosophy and optics, historical ones on the
progress of astronomical discovery, and theoretical ones on
meteorology. His colleagues and friends have regarded him
as a born teacher, as possessing a most happy union of several
powers — the capacity to convey instruction with clearness and
evidence, the capacity to impress the pupil with the importance
of the branches taught, the disposition to shrink from no labour
necessary in preparing himself for teaching, and to require of

DENISON OLMSTED. 255

the student that he master and reproduce the lessons conveyed
to him. While many lecturers prepare their lectures once for
all, and then cease to improve them, he was constantly revis-
ing, elaborating, and almost constructing anew the courses on
astronomy and meteorology which he delivered annually to the
three upper classes." These lectures were spoken of by Dr.
Barnard, in his Journal of Education, as having been charac-
terized *' by fulness, clearness of method, and sometimes by
eloquence. The course on meteorology was, perhaps, on the
whole, the most attractive and useful."

Prof. Olmsted soon became sensible of the deficiency of the
text-books on which he had to rely in his department. En-
field's Philosophy was inaccurate and behind the state of
science ; and the work of Prof. Farrar, of Cambridge, was too
extensive and too difficult. He undertook to prepare new
books suitable for his classes. His Natural Philosophy ap-
peared in 1831, and his School Philosophy in 1832. His As-
tronomy, first published in 1839, went through forty or fifty
editions. An edition of it was printed in raised letters for the
blind, it having been selected by Dr. Howe, according to Dr.
Barnard, " for its clear, accurate, comprehensive presentation
of the science of which it treats." The Rudiments of Natural
Philosophy and Astronomy followed, in 1842. The Letters on
Astronomy was a work in more familiar style, cast in the form
of letters to a lady, and prepared as a reading book for the
school libraries established by the Massachusetts Board of Edu-
cation.

The great meteoric shower of November, 1833, which was
observed over a large part of the American continent and on
the ocean, directed Prof. Olmsted's mind to a new and original
field of investigation ; and several papers upon it were pub-
lished by him and Prof. A. C. Twining, of West Point, in the
American Journal of Science during 1834. The collation of
the collected observations brought out the fact that the appar-
ent point of radiation of the meteors was identical with that
toward which the earth was tending in space — which indicated
a cosmical origin. It was further found that several showers
had been observed before within forty years, on the same day
of November. In explanation of the phenomenon, Prof. Olm-
sted supposed, in an article published in the American Journal
of Science, that the meteors " consisted of portions of the ex-

256 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

treme parts of a nebulous body, which revolves around the sun
in an orbit inferior to that of the earth ; but little inclined to
the plane of the ecliptic ; having its aphelion near to the earth's
path ; and having a periodic time of one hundred and eight-two
days, nearly." Two of the principal features of this theory —
those of the cosmical origin of the meteors and their periodicity
— are still maintained ; but instead of one periodical shower,
astronomers now count several ; and instead of a single in-
fraterrestrial nebulous body, they connect the several showers
each with a particular comet. Priority in putting forth these
conceptions was disputed by Chladni, whose claims, however,
do not seem to have been so definitely established as those of
Prof. Olmsted. Of course, the suggestion of the cosmical ori-
gin of meteors, as a suggestion, was never wholly new, for it
had been made in general terms by other philosophers, from
Anaxagoras down ; but the credit is claimed for Prof. Olmsted
of having first embodied it in a definite, coherent theory, ac-
companied with valid evidence ; whether or how far Chladni
may have anticipated him, his conclusions, as Prof. Silliman
well says, were undoubtedly original with himself, and entirely
independent of any results of preceding investigations. His
work was, furthermore, spoken of in the most complimentary
terms by the most distinguished foreign students in those lines
of the day. Humboldt referred, in the first volume of his Cos-
mos, to the excellent description which Prof. Olmsted had given
of the shower in November, 1833, and to his brilliant confirma-
tion of Chladni's view that the phenomenon was of cosmical
origin. Olbers praised him for his circumstantial description
and collection of particulars of the shower, and agreed with
him in the conclusion that it came from abroad. Biot, in a
communication to the French Academy in 1836, spoke of his
" very comprehensive and highly interesting work " in collect-
ing and making known " all the circumstances of position, di-
rection, and periodicity peculiar to the meteors of the i3th of
November."

In his first memoir on the shooting stars, Prof. Olmsted
suggested that the explanation of the cause of the meteors of
November i3th might include that of the zodiacal light. He
further published a well-matured theory of the nebulous body
represented by the zodiacal light. Biot agreed with him in this
view, and recognised his priority in the conception. Astronomy

DENISON OLMSTED.

257

has not yet satisfied itself concerning the nature of this phe-
nomenon. He also studied the aurora borealis, concerning
which he contributed articles to the American Journal of Sci-
ence in 1835 and 1837, and gave at length a theory of cosmical
origin and secular period in the eighth volume of the Smith-
sonian Contributions to Knowledge. He thus ascribed shoot-
ing stars, auroras, and the zodiacal light to substantially the
same origin. These views, however, as Prof. Silliman observes,
were mostly thrown out only as conjectures, and not as formal
theories to be held and defended.

Previous to this, Prof. Olmsted had interested himself in
meteorological studies. In 1830 he published in the American
Journal of Science a new theory of hailstones, in which he as-
cribed the origin of those formations to the sudden mingling
of large bodies of hot and humid air with air extremely cold, by
which the vapour of the former would be rapidly condensed and
congealed into hail. These effects, he assumed, would be pro-
duced whenever, by means of opposing winds, whirlwinds, or
other atmospheric disturbanqes, hot air should be brought
above the line of congelation or cold air brought below it.

He agreed with Redfield in supposing that ocean gales are
progressive whirlwinds; and he believed that he had established
their laws or modes of action on an impregnable basis. This
view of storms as progressive whirlwinds still holds good as
a generalization ; but his further ascription of the ultimate
causes of atmospheric disturbances to the diurnal and orbital
motions of the earth has not found an accepted place in sci-
ence. Prof. Olmsted had a close friendship and a warm sym-
pathy with Mr. Redfield, with whose views respecting the rota-
tory motions of storms he agreed ; and he read an affectionate
memorial of him before the American Association, at Montreal,
in 1857.

Prof. Olmsted and Prof. Loomis, who was then a tutor in
the college, were the first persons of all observers to find Hal-
ley's comet on its return in 1835. One of the results of this
observation was the awakening of an interest in procuring
larger and improved telescopes. It did not bring immediate
fruit, it is true. The project already conceived for the estab-
lishment of a permanent observatory at Cambridge, to which it
gave a new impulse, was not yet to be made real. There were
other circumstances, however, than want of interest in astrono-

258 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

my that kept such liberal schemes from being carried out — the
country and the universities had not grown up to them, and the
needed abundance of money had not yet come — but this was
one of the incidents that kept the movement vital and sped it
on. Prof. Olmsted also conceived a plan for the establishment
of an observatory at Yale College, which should have two de-
partments : one to aid in the instruction of students and the
other for the use of scientific observers ; but the time had not
yet come for this. As another incident of his astronomical
work, President Woolsey relates that " for a number of years,
until his health forbade it and his eyesight began to fail, he
was accustomed to gather his class around him on a bright au-
tumn evening and introduce them to the heavenly bodies. In
this way he endeavoured to train up a corps of practical ob-
servers, whose labours, when they should be scattered abroad
in this vast country, should not be lost to science."

In purely practical lines of enterprise he invented an excel-
lent stove which bore his name, and the patent for which
brought him considerable profit ; and he devised a preparation
of lead and rosin for lubricating machinery.

Of his qualities as a teacher Prof. Silliman mentions espe-
cially his uniform kindness and courtesy of demeanour and pa-
tience in imparting instruction ; the excellent moral influence
he always exerted, his consistent Christian example, his per-
sonal counsels, the genuine friendliness of his disposition, and
the unaffected interest he always manifested in the welfare of
his pupils. He was ever ready to encourage and assist any
who exhibited special fondness for the studies of his depart-
ment, and it always gave him pleasure when students passed
beyond the bounds of ordinary attainment.

He laboured to make knowledge more accessible to the
people, and science comprehensible and interesting to them.
Dr. Barnard, who describes him from the point of view of a
teacher, says that he " availed himself at all times of the lyceum
and the popular lecture, as well as of the daily press, to apply
the principles of science to the explanation of extraordinary
phenomena of meteorology and astronomy, as well as to the
advancement of domestic comfort and popular improvement
generally. In an essay read before the American Association
for the Advancement of Education, at New York, in 1835, he
showed, in a felicitous manner, that the whole tendency and

DENISON OLMSTED. 259

drift of science, its inventions and institutions, is demo-
cratic."

Besides the works already mentioned, Prof. Olmsted pub-
lished many articles of a scientific or literary character in the
leading periodicals of the day — contributing thus to the Ameri-
can Journal of Science, The Transactions of the American As-
sociation, The Smithsonian Contributions, The Christian Spec-
tator, and The New-Englander. He was especially fond of bio-
graphical composition, and his memoirs of Dr. Dwight, Sir
Humphry Davy, Governor Treadwell, Eli Whitney, and William
C. Redfield are mentioned by Prof. Silliman as favourable ex-
^amples.

ISAAC LEA.

1792-1886.

FEW naturalists have enjoyed a longer working life, or
been able to make it more fruitful in finished achievement,
than Isaac Lea. His first paper, being a simple account of the
minerals then known to exist in the vicinity of Philadelphia,
was published in 1818. Additions to this contribution were
made but slowly for a few years, but as the list swelled they
became frequent, giving evidence of indefatigable industry in
research; and the last paper, standing as No. 279 on the cata-
logue, is dated 1876, closing a record of fifty-eight years of
productive activity. During most of this time Dr. Lea was
associated in the conduct of a large publishing house, and was
able to give only his hours of leisure to science.

Isaac Lea was born in Wilmington, Delaware, March 4,
1792. He was descended from ancestors who came over from
Gloucestershire, England, with William Penn, and were de-
scribed as " a couple of noted and valued preachers." He was
the fifth son of James Lea, a wholesale merchant, and Eliza-
beth, daughter of Thomas Gibson, and was at first put in
a course of classical instruction at the academy in Wilmington,
in preparation for the medical profession. This purpose was
afterward given up, and, when he was fifteen years old, Isaac
was sent to Philadelphia to engage in mercantile business in
association with his brother. The business panic which fol-
lowed the peace of 1815 broke up the firm, and in 1820 Mr.
Lea married Frances Ann, daughter of Mathew Carey, at that
time the leading publisher and bookseller in the United States.
He entered the house of M. Carey & Sons, which he continued
under the well-known firms of Carey & Lea and Lea & Blanch-
ard until 1851, when he retired from business. The children
of his marriage were M. Carey Lea, whose researches in chem-
ical physics are widely known ; Henry Charles Lea, LL. D.,

260

ISAAC LEA.

ISAAC LEA. 26l

the historian of the Inquisition ; and Frances Lea, who died in
1894. Mr. Lea had inherited a strong taste for Nature from
his mother, and found a congenial spirit in Prof. Vanuxem,
then also a youth, with whom he formed the habit of making
collecting excursions around the city. The two companions
were soon led, by what they found and observed, to inquiry
into the composition and structure of the rocks ; they had to
pursue it at first without any guidance, but in a short time
became acquainted with the mineralogical collection of Dr.
Adam Seybert. A diversion to their pursuits was given by the
occurrence of the war with Great Britain in 1812. They joined
a volunteer rifle company, which offered its services to the
Governor. Although the company was disbanded without
being called into service, young Lea had, by joining it, en-
gaged enough in war to violate the principles of the Society of
Friends, and he lost his birthright in it. Among the excur-
sions which the two youths made was one to the coal mines
near Wilkesbarre, where they found slates containing mollusca,
which Lea described forty years afterward in the Journal of
the Academy of Natural Sciences. They walked back, over
the Pocono Mountain through the Wind Gap, where Lea found
the first trilobite they had ever seen, and down the Delaware
River. In 1815 they were both elected members of the Phila-
delphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and began to take active
parts in its proceedings ; and in this society Mr. Lea read his
first paper, already referred to, embodying the results of many
years of close observation which the friends had made upon
the rocks during their excursions.

On the publication, in 1818, of Prof. Silliman's prospectus
of the American Journal of Science, Mr. Lea procured the names
of fourteen subscribers to the journal — an act which Prof. Silli-
man afterward declared " was the turning-point of the scheme " ;
for, receiving such encouragement from a person with whom
he had no personal acquaintance, he was sure the journal
would be successful. Mr. Lea contributed several papers to
the early numbers of this journal, at the editor's request ; but
the article of this period which is perhaps most worthy of
special mention is one that he published in 1828 in the Ameri-
can Quarterly Review, on the Northwest Passage, in which he
expressed the opinion that, if the passage were ever made, it
must be, as was indicated by the direction of the currents,

262 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

from west to east. This hypothesis was verified in 1852 by
Captain McClure's making the passage in the direction
named.

As Mr. Lea advanced in his geological studies, he found
that it was necessary to know something of shells. In order
to study their genera as described by Lamarck, he imported a
large collection of shells from China. He soon became inter-
ested in this branch of the science, and ultimately made it the
leading object of his researches. A collection of several
species of Unio, including some beautiful and rare specimens,
was sent to the Academy of Natural Sciences, in 1825, by
Major Long, of the Engineer Corps, who had obtained them
in dredging the channel of the Ohio River below Louisville. At
about the same time, Mr. Lea's brother Thomas, having engaged
to look after the shells in the vicinity of Cincinnati, where he
was living, shipped a barrel of shells of rare beauty, including
six new species. The description of these specimens — De-
scription of Six New Specimens of the Genus Unio — presented
to the American Philosophical Society in 1827, formed the first
of that long series of papers on the Unio and allied shells which
constitute the chief of Mr. Lea's works. Yet, at the time he
presented it, he had no thought that he should ever have
another word to say on the subject, for at that time no one
conceived the infinite variety of species of the family which
American waters are now known to contain. As a side result
of Mr. Lea's interest in the Unios may be mentioned the con-
version of his brother from an indifferent barreller of shells for
another to an enthusiastic student of land shells and botany,
and to be the author of a monograph on The Plants of Cin-
cinnati.

Dr. Lea spent the travelling season of 1832 in Europe,
where the journal of his excursions is a record of successive
introductions to famous scientific men, and interesting conver-
sations with them, in which he was never the only one who re-
ceived information. In London he attended a meeting of the
Geological Society, and met most of the leading geologists of
Great Britain. At Oxford, he attended the second meeting of
the British Association, over which Dr. Buckland presided.
Meeting Dr. Buckland afterward in London, the conversation
turned upon the quantity of coal in the United States. Dr.
Buckland thought we had very little coal. Dr. Lea pointed

ISAAC LEA. 263

out on a map the coal fields of the United States as they were
then known. After several hours spent in the examination of
the matter, Dr. Buckland taking notes all the time, the dis-
tinguished geologist remarked, as he took his leave to meet an
engagement, that England had enough coal to supply the
United States when its supply should fail. Dr. Lea replied
that the quantity of anthracite and bituminous coal was almost
unlimited in North America, and promised to send him maps
and sections that would satisfy him upon the subject. He ful-
filled his promise after he returned home, and, upon the
evidence thus afforded, Dr. Buckland presented a paper to
the next meeting of the British Association on the extent of
our coal supply. At the British Museum, by the request of Dr.
Gray, Dr. Lea went over the collection of the Unionidce, ar-
ranged and named them correctly, and added some new species
from the United States. He called, in Paris, on Baron Ferus-
sac, the eminent student of terrestrial and fluviatile mollusca,
who was then engaged in preparing his great work on the
Unionidce. During the conversation the baron " complimented
Dr. Lea by saying that he could not go on with his work until
he (Dr. Lea) had finished his memoirs." Dr. Lea afterward
spent several hours in going over the baron's collections,
which contained Unionidce. from Brazil, Syria, Turkey, and
Egypt, and rearranging it, cutting down the species and form-
ing numerous synonyms. Afterward, he met Blainville, Ferus-
sac, and others at the Jardin des Plantes, to arrange and name
all the Unionidce. of the collection there, to which he added
fourteen species. From Studer, the elder, in Berne, he received
the last copy in the author's possession of his work on the land
and fresh-water shells of Switzerland, and compliments on the
papers he had himself written. At Paris, again, he examined
the Unionidce in the Due de Rivoli's collection, which contained
all those of Lamarck, and was thereby able to identify all of
Lamarck's species in his subsequent memoir. Calling on M.
Gay by invitation, he was shown all the mollusca which that
naturalist had collected in his travels, and was invited to select
a specimen of each. Thus he found the most eminent natu-
ralists everywhere, on the strength of the few papers he had
published on American mollusca, ready to welcome him as one
of themselves, and to receive instruction from him. Their
general message to him was to go on with the investigations

264

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

he had begun, with the assurance that no naturalist in America
or Europe had the advantages that he possessed.

On returning home in November, 1832, he found that he
had been anticipated in a work he should have done on the
Tertiary shells of Alabama, but, having specimens of the
species in his cabinet, he prepared a paper, Contributions to
Geology, which he presented to the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences in August, 1833. It contained two hundred and twenty-
one species. His Synopsis of the Family Naiades, published
in 1836, and afterward supplemented and expanded, is said to
have settled satisfactorily to most conchologists the synonymy
of the species. On receiving it, Prince Charles Bonaparte ex-
pressed a desire to see all parts of zoology treated in the same
manner. In 1849 Dr. Lea presented a paper on the footmarks
of the reptile Sauropus pn 'mcevus, found by him in the red shales
at Pottsville, Pennsylvania, seventeen hundred feet below the
conglomerate, which was of interest on account of the discussion
it excited as to the age of the fossil. The footprints were
assigned to the old red sandstone, while Prof. Agassiz had
declared that he did not believe that any air-breathing animals
had existed before the new red sandstone. The discussion
was kept up for several years, in the course of which Dr. Lea
reiterated and maintained his position that the fossil was what
he represented it, and that the formation in which it was found
was the one indicated by Rogers as No. XI. Its interest has
since been diminished by the discovery and authentication of
fossils of air-breathers in still older formations. Another
series of papers of peculiar interest was that concerning the
fossil saurian of the new red sandstone (Clepsysaurus Pennsyl-
vanicus).

Having retired from business in 1851, Dr. Lea made another
visit to Europe in 1852. Many of the incidents of his previous
visit were substantially repeated, but in large part with natu-
ralists of another generation than those whom he had met be-
fore. At Paris he arranged and named the Unionida in the cabi-
nets of the eminent conchologists Boivin and Petit. He called
upon Dr. Chenu to look for the original specimen of Mulleria
of Ferussac, which had never been figured, but simply described
as being in Lamarck's collection. " He told Dr. Chenu that
he thought it must have been mixed with the Etheria, of which
the collection had many specimens. Dr. Chenu declared this

ISAAC LEA. 265

could not be so, or he would have seen it. As soon as he
pulled out the drawer, Dr. Lea saw at a glance the identical
specimen which Ferussac had described. He took it up and
declared this to be it. Both the naturalists were surprised and
delighted. . . . Thus Dr. Lea's theory of the genus Acostea, of
D'Orbigny, was complete — it was a Mulleria" At Vienna he
showed the Austrian naturalists some features in their species
and specimens which had escaped their eyes. At Berlin he
found Humboldt and other distinguished men of science much
interested in what was going on in geology in the United
States. At a dinner with the Philosophical Club in London,
Sir Charles Lyell gave him credit for being the first and only
one who had yet observed an air-breathing animal in so ancient
a rock as that in which the Sauropus primcevus occurred, and
added that the Clepsysaurus P ennsylvanicus was the first discov-
ery of bones in the new red sandstone, although a jaw of a
similar animal had since been found. Colonel Sabine exhibited
a bottle which he supposed had come through Behring Strait
from Japan, which Dr. Lea was able to claim as a verification of
his theory of a west-to-east Arctic current.

On his return home in November, 1853, Dr. Lea found an
accumulation of correspondence and specimens awaiting his
attention that hardly diminished, so incessant were the fresh
arrivals, during the remainder of his active life, or for twenty-
five years. Among his new Southern and Southwestern corre-
spondents was Bishop Elliott, of Georgia, who became greatly
interested in the mollusca of that State, and engaged the inter-
est of others in the subject and in collecting shells. The scien-
tific researches of Dr. Lea were continued, with constant pub-
lications, until 1877, when a sudden illness which came upon
him in Southern California disabled him from further vigorous
work. He still, however, continued to add to his collections
and perform such work upon them as his strength would allow.
He gave much attention to the microscopic examination of
quartz crystals, with drawings and descriptions of the inclu-
sions and markings of each, so that Prof. H. Rosenbusch, in
his work on the subject, mentioned him as having been the
first in America to enter into microscopic mineralogy. He
had engaged, since his return from Europe, in other branches
of natural history than conchology. The elephant folio
edition of the account of the fossil footmarks near Potts-
18

266 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ville elicited warm commendation for the beauty of its execu-
tion and illustration. In 1858 appeared a memoir on the em-
bryology of the UnionidcZ) giving descriptions and figures of
thirty-eight species. In all of his papers he described eighteen
hundred and seventy-two species of mollusks of various kinds,
most of which were from the United States. The series was
embodied in a private edition of thirteen volumes, with three
indexes, which the author distributed among men of science
and learned societies. Richard Owen, acknowledging the re-
ceipt of one of the volumes, said, " They represent a kind or
class of labours the most genuine and important and lasting,
in the hard endeavour to gain a knowledge of Nature." Prof.
Haidinger, of Vienna, said, on a similar occasion, that his work
would " last as long as natural science shall be cultivated by
mankind. The more it is compared and studied, the more
appears your power of observation, your efforts in pursuing
your object, your steadiness and perseverance." M. A. Boivin
wrote, "You render a great service to science in devoting your
time to the classification and description of the Unio" About
ten thousand individuals were displayed in Dr. Lea's cabinet
of Uniomdce, so arranged that each could be separately exam-
ined, and, in many instances, with a sequence from the young-
est to the oldest, so as to exhibit the aspects of growth. His
other cabinets contained nearly a thousand specimens of quartz
crystals, nearly five hundred of corundum, thirty-five drawers
of the mica group, and several hundred sections of lamina pre-
pared for the microscope.

In 1884 Dr. Lea was able to receive and entertain about
two hundred members of the British Association at his cottage
at Long Branch ; and in his ninety-fourth year he continued in
good health, with his mental and physical faculties unimpaired.
His death occurred December 8, 1886. He was President of
the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia from 1853 to
1858, and was President of the American Association in 1860.
The list given in his Bibliography of the society honours con-
ferred upon him numbers twenty-eight titles, and concludes
with an etc. He received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard
while absent in Europe in 1852-53. A correspondent, who main-
tained most intimate and confidential relations with Dr. Lea for
more than twenty years, furnishes a sketch of his personal char-
acter and social life, from which we quote the following words:

ISAAC LEA. 267

" Possessing a mind of great vigour and culture, he was a
most genial companion to those whose tastes and sympathies
accorded with his own. He was an ardent admirer of the
works of Nature ; and his cultivated mind enabled him to per-
ceive many qualities and properties in them, the beauties of
which are not comprehended by a less gifted observer. Few
objects escaped his notice. He possessed, in an eminent de-
gree, a prompt and keen appreciation of the sublime and of the
grotesque; and a speedy judgment in detecting merit or fraud,
affectation or sincerity.

" Dr. Lea habitually, during a period of nearly half a cen-
tury, spent many hours of the night in his studies and his writ-
ings, seldom relinquishing them before midnight. These night
studies were continued, with little intermission, until he was
nearly eighty years old ; and they were gradually and finally
abandoned only in compliance with the warnings of his medical
adviser. Until Dr. Lea became enfeebled with age, at a late
period in his life, it was a source of great delight to him to col-
lect mineral specimens in Chester and Delaware Counties in
Pennsylvania. His most frequent companions, on such occa-
sions, were Mr. William W. Jefferies, formerly of West Chester,
and the writer. No ardent schoolboy manifested more enthu-
siasm in digging than he, when a fair prospect was afforded for
obtaining specimens; and his well-trained eye quickly recog-
nised a specimen, though covered with soil. He never permit-
ted any person to clean his specimens excepting himself ; and
that operation he performed with great patience, in the most
complete manner, in order to display all the beauties which the
minerals possessed. He was familiar with nearly all the min-
eral localities in Eastern Pennsylvania. Many years ago the
writer described a locality for minerals in Delaware County,
which he supposed would be new to Dr. Lea, and received the
following reply from him : ' I have crawled all over that locali-
ty, on my hands and knees, a half-dozen times, with good re-
sults every time.'

" Dr. Lea was a strong admirer of gems, and his familiarity
with precious stones was so great that he was considered to be
one of the best judges of them in this country. He devoted
more time than any other mineralogist to the microscopic
examination of the precious stones ; the results from which
were published, at various times, in the proceedings of the

268 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Academy of Natural Sciences. He possessed a large collec-
tion of precious stones from all the important localities in the
world ; and copious notes, in his own writing, are still attached
to all the specimens.

Another friend of Dr. Lea's expresses surprise that, in all
the published notices of him, " no one has spoken of his won-
derful powers of observation of Nature even in her minutest
forms. You will pardon me if I say that I consider it one of
his highest qualifications as a man of science. Nothing ever
escaped his quick eye in the field or by the roadside when
driving. Every tree, shrub, and flower, was full of interest to
him, from which he ever imparted knowledge to his friends.
In observing crystalline forms I believe he excelled others."

Another friend regards him from a different point of view,
and says : " Something of his great-heartedness was revealed
to even the casual observer. It found expression in form, and
feature, and voice. Yet it was by those who knew him inti-
mately that the social, affectional qualities of his nature were
best perceived and most admired. Inheriting a loving spirit,
and receiving the gentle impressions of a Christian home, he
never lost his priceless dower. The demands of successful, en-
larging business, the fondness for scientific study, the passion
for scientific discovery, the allurements of fame, were wholly
insufficient to make him other than amiable and self-forgetful.
His home was the source and centre of his delight. He grate-
fully acknowledged his indebtedness to those on whom he lav-
ished his regard. During all the years in which he used even
the night-watches for his investigations, the early hours of
evening were spent, with free and joyous mind, in the midst
of his family. He ever took more from himself than from
others. Hospitality was the very genius of his house. With
gentlest, heartiest courtesy his friends were welcomed to his
fireside and his board. To those of scientific turn his rare
and extensive scientific collections were opened with genuine
delight. For those whose choice was in other directions, pro-
vision was made with equal care and gladness. Toward little
children, and the young in general, his sympathies went forth
with spontaneous freedom. He delighted to show to childish
eyes, and to explain to childish comprehension, the beauties
and marvels of Nature. Especially did he rejoice in giving
encouragement to those who were struggling upward against

ISAAC LEA. 269

great odds. The sight of such aspiration always awakened
his enthusiastic interest. Not a few who to-day occupy posi-
tions of honour and usefulness owe their success to his appre-
ciative, generous help. To envy his heart was wholly a stran-
ger, and thus his friendships with men of science, both young
and old, and with men great in other walks, were peculiarly
tender and strong.

" In truth his kindly interest included whatever affected the
welfare of the race. He took pleasure in all honest effort.
He exulted in all honourable achievement. He felt that he
was personally indebted to whosoever made man better or
more wise. In all social problems he took profound, un-
flagging interest. He sought to hold in view the progress of
humanity in every land. In the alliance between religion
and philanthropy and science he was a firm believer. He was
confident that truth and right would triumph at last. To his
perception the laws of Nature were the constancy of God's
action, and Nature itself a transcript of the Eternal Mind."

LARDNER VANUXEM.

1792-1848.

LARDNER VANUXEM was born in Philadelphia, July 23,
1792, and died at his home near Bristol, Pa., January 25, 1848.
His father, James Vanuxem, was a shipping merchant of Phila-
delphia, formerly of Dunkirk, France — a man eminent in busi-
ness and highly esteemed as a citizen and in social and domes-
tic life. His name was originally written Van Uxem; the
form was changed by him partly for convenience in writing,
but largely because he had become a great admirer of his
adopted country and wished to remove the foreign stamp from
his cognomen. James Vanuxem's wife, Rebecca, was a daugh-
ter of Colonel Elijah Clarke, of New Jersey. Of their fifteen
children Lardner was the eighth. Seven of these lived to long
past middle life, and two of them to ninety and over. His
maternal grandmother's name was Lardner.

Of the early educational course of the subject of this
sketch there is no record, and no one living has any knowl-
edge. It is thought that he was for a time a student in the
Pennsylvania University, but this can not be verified. He en-
tered his father's counting-house as a young man, but business
proved very distasteful to him, his mind having been drawn
previously to the cultivation of chemistry and mineralogy.
He soon determined to give up all connection with business
and devote himself to science. Accordingly, his father gave
him the advantage of a three years' residence in Paris, at the
School of Mines, where he became the associate of Prof. Alex-
andre Brongniart, the Abb£ Haiiy, and other distinguished
men then prominent as professors in the schools of that great
scientific metropolis. There he formed an intimate acquaint-
ance with the late Prof. Keating, of Philadelphia, who in the
same walks was drinking from the same fountain of knowledge.
Being graduated in 1819, after a short tour through some dis-

270

LARDNER VANUXEM.

LARDNER VANUXEM.

tricts of France investigating the rock formations, collecting
specimens, etc., he returned to this country and his native city,
" charged with all the improvements of recent chemical dis-
coveries, and the advancement in all its kindred arts." But
he preferred the more abstract pursuit of his studies to the
application of his knowledge to the practical arts.

Almost immediately after his return home, he was invited
by President Cooper, of Columbia College, in South Carolina,
to take the chair of Chemistry and Mineralogy in that insti-
tution. Becoming a member of the president's family, a
warm friendship was formed between him and each member
thereof, which ended only with their lives.

In 1826 he retired from the college and devoted his atten-
tion exclusively to geology as a profession. During that year
he published in the newspapers and in Robert Mill's Statistics
of South Carolina reports on the geology of the State, of
which he made a survey or assisted in making one, having pre-
viously made one of North Carolina. "He also made quite
a collection of minerals and rocks of the State, which were
deposited in the University of South Carolina."

He then visited Mexico to examine gold-mining property,
of which he had been solicited to take charge. His inspection
soon convinced him that no profitable results could accrue to
the owners, and he advised that it be abandoned.

In i827-J28 he studied the geological features of the States
of New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, under
the auspices of the State of New York, and made his report to
its Legislature.

It was either at this time or immediately after his return
from France that he spent much time in geological investiga-
tions in the vicinity of Philadelphia in company with Dr. Isaac
Lea, who was his chosen and most intimate friend and associ-
ate from his early days to the end of his life. Subsequently
Dr. Lea honoured him by naming after him a class of fresh-
water shells which he had been the first to discover and make
known. It is from Dr. Isaac Lea's record of him that much of
the information in connection with science, contained in the
first part of this sketch, is derived. He also made at times ex-
tensive and careful investigations in the franklinite districts
and marl beds of New Jersey.

In 1830, having returned to Philadelphia, he purchased a

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

farm near Bristol, Pa., and soon after married a daughter of
his neighbour, John Newbold, Esq., of Bloomsdale. His farm
remained the home of himself and family for the remainder of
his life, about seventeen years. "While he often assisted with
his own hands," says Dr. Lea, " in the cultivation of the farm,
he never at any moment ceased to cultivate his already ex-
tensive acquirements in geology, mineralogy, and chemistry,
nor to add to a collection of specimens of great extent and
rareness."

In 1836, at the solicitation of Governor Marcy, he entered
upon what has been pronounced " one of the most magnificent
investigations ever made in the geological developments of
any country or by any government " — the geological survey
of the State of New York. The results are given in Geology
of New York, Third District, Albany, 1842. The Third Dis-
trict, of which he had charge, comprised fourteen counties in
the central part of the State. The scope of the work per-
formed by Prof. Vanuxem and his colleagues is thus indicated
by Prof. James Hall : * " During the few years of field work the
New York geologists had harmonized the conflicting views
before entertained regarding the relations of the geology
of the eastern and western parts of the State ; they had traced
the boundaries of the successive geological formations, had
shown the extent and limits of the iron-bearing strata, and
had rectified the erroneous views which had been held till
some time after the commencement of the survey regarding the
boundaries and distribution of the salt-bearing formation of
the State. They had also shown the limits of the granitic for-
mations and their associated mineral products, the thickness
and extent of all the limestone, sandstone, and shale forma-
tions of the State, and had definitely settled the relations of
the rocks of New York to the coal measures of Pennsylvania
and the geological formations of the Western States."

The important service rendered to geological science in the
matter of nomenclature by the members of this survey is also
described by Prof. Hall, as follows : " Since there was no possi-
bility of identifying the individual rocks and groups of strata
with those of Europe, as described, the New York geologists
were compelled to give names to the different members of the

* In The Public Service of the State of New York.

LARDNER VANUXEM. 273

series; and since the sandstones, limestones, slates, and shales
are so similar in different and successive groups, it was impossi-
ble to give descriptive names which would discriminate the one
from the other. Therefore local names were proposed and
adopted — as, for example, Potsdam sandstone, Trenton lime-
stone, Niagara limestone, and Niagara shale (the two latter, with
subordinate beds making the Niagara group), the Medina sand-
stone, the Onondaga salt group, the Hamilton, Portage, and
Chemung groups, thus giving typical localities of the rock instead
of descriptive names. This method or system of nomenclature
leaves no possibility of mistake or confusion which might arise
from a different appreciation of descriptive terms. The typical
locality always remains for study, comparison, and reference, and
there need be no difference of opinion or discussion as to what
was intended by the use of any one of the terms. The progress
of geological science in the country is greatly indebted to this
system of nomenclature, and to the absolute working out of
the succession of the groups, and the members of the same, to
which this system of nomenclature has been applied."

At the close of the survey he spent some months in Albany
(associated with Prof. Hall) in arranging the State geological
cabinet, the specimens of which he had assisted in collecting,
and out of which has grown the New York State Museum.
His name was given by his colleagues to several species of the
fossils discovered in the course of the survey, and in 1858 Mr.
Elkenah Billings named a genus (discovered in Canada) in his
honour.

Prof. Vanuxem's private collection of minerals and geolog-
ical specimens was considered at the time of his death as " the
largest, best arranged, and most valuable private collection in
this country." The shell and mineral specimens were fine and
many of them very beautiful, but it was the geological de-
partment, with its numerous specimens of rock and fossil and
the perfect arrangement of the whole, giving to the investi-
gator, in the best manner possible, the information sought, and
all arranged by his own hands and methods, that constituted
its chief value. It was constantly visited by eminent scientists
both of this country and from abroad. Prof. Agassiz, Sir
Charles Lyell, and Dr. Nicolay were drawn to it on more than
one occasion. Those who were in the habit of visiting it most
frequently, both from interest in it and its possessor, seemed to

274 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

be filled with enthusiasm, of whom were Dr. Emmons, Dr. Beck,
Prof. Timothy Conrad, Dr. Locke, of Cincinnati, and many
others. On one occasion, while engaged on the United States
Coast Survey, Dr. Locke brought all his paraphernalia of work
and his assistants, pitching his tents in a field on the Vanuxem
farm near the house ; there he remained for some weeks, con-
tinuing his work, at the same time availing himself of the op-
portunity of study in and examination of the cabinet, making
numerous casts of the specimens, especially the rare fossils.

After his death, Prof. Vanuxem's collection was purchased
by W. M. Stewart, President of Masonic College at Clarksville,
Tenn. It was reported that during the civil war the collection
was dissipated and destroyed, but this rumour could not have
been wholly true, for part if not all of the specimens are still
there. In May, 1892, one of Prof. Vanuxem's daughters was
applied to by a geologist for information as to the whereabouts
of this collection, as it contained, he said, the only known
specimen of a certain South Carolina fossil, which he very much
desired to examine.

Prof. Vanuxem was a member of and assisted in the organ-
ization and establishment of the Philadelphia Academy of Nat-
ural Sciences and other scientific associations.

" It was the habit of those connected with the New York
survey to meet at Albany at the end of each field season, for
the purpose of comparing observations and becoming ac-
quainted with each other. In the autumn of 1838 Prof. Van-
uxem suggested that an invitation be extended to the geolo-
gists of Pennsylvania and Virginia for the purpose of devising
and adopting a geological nomenclature that might be accept-
able to all those who were then engaged in the State surveys,
and thus become the nomenclature of American geology. This
meeting was finally held in 1840, and then the Association of
American Geologists was organized, which is now succeeded
by the American Association for the Advancement of Science."

Some few years after the close of the New York survey,
Prof. Vanuxem was solicited by Prof. Henry, of the Smithsoni-
an Institution, at Washington, to become his associate in charge
of that institution. Although it would have been a work in
many ways congenial, the offer was declined, for various rea-
sons that he deemed good ones.

In addition to the report that has been mentioned, and nu-

LARDNER VANUXEM. 275

merous papers on scientific subjects published in the American
Journal of Science, he published An Essay on the Ultimate
Principles of Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, and Physiology
(Philadelphia, 1827) ; but it is his Report of the New York Sur-
vey which it is said " will remain his monument, and on which
the reputation of his scientific attainments is based."

It would seem as though a man as devoted to science as the
subject of this sketch would have his time and thoughts com-
pletely absorbed thereby, but not so in this case. The investi-
gating turn of his mind prompted the examination of abstruse
subjects, and to him the Scriptures presented an unlimited
field. His careful scrutiny of the sacred writings and close
study of all the extant commentators upon them resulted in an
immense pile of manuscript books which he left as a monu-
ment of his interest in the subject, untiring industry, persever-
ance, and love of research, if nothing more. Although trained
in the Presbyterian faith by his mother, Prof. Vanuxem had
adopted, and expressed in these writings, views which were too
broad and too far in advance of the time to be considered " or-
thodox."

Every attempt to extend the bounds of human knowledge
or to give the benefit of enlightened direction to the activities
of mankind aroused his interest. His attention was thus drawn
to the so-called new religions, Mormonism and Millerism, as
they arose ; to the religious teachings of Channing and Emer-
son ; and to the study of Egyptian antiquities. He studied
phrenology, and became a believer in its theories. At a time
when the subject had hardly been thought of he was a strong
advocate of the emancipation of woman from the narrow sphere
of activity to which she had been confined. General literature
did not have the absorbing interest for him that scientific sub-
jects did. As for music, it appeared to have no charms in his
eyes; he declared that far too much time was wasted over it.
This fact seems rather unaccountable, as all his brothers and
sisters were devoted to the art, and some of them proficient in it,

For Benjamin Franklin's character and achievements he had
the highest admiration ; honouring himself and his place by
naming it after him " Franklin Farm," and the entrance hall of
the house was adorned for many years by a bust of the great
man ; attention often being called to it as " the presiding gen-
ius of the place."

2;6 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

To complete the picture, even of a man of science, the social
and domestic side of his character and life as well as daily oc-
cupations must not be omitted. He was kind and gentle in
manner and speech, his somewhat quick temper being under
complete control. Though his children stood rather in awe of
him, as did many others (of his subordinates), he ruled them by
affection and " treated them as intelligent beings," as he said,
the result being the most implicit obedience.

His active mind was engaged frequently upon subjects re-
quiring deep thought while his hands were executing works of
minor importance. On being asked why he did not plow his
own fields, he would reply that he never liked to engage in any
manual labour that absorbed the whole attention, as he desired
to keep his mind free for other matters. His knowledge of
chemistry was brought into use in the cultivation of his farm —
much to the amusement of his less enlightened neighbours, who
did not believe in " book farming." He had learned the use of
carpenter's tools when a boy, for his father, in order to keep
his sons off the street, had wisely provided them interesting
occupation at home by fitting up a shop for their use. Prof.
Vanuxem turned his skill to account in making the cases and
chests of drawers in his cabinet — a room measuring about fif-
teen by twenty-five or thirty feet — and otherwise as occasion
required.

" Always cheerful, intelligent, bright, and full of anecdote,"
it has been said of him, " he was gladly welcomed into every
social circle." Both frugality and generosity were prominent
traits of his character. More than once did he take into his
household, for indefinite periods, young relatives who needed
assistance. His table was abundantly supplied and his house
was well furnished with comforts, but extravagance in any-
thing he strongly deprecated, especially in dress. " Love of
dress," he used to say, " had caused more sin than anything
else in the world."

Careful and neat to an extreme himself in his habits and
arrangements, he exacted the same from those around him as
far as possible. Of the courtesies and conventionalties he was
most scrupulously observant, and was greatly annoyed by any
breach thereof, as when any of his Quaker neighbours, coming
in, would sit with hat on in the house. Obedience to the
" golden rule " appeared to be the guide of his life, as he was

LARDNER VANUXEM.

277

wont frequently to hold it up to his children, that they should
make it theirs.

He had the reputation of being visionary and full of unten-
able theories. This may have been true to some extent, and
it would certainly have appeared to be the case even if not so,
for it was often said by his scientific contemporaries that " he
lived too soon, being many years in advance of his times ; peo-
ple were not prepared for his discoveries and theories, and
therefore not able to appreciate them, even the scientific
world." He was considered also " a very peculiar man," which
was not surprising, in view of his independence of general
opinion, in following out what he considered the right or best
course in any matter. As an illustration might be given a
description of his equipment for the New York survey. It
consisted of a four-wheeled wagon with buggy top, covered
with white canvas for coolness, with a box at the back large
enough to hold his requirements for the season, and working
implements. This was drawn by a large, rusty-brown mule,
very far from handsome, but strong, trusty, faithful, with pow-
ers of endurance much beyond those of a horse. He was often
not a little amused at the comments and ridicule that this
equipage provoked, but it was the thing that best answered his
purpose, so he went on his way and let them laugh.

The necessity for turning his acquirements to some pecu-
niary advantage, was one of the inducements for Prof. Van-
uxem to engage in the New York survey. The working for
" pay " was one of the things for which he had a great aver-
sion, "a feeling," as he writes, "he never could conquer." He
wanted to be able to work for the public without charge and
not feel that his time belonged to some one who had a right
to its control ; he was too conscientious to feel any freedom
when under bonds of this sort.

Physically Prof. Vanuxem was below the average in height,
rather slightly built, active, energetic, with great powers of en-
durance, and persevering in whatever he undertook. He was
always in good health, being " temperate in all things," and,
though often furnishing wine for his guests, declining the use
of it himself, as he said he wished to keep his head always per-
fectly clear. To tobacco in all its forms he had a great aver-
sion. One of his theories was that human life was much too
short, either because of too much luxury and self-indulgence

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

on the one hand, or lack of proper sustenance on the other.
By striking the happy medium, he believed life might be indefi-
nitely prolonged. His last illness was of about three weeks'
duration, and caused by a carbuncle on the upper lip. After a
time the brain became affected and unconsciousness ensued,
which continued uninterruptedly until he passed away, having
seen but fifty-five and a half years. This early ending of his
life seems like the irony of Fate ! The many letters received
by the family after his death, from those with whom he had
been associated in his scientific career, filled with such heart-
felt expressions of sorrow and regret for the personal loss and
the loss to science, attest the estimation in which he was
held by them all.

The original of the likeness accompanying. this sketch was a
daguerreotype — the only portrait of any kind ever made of
Prof. Vanuxem. This was taken in a group in 1846, in the
early days of the art, when the arrangement of dress and pose
was not understood so well as afterward. Hence the eyes,
said to have . been his best features, are unfortunately cast
down, as he was told to look at the child seated on his knee.
The portrait is like him, but has not the pleasing aspect his
countenance always wore.

ELISHA MITCHELL.

ELISHA MITCHELL.

A MONUMENT of modest size and style, standing in Yancey
County, North Carolina, on the highest point of land in the
eastern United States, marks the grave of the man who first
determined, by measurement, the culminating point of the Ap-
palachian range — a man, too, whose local fame as a student of
natural history, a hardy explorer, and a teacher, was pre-emi-
nent. Not the little obelisk of bronze — that only shows the
exact spot where his body lies — but the mountain on which it
stands, whose supremacy over all the peaks east of the Rocky
Mountains he established, and in the exploration of which he
lost his life, is the true monument of Prof. Elisha Mitchell.

Elisha Mitchell was born in Washington, Conn., August 19,
1793. His father, Abner Mitchell, was a farmer; and his
mother, Phebe Eliot, was a descendant, in the fifth generation,
from John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. His great-grand-
father, the Rev. Jared Eliot, M. D. and D. D., for many years
minister at Killingworth, Conn., was distinguished for his
knowledge of history, natural philosophy, botany, and min-
eralogy, no less than as a sturdily orthodox theologian ; was a
correspondent of Dr. Franklin and Bishop Berkeley, and was
awarded a gold medal by the Royal Society for a discovery in
the manufacture of iron. Young Mitchell inherited many of
the qualities of the Eliots, and particularly of this ancestor.
At four years of age he acquitted himself with credit in a
school exhibition. At a little latter age he was" fond of col-
lecting his playmates in a group and telling them what he had
read in his books, or explaining the pictures to them. He was
prepared for college at the classical school, in Bethlehem, of the
Rev. Azel Backus, D. D., afterward President of Hamilton Col-
lege. He was graduated from Yale College in 1813, in the
same class with Denison Olmsted, afterward his associate in

5579

28o PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the University of North Carolina, and with other persons who
subsequently became conspicuously known. He was then en-
gaged as a teacher in Dr. Eigenbrodt's boys' school at Ja-
maica, L. I.; in the spring of 1815 he took charge of a school
for girls at New London, Conn., where he became acquainted
with the lady who was afterward his wife ; and in 1816 he was
appointed a tutor in Yale College. While thus engaged, he
and Prof. Olmsted were recommended by the Rev. Sereno E.
Dwight, son of President Dwight, Chaplain of the United
States Senate, to Judge Gaston, member of the House of Rep-
resentatives from North Carolina, who appears to have been
looking around for candidates as suitable persons for professor-
ships in the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. Mr.
Mitchell was chosen Professor of Mathematics, and Mr. Olm-
sted Professor of Chemistry, to which a chair was then for the
first time assigned. Having studied for a short time at An-
dover Theological Seminary and received a license to preach,
Mr. Mitchell removed to North Carolina, and reaching Chapel
Hill on the last day of January, 1818, immediately began his
work as a professor. Here he remained, continuing at his post
without intermission of considerable length, for thirty-nine
years, or till the end of his life.

In the fall of the next year Prof. Mitchell returned to Con-
necticut to be married to Miss Maria S. North, daughter of
Elisha North, M. D., of New London. The bride's letters de-
scribing her journey to North Carolina give some sidelights
on the life and methods of travel of the time. The marriage
took place on Friday, the choice of the day having been partly
made as a demonstration against a popular superstition, and
partly determined by circumstances. The journey of eight
hundred and fifteen miles to Chapel Hill occupied ten days.
On the removal of Prof. Olmsted in 1825 to accept a professor-
ship in Yale College, Prof. Mitchell was transferred to the
chair he had filled, and became, and continued till the end of
his life, Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology.

Dr. Albert R. Ledoux, in a historical sketch of the Univer-
sity of North Carolina, published in the University Magazine
for October, 1890, speaking of the intellectual giants in its fac-
ulty who have given reputation to. the institution, and whose
contributions to letters and science made them prominent
among the learned men of their day, observes that Prof. Mitch-

ELISHA MITCHELL. 28 1

ell was the most noted of them all. During his occupation of
the chair of Mathematics, the doctrine of fluxions, or the cal-
culus, was introduced into the course, and the standard of at-
tainment was raised in other branches of the department. His
transfer to the chair of Natural Science was welcome to him.
Even while a Professor of Mathematics, according to Prof.
Charles Phillips, he had made frequent botanical excursions in
the country round Chapel Hill ; and after settling himself in
his new chair he extended and multiplied these excursions;
" so that when he died he was known in almost every part of
North Carolina, and he left no one behind him better acquainted
with its mountains, valleys, and plains ; its birds, beasts, bugs,
fishes, and shells ; its trees, flowers, vines, and mosses ; its
rocks, stones, sands, clays, and marls. Although in Silliman's
Journal, and in other periodicals less prominent, but circu-
lating more widely nearer home, he published many of his
discoveries concerning North Carolina, yet it is to be re-
gretted that he did not print more and in a more permanent
form. It would doubtless have thus appeared that he knew,
and perhaps justly estimated the worth of, many facts which
much later investigators have proclaimed as their own remark-
able discoveries. But the information that he gathered was
for his own enjoyment and for the instruction of his pupils.
On these he lavished, to their utmost capacity for reception,
the knowledge that he had gathered by his widely extended
observations, and had stored up mainly in the recesses of his
own singularly retentive memory." The notes of his excur-
sions, which are recorded in a series of blank books kept for
the purpose, give revelations of the habits of the author's mind J
they chronicle his walks over farms which he names, and ob-
servations of individual plants and other objects in specified
localities. "By such a rock," writes Mrs. C. P. Spencer, in an
article of reminiscences, " in such a field, is a plant that he
must identify. By Scott's Hole, near the willow is a Carex
that he must watch. March 29, 1821, he finds yellow jessa-
mine in bloom in Mrs. Hooper's garden, and ' in great abun-
dance on the creek below Merritt's mill.' . . . May 30, 1821,
occurs this note, that he had that day found the last of the
twelve varieties of oak that are within two miles of the univer-
sity ; then follows a list of the oaks and notes of their situa-
tion. ... In the third week of April, 1824, he began a new
19

282 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Diary of Mosses, and hunts the Liskea hypnum through a dozen
authorities, to be sure of it. He had the true scholar's disdain
of taking anything at second hand. Such pages are diversified
with ' Hints for the good instruction of the class ' ; or, * Points
to be meditated respecting the nature of light.' " In the pref-
ace to one of these notebooks — written in French — a plan of
study was laid down for each week. So many hours were
to be given to mathematics, so many to Latin and Greek, so
many to history, so many to the Spanish language and to
botany ; and the resolution appears that, till such an hour, " I
will not touch one book of belles-lettres." He thus visited the
plants and rocks of the State in their own homes, and became
one of the best authorities in the country respecting them.
The expeditions which he conducted into all parts of North
Carolina, examining the flora and rocks and strata, made him the
best physical geographer the State had ever had. The infor-
mation he gathered in this way was used profusely in the instruc-
tion of his classes, and they always reaped greater benefits from
his acquisitions than any other part of the community. While
he wrote occasionally for the scientific papers, " he read more
than he observed, and observed more than he wrote." Among
the articles contributed by him to Silliman's Journal are named,
in a memoir published in the local paper at the time of his
death, those on the low country of North Carolina, 1828; on
the Geology of the Gold Regions of North Carolina, 1829; on
Welther's tube of safety, with notices of other subjects, 1830;
on the causes of winds and storms, 1831 ; Analysis of the Pro-
togaea of Leibnitz, 1831 ; and notices of the high mountains in
North Carolina, 1839. Such articles were contributed at inter-
vals till the time of his death. He also prepared for use in
his classes a Manual of Chemistry, the second edition of which
was passing through the press when he died ; a Manual of
Geology, illustrated by a geological map of North Carolina ;
and Facts and Dates respecting the History, Geography, etc.,
of Palestine.

Prof. Mitchell was an industrious reader, particularly on all
subjects that were directly or indirectly connected with his
professorship, and had a knowledge of geography that was re-
garded as wonderful. At a time when students were more iso-
lated from one another than they are now, and facilities for
exchange of news were not so abundant, he was at great pains

ELISHA MITCHELL.

283

to keep up with the advance on every side. With all this he
was of conservative tendency, and not disposed to accept the
new too hastily. As a teacher, Prof. Phillips says, "he took
great pains in inculcating the first principles of science. These
he set forth distinctly in the very beginning of his instructions,
and he never let his pupils lose sight of them. When brilliant
and complicated phenomena were presented for their contem-
plation, he sought not to. excite their wonder or magnify him-
self in their eyes as a man of surprising acquirements, or as a
most dexterous manipulator, but to exhibit such instances as
most clearly set forth fundamental laws, and demanded the ex-
ercise of a skilful analysis. Naturally of a cautious disposition,
such had been his own experience, and so large was his ac-
quaintance with the experience of others, that he was not easily
excited when others announced unexpected discoveries among
the laws and the phenomena which he had been studying for
years as they appeared. While others were busy in prophesy-
ing revolutions in social or political economy, he was quietly
awaiting the decisions of experience. He constantly taught
his pupils that there were things wherein they must turn from
the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so sweetly. His influ-
ence on the developments of science was eminently conserva-
tive, for he loved the old landmarks."

Prof. Mitchell's general fame rests chiefly on his work in
the exploration of the Black Mountain of North Carolina, a
spur which, standing between the main mountain ridges, had
been regarded by persons best acquainted with the region,
without knowing its exact height, as the culminating point of
the Appalachian system. The two Michauxes had remarked,
about the beginning of the century — the elder in 1799, and the
younger in 1802 — the presence of Alpine plants there that were
not found again south of Canada, and inferred that the peak
must therefore surpass all its fellows in height. John C. Cal-
houn had come to a similar conclusion, from the observation of
the streams that had their source on the mountain. Meeting
the Hon. David L. Swain, who was afterward President of the
university, in 1825, Mr. Calhoun congratulated him on being of
the same height with Washington and himself, and on their
both residing in the neighbourhood of the highest mountain on
the continent east of the Rocky Mountains. When asked the
meaning of his remark, Mr. Calhoun referred to the map as

284 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

showing that in this group were to be found the highest sources
of one of the great tributaries of the Mississippi, the Tennes-
see ; of the Kanawha, flowing northward into the Ohio ; and of
the Santee and Pedee, which run directly to the Atlantic — all
considerable rivers rinding their way to the sea in opposite di-
rections. The story was told by Governor Swain to Prof.
Mitchell in 1830, during an excursion on the Cape Fear River.
Although Mr. Calhoun's reasoning was defective, his observa-
tion, coupled with the opinion expressed on other grounds by
the Michauxes, impressed Prof. Mitchell, and aroused a desire
in him to know more of the Black Mountain, and to determine
its height. The opportunity came in 1835. The memorandum-
book in which the notes of his visit in that year are recorded
contains such entries as "Objects of Attention — Geology; Bot-
any ; Height of the Mountains ; Positions by Trigonometry ;
Woods, as the Fir, Spruce, Magnolia, Birch ; Fish, especially
Trout; Springs; Biography," etc. He was accompanied by
his daughter, and carried " two barometers, a quadrant, a vascu-
lum for plants, and a hammer for rocks." The incidents of this
expedition, the details of which became important in the case
of a controversy that afterward arose, have been summarized
and confirmed by the testimony of witnesses in an article which
Prof. Charles Phillips contributed to the North Carolina Uni-
versity Magazine for March, 1858. Having made some obser-
vations of the geological formations of the Grandfather Moun-
tain, and measured some heights near Morgantown, Prof.
Mitchell crossed the Blue Ridge and fixed his headquarters at
Bakersville, in Yancey County, near the foot of Roan Moun-
tain. From here he made several excursions in a country which
was then nearly in the condition of the primitive wilderness.
Being told that Yeates's Mountain was the highest of the group,
he climbed it, accompanied by two guides, on the 2;th of July,
1835 — a day so clear and serene " that all the main eminences
of the Black were clearly visible." He found that this moun-
tain was overtopped by several of the peaks around it, the most
of which confronted him in an arc so curved that it was easy
to decide which of them was the highest. He made the entry :
" Top of Yeates's knob ; N. E. knob of Black bore N. 46^ E.
Counting from Young's knob : one low one ; one low one; two
in one, the southernmost pointed ; a round knob, same height ;
a double knob ; then the highest ; then a long, low place with a

ELISHA MITCHELL. 285

knob in it ; then a round three-knobby knob, equal to the high-
est, after which the ridge descends." This verbal account tal-
lies exactly with a profile of the range drawn by Prof. Guyot
when standing on the same Yeates's Peak in 1856. On the
next day, July 28th, Prof. Mitchell and his guides visited the
peak which had been determined by the Yeates's Mountain ob-
servation to be the highest ; according to the testimony of the
guide, William Wilson, they " came to the top at a small glade,
not more than a quarter of an acre in extent, and, turning to
the right, not more than one hundred and fifty yards, we ar-
rived on the top of the main highest peak, being the same one
as we thought that we had selected from Yeates's knob the day
before. Then Dr. Mitchell climbed into the highest balsam he
could find, and took his observations. After consulting his
barometer, he said that it was the highest point that he had
found yet."

Some of the immediate results of the excursions from Ba-
kersville, including geological and botanical observations, were
published in the Raleigh Register of November 3, 1835. The
height of the mountain was calculated as compared with that
of Morganton, which was then supposed to be 968 feet above
the sea. The mountain being found to be 5,508 feet above
that point, its height was given as 6,476 feet, or 200 feet less
than the real height. The discrepancy became afterward a
source of confusion, and has been used to support the allega-
tion that the peak Dr. Mitchell climbed that day was not the
real highest peak. But it was explained and vanished when the
railroad surveys showed that Morganton depot is really 1,169
feet high. This would make Prof. Mitchell's real measurement
6,677 feet> nearly what he obtained (6,672 feet) in 1844. Prof.
Guyot, in 1856, obtained a height of 6,701 feet.

Doubts afterward rose in Prof. Mitchell's mind whether the
peak he climbed in 1835 was tne true summit of the mountain.
A new measurement of Mount Washington had been made,
which seemed to add to its reported height and lift it above
Mitchell's Peak. Dr. Mitchell revisited the mountain in 1838,
and determined in 1844 to make a new survey and measure-
ment. He obtained a Gay Lussac mountain barometer from
Paris, took William Riddle as his guide, and, making Asheville
his base for comparison, found the height 6,672 feet. The
identity of the peak visited this time was afterward called in

286 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

question by other parties, but Prof. Mitchell himself never
doubted that he had been on the right spot. He wrote in the
summer of 1856: "I stood upon the highest peak some days
since, and could then distinguish the ridges over which my
guide, William Riddle, taking as nearly as he could a straight,
or, as it happened, a diagonal direction across them from the
neighbourhood of the Green Ponds, led me directly to the peak
we were in search of."

After the survey of 1844, the Hon. Thomas L. Clingman
put forth a claim to having been the first to measure the real
culminating point of the Black Mountain, and undertook to
prove that Prof. Mitchell had been mistaken in the mountain
which he measured. The question thus raised was the subject
of an active controversy for several years. The highest moun-
tain was called Clingman's Peak, and Prof. Mitchell's name was
transferred to the peak which was described in his diary of
1835 as "a round three-knobby knob, equal to the highest,"
which he had never assumed to climb or to measure. It was
as much to settle this dispute as for the sake of more accurate
measurement that Prof. Mitchell made his fifth visit to the
mountain in 1857, in which he lost his life. The question was
investigated by his friends after his death, when all the accessi-
ble evidence was collected and compared, and his priority in
measuring the peak, and the identity of the mountain he meas-
ured in 1835 witn tne real highest point, seem to have been
satisfactorily established. In evidence to support his claim,
Prof. Phillips brought forward the notes in his diary of 1835
and their exact correspondence with Prof. Guyot's profile ; the
testimony of William Wilson, one of the guides who went up
with him, and who gave in his certificate a correct description
of the topography of the summit, and of Nathaniel Allen, son
of Adoniram Allen, the other guide, deceased, who said that his
father had always spoken of that peak as the one which he as-
cended with Prof. Mitchell ; the certificate of four citizens who
accompanied William Wilson in September, 1857, while he re-
traced the steps of the ascent of 1835 ; the testimony of nu-
merous citizens respecting the landmarks and the geographical
features, particularly of the streams, by which the true highest
peak is located and identified ; and the testimony of the same
citizens that this peak was generally known through the country
as Mount Mitchell or Mitchell's High Peak, while the other

ELISHA MITCHELL. 28/

mountain (Party Knob) to which Prof. Mitchell's name has
been attached was not so known till after the visit of 1844.

Prof. Mitchell's fifth visit to the Black Mountain, in 1857,
was made in view of the controversy with Dr. Clingman for the
sake of obtaining more careful and accurate measurements
than he had been able to secure before, and for the purpose of
investigating the value of the number which is used in calculat-
ing heights by barometrical observations. To this end he had
provided himself with four of Green's Smithsonian barometers,
and sent one of them to Savannah to be employed in contem-
poraneous observations by Dr. Posey at the level of the ocean
and nearly on the same meridian as the Black Mountain. He
further intended to connect the beach-mark on the North
Carolina Western Railroad survey by a line determined by a
spirit-level with the top of Mitchell's Peak. After marking off
points differing in height by five hundred or a thousand feet,
he designed to continue contemporaneous barometrical and
thermometrical observations for several days at each of these
points, and thus obtain reliable data for a full discussion of
questions concerning measurements by barometer in the lati-
tude of the region. He began to survey about the middle of
June. On the 2yth of that month, when his work was about
half completed, he separated from his son, with the intention
of going across the mountain to the Caney River settlement to
visit the Wilsons and Mr. Riddle, his former guides, and secur-
ing their assistance in identifying points which they had visited
together. He was never seen alive afterward. A storm arose
that evening, in which he probably perished. When it was
found that he had neither reached Mr. Wilson's nor returned to
his lodgings, parties started in search of him. As the search
continued, and the news spread that he was missing, the parties
grew, and soon included a considerable part of the mountain
population of Yancey and Buncombe Counties ; for the people
were all warmly attached to him. His trail was found and fol-
lowed to a point where the guides declared, from its irregulari-
ties and the evidences that the wanderer had become no longer
able to pick his course, that darkness had overtaken him ;
thence along a small creek to a place now called Mitchell's
Falls ; and there, on the yth of July, the body was found in the
pool below the falls. The marks on the bank showed that
Prof. Mitchell had slipped forty-five feet down the slope and

288 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

then fallen fifteen feet into the pool. The body was borne by
the Yancey men, after the coroner's inquest, a distance of about
three miles, to the top of the mountain. Then word came that
it was to be taken to Asheville ; and the men of Buncombe took
it up and carried it there.

Not quite a year afterward, in June, 1858, the body was ex-
humed from the graveyard of the Presbyterian church in Ashe-
ville, and was carried again, this time with formal ceremonies,
and a procession of citizens, large considering the character of
the march, to the top of the mountain, where it was laid in the
earth, within a few feet of the famous balsam tree. A funeral
discourse was pronounced by Bishop James H. Otey, D. D., of
Tennessee, one of Prof. Mitchell's first pupils, and an address
in vindication of Prof. Mitchell's claims to have the mountain
named after him was delivered by President Swain. It is worthy
of remark that the first class taught by Prof. Mitchell in the
university was represented at the ceremonies, in the persons of
Bishop Otey and Dr. Thomas H. Wright, of Wilmington, and
the last class by Mr. J. W. Graham and his own son. A monu-
ment, twelve feet high, in the material known as white bronze,
was erected over the grave in 1888.

The question of the name of the mountain appears to have
been decided by the United States Geological Survey in 1881-
'82, which, adopting the final designations for the peaks of this
range, gave Prof. Mitchell's name to this one.

Prof. Mitchell was a Presbyterian minister of the Presbytery
of Orange, Synod of North Carolina, and was styled, in the
memorial resolutions passed by the synod, probably the most
learned man that had ever lived in the State ; was a regular
preacher in the college chapel and the village church ; and was
the college bursar, a justice of the peace, a farmer, a commis-
sioner for the village of Chapel Hill, and at times its magis-
trate of police. He was known as a skilful and conscientious
professor, and vigilant, long-suffering, firm, and mild as a dis-
ciplinarian. Believing that prevention of the ills of a college
life was better than having to cure them, he was watchful to
guard the students against falling into error. When offences
were committed, he would try to present the nature of his con-
duct to the culprit in its true light, and, when punishment had
to be inflicted, to select such a method as would appeal to his
better feelings and open the way to a return to sound views.

ELISHA MITCHELL.

289

He was extensively known among the mountaineers, who all
had a remarkably warm affection for him, and the interest that
was aroused among them by the circumstances of his disap-
pearance was still "warmly alive," and the event was still
a topic of conversation as late as the end of 1889.

EDWARD HITCHCOCK.

1793-1864.

BORN at Deerfield, Mass., May 23, 1793; died at Amherst,
Mass., February 27, 1864.

The first of this family emigrated to this country in 1635,
coming probably from Warwickshire in England. He was one
of the original members of the New Haven, Conn., Colony.
Two or three generations of the family resided in New Haven ;
the fourth in the line emigrated to western Massachusetts, and
was an officer in the Revolutionary War. His son, Justin, the
father of Edward, was a soldier in the army of General Gates
when Burgoyne's army was captured. Justin married one of
the Hoyts, who was descended from the sufferers at Deerfield
at the French-Indian raid of 1704. He settled at Deerfield,
and was a hatter. Becoming embarrassed financially by obli-
gations incurred in the continental currency, he suffered from
poverty all Jiis life, and was unable to give his children more
education than was afforded by the common school and the
local academy. Edward was therefore compelled to educate
himself, and that under the drawback of ill health, caused by
overwork and carelessness. Six particulars may be mentioned,
going to show that by improving his opportunities he was well
educated in many respects: i. For several years he was a
leading member of a debating society. This afforded the op-
portunity to practise extempore speaking, composition, and
acquire facility in philosophical reasoning. A few short poems
showed that he essayed the higher type of composition. One
of these was a tragedy entitled The Downfall of Bonaparte,
written at the age of twenty-two, just after the battle of Water-
loo, and acted by himself and friends before the people of the
village. 2. For four years — from twenty-two to twenty-six —
he was the principal of the academy in his native town. As
there were always in this school a number who were fitting for

EDWARD HITCHCOCK.

EDWARD HITCHCOCK. 29!

college, he found it necessary to review all his classical stud-
ies— not once merely, but several times. The same was true
of scientific studies also, so that quite a large number of sub-
jects were gone over very thoroughly, and the details were
fixed in his memory. It was a better discipline than if he had
simply taken these studies as a college student. The academy
owned a very good philosophical outfit and young Hitch-
cock prepared a number of lectures on physics, which were
delivered with experiments both before his classes and in the
evening to people of the village. 3. Perhaps the best mental
discipline came from the use of the astronomical instruments
belonging to the academy. He observed first the comet of
1811. From September yth to December lyth, during the pres-
ence of the celestial visitor, he noted the distance of the
comet from various stars, determined the latitude and longi-
tude by lunar distances and eclipses of the sun and moon, oc-
curring about the same time, and the variation of the magnetic
needle. Several months of study were required to reduce
these observations ; and, as tables were wanting, he was com-
pelled to calculate elements that the modern astronomer finds
ready to his hand. The results of this work were published
by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in a paper by
General Epaphras Hoyt, the conclusions of the uncle and
nephew being combined in a longitude determination. 4. In
these calculations use was made of the Nautical Almanac,
then published by Edmund M. Blunt, of New York (reprinted
from the standard English publication). Errors would hardly
be looked for in such a work, but beneath the opening page
for every month was this sentence: "Ten dollars will be
paid on the discovery of an error in the figures." Young
Hitchcock soon discovered a long list of errors, both in
the figures and the text, and sent it to Mr. Blunt, who an-
swered evasively. The list was then published in the Ameri-
can Monthly Magazine, which called out Mr. Blunt in a state-
ment commencing, " Noticing an attack on my Nautical Al-
manac from one Edward Hitchcock, a few remarks only are
necessary to explain the man's drift." He represented the
errors as occurring in a part of the work used chiefly by as-
tronomers, and added, " I would rather ten errors should escape
me there than one by which the mariner should be deceived."
Before this answer had been seen, Hitchcock had forwarded to

2Q2 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the magazine a list of twenty errors in the tables of lunar
distances, which were serious, because of their magnitude and
their use by sailors. Six months later another list of thirty-
five errors from these almanacs for 1815, 1816, 1817, and 1818
made its appearance. This led Mr. Blunt to employ a mathe-
matician to recalculate the almanac for 1819, and in his preface
to state that " it will afford much satisfaction and promote
commercial advantages if, on discovery of an error in any
nautical work, publicity should immediately be made." A copy
was sent to Hitchcock, who soon made out a list of thirty-five
errors, and forwarded them to the magazine. Mr. Blunt did
not send the pecuniary reward promised, but published the
statement that " the communication of Mr. Hitchcock deserves
notice, and he is entitled to much credit for his perseverance."
It was a great triumph for a young man to sustain himself
against these standard astronomical tables. The most rigid
accuracy was indispensable, and the discipline fully equal to
that acquired by years of scholastic training. 5. A related
discipline came from the publication of a Country Almanac
from 1814 to 1818, whose calculations were original. Here
also accuracy was essential to success. No complaint was ever
made, except in the assignment of Easter to an unusual date.
Both clergymen and people denounced the almanac because of
this supposed misstatement. Defence was made that the ordi-
nary rules for determining this festival were useless for that
year, as it was a peculiar case, occurring only once in several
hundred years. Soon afterward the bishop of the diocese
issued a circular sustaining the almanac. 6. Classical training
came in connection with teaching. First came the ordinary
labour of making translations and grammatical construction.
Then he kept a notebook for putting down the most striking
sentiments of an author, such as would answer for mottoes
and quotations. To obtain the choicest sentiments he care-
fully looked up all the references made from rare authors.
Thus he became familiar with the best thoughts of the classical
authors, and by fixing them in his memory obtained a fair sub-
stitute for the more extended college training.

During his connection with Deerfield Academy, Hitchcock
became interested in botany and mineralogy, through the in-
fluence of Prof. Amos Eaton. With two associates, the list of
plants and minerals of the neighbourhood was soon made ex-

EDWARD HITCHCOCK. 293

haustive. He had correspondence with the elder Prof. Silli-
man, of Yale College, respecting difficult questions, and the
two maintained for each other a lifelong friendship. It was
probably this correspondence which led Hitchcock to join the
newly opened theological department at New Haven. He fur-
nished contributions to the first volume cf Silliman's Ameri-
can Journal of Science and Art, and to many later issues. In
all, his name is prefixed to fifty-two papers, notices, and re-
views on topics relating to geology, mineralogy, ichnology,
surface geology, physics, meteorology, and botany, in this
journal.

Hitchcock chose the ministry for his profession. He was
settled as a pastor over the Congregational Church in Con-
way, Mass., from 1821 to 1825. While in this office he studied
natural history to some extent, for the benefit of his health.
It was at this time that he discovered and described that small
but widely distributed fern, Botrychium simplex. In 1825 he
was appointed Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in
Amherst College. Twenty years afterward he became presi-
dent of the same institution, and continued in the office for
nearly ten years. For the remainder of his life — nearly ten
years — he taught geology and natural theology in the same
institution.

Like scientific men of his time, Dr. Hitchcock was familiar
with several departments of learning — being an author, educa-
tor, theologian, and explorer. His career as a geologist is the
best known. Starting as a student of the rocks of the Con-
necticut Valley, his home, he is soon found at both extremities
of the State — at Martha's Vineyard and Berkshire County.
With larger opportunities for travel, he was impressed with the
importance of interesting legislatures in geological surveys,
and he took measures to enlist the government of Massachu-
setts in such work. With this aim in mind he published a
lengthy review of Olmsted's survey of North Carolina in the
American Journal of Science, in 1828. Near the close he says:
"We wish now to ask the intelligent legislator whether such a
development of internal resources as this report exhibits does
not amply remunerate the State of North Carolina for the
comparatively trifling expense of this survey ; and whether so
great success . . . does not strongly recommend that this ex-
ample be followed by other States of the Union ?"

294

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

As a result of this and other efforts, the State of Massa-
chusetts commissioned him to make a geological survey of her
territory in 1830. Three years were spent in the explorations,
and the work was of such a high character that other States
were induced to follow the example of Massachusetts, and
similar surveys were organized in Tennessee, Maryland, New
Jersey, New York, Virginia, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hamp-
shire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, Michigan,
Indiana, Kentucky, and Georgia. The State of New York
sought his advice in the organization of a survey, and followed
his suggestions, particularly in the division of the territory
into four parts, and appointed him as the geologist of the first
district. He entered upon the work, but after a few days of
labour he found that he must necessarily be separated from
his family, much to his disinclination. He also conceived the
idea of urging a more thorough survey of his own State ; hence
he resigned his commission and returned home. The effort for
a resurvey of Massachusetts was successful, and he was re-
commissioned to do the work. The results appeared in 1841
and 1844 — the first a quarto report and the last the geolog-
ical coloration of a map based upon Borden's Trigonometrical
Survey.

Independently of the survey came the discovery of fossil
footmarks. As far back as 1800 Pliny Moody had observed
trifid markings upon sandstone which he called the tracks of
birds. In 1835 Mr. W. W. Draper, of Greenfield, Mass., no-
ticed similar impressions, and drew the same conclusions. Mr.
Draper remarked upon them to Dexter Marsh and Colonel
William Wilson, who in turn consulted Dr. James Deane, who
wrote to Professors Silliman and Hitchcock. All agreed to
refer the investigation to Prof. Hitchcock, who propounded
the fundamental principles of ichnology in the January num-
ber of the American Journal of Sciences for 1836. The an-
nouncement was not favourably received by many geologists,
while the general public gave expression to their views by the
employment of ridicule. The subject was referred to a com-
mittee of the American Association of Geologists, consisting
of H. D. Rogers, L. Vanuxem, R. C. Taylor, E. Emmons, and
T. A. Conrad, in order, if possible, to produce a unanimity of
opinion. Those who had most earnestly opposed the new doc-
trine were upon the committee, but all were convinced; as

EDWARD HITCHCOCK.

2Q5

their report, issued in 1841, states, "From a comparative ex-
amination of the facts on both sides, your committee unani-
mously believe that the evidence entirely favours the views of
Prof. Hitchcock, and should regret that a difference had ex-
isted, if they did not feel assured it would lead to greater sta-
bility of opinion."

The publications upon the subject of these Triassic foot-
marks by Prof. Hitchcock have been quite numerous. The
most important were that in the final report upon the
geology of Massachusetts in 1841, a paper in the Trans-
actions of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
1848, in the Ichnology of New England, published by the
State of Massachusetts in 1859 and its supplement in 1865.
The total number of species described, as finally revised,
amounted to one hundred and fifty. They were referred
to several groups : a few marsupialoids, thick and narrow-toed
birds, ornithoid lizards or batrachians, lizards, batrachians,
chelonians, fish, Crustacea, myriapods, insects, and worms. At
first the trifid impressions were referred to birds ; and it was
considered a remarkable confirmation of this view that in 1838
or 1839 there should have been found in New Zealand the
bones of true birds having the same dimensions as the largest
Brontozoum. Prof. Owen has stated that his belief in the
ornithic character of the Deinornis was strongly fortified by
the fact of the existence of the Brontozoum. Very soon after
the earliest publications about these ornithichnites specimens
were exhumed which became very puzzling because of the pres-
ence of quadrupedal characters. It became very clear that
there must be an intermediate class of beings between birds
and reptiles, and accordingly this conclusion was embodied in
the assignment of a large number of these Ichnozoa to the desig-
nation of "ornithoid lizards or batrachians." As time has
progressed the order of Deinosaur has been proposed, to in-
clude such animals as have been made known to us by their
bones; and now it is doubtful whether any of the impressions
were made by birds. Prof. O. C. Marsh has obtained entire
skeletons of Deinosaurs from the Connecticut sandstones, which
he calls Anchisaurus. They seem to be allied to the Plesiornis
rather than the Anomcepus or Brontozoum of Hitchcock.

The specimens from which the opinions and descriptions of
the ichnology were derived are preserved in the Hitchcock

296 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Ichnological Cabinet at Amherst College, and completely fill a
room one hundred by forty feet, besides two smaller apart-
ments. The number of distinct impressions studied and
labelled exceeds twenty thousand. It is likely that some of
the suggestions of the Ichnology may not be verified. It would
be strange if the following thirty years of discovery should
not enable paleontologists to declare positively whether the
Batrachoides impressions are really the mud nests of tadpoles,
or whether the " insects " are properly larval or adult hexapods,
or simply Crustacea, as urged by Dana and Agassiz.

In 1857 Prof. Hitchcock accepted the appointment of State
Geologist of Vermont. Though the appropriation was very
small the work was energetically prosecuted, and conclusions
presented in five years' time in two quarto volumes of nearly
one thousand pages. Not many speculations were indulged
in, though opportunity was afforded for propounding new and
startling theories of the metamorphosis of rocks. The report
was issued just at the time when Barrande had discharged his
artillery at the opponents of the Taconic system, and compelled
American paleontologists to assign the Olenellus to the primor-
dial zone instead of the Hudson River slates. The report
had been written to accord with the American- view, but the
authors were enabled to omit everything that did not illustrate
the reference of the slates to the Cambrian terrane. The Ver-
mont report suggested two general principles which have been
of great service in the further discussion of the nature of meta-
morphism and the age of the New England rocks. The first
point relates to the distortion and alteration of pebbles in con-
glomerates. As far back as 1832 Prof. Hitchcock had noticed
the singular alterations in the shapes of pebbles constituting
conglomerates in Rhode Island. Not till 1861 was he able to
present satisfactory considerations concerning their distortion
and alteration. He argued that pressure and metamorphism
could totally obliterate the shapes of pebbly constituents and
convert them into crystalline schists. Very few of his contem-
poraries followed him in this generalization. The large geo-
logical manuals of Dana and Le Conte conspicuously avoided
any mention of this view. To-day the skilled petrographers
of the country unanimously indorse the doctrine of the distor-
tion and alteration of the fragmental constituents of sediments.

So long as our paleontologists referred the Cambrian fossils

EDWARD HITCHCOCK.

297

to the Hudson River group, their associates, as represented by
Sir William E. Logan, insisted that the quartzite in western
Vermont overlaid the slates, and was of Medina age. Logan
also claimed a synclinal structure for the Green Mountains.
Before accepting any conclusion as to their structure, Prof.
Hitchcock directed that this mountain range should be carefully
studied stratigraphically. A dozen sections were made at equal
distances apart across the State, and it was discovered that the
structure was anticlinal when not monoclinal ; and hence comes
the certainty that the axis of the Green Mountain chain is older
than lower Cambrian. The latest workers in this field accept
this conclusion.

Perhaps the favourite subject of Prof. Hitchcock was the
study of the " Drift." He began to study the icemarks, even
before the discovery of the footprints, and soon found himself
far beyond the comprehension of his literary and scientific
associates. Neither the iceberg nor glacier theory was original
with him ; but no one up to the time of his death had pub-
lished so much upon the subject. His views are developed in
the treatise on Surface Geology published by the Smithso-
nian Institution in 1857. His general theory refers the phe-
nomena to both icebergs and glaciers ; and their setting forth
was generically like the most recent deliverances of Sir William
Dawson, who acknowledges the presence of glaciers upon the
mountains from which the icebergs were derived that flooded
the submerged valleys. His papers are of special interest con-
cerning river terraces, local glaciers in western New England,
trains of boulders, and frozen deposits of drift gravel. It is
an interesting fact that he argued against the admissibility of
Agassiz's glacial theory because of the absence of a grand ter-
minal moraine at the outer margin of the ice sheet. It was
less than five years after his death that geologists began to
appreciate the true significance of the backbone of Long Island
— that it was part of a gigantic moraine more than a thousand
miles long. It is easy to see where Hitchcock would have
stood had these facts been known in his day.

The first written suggestion in regard to the formation of
the American Association of Geologists came from Prof. Hitch-
cock, and he was chosen its first president in 1840. This was
the parent of the later organization known as the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He was present
20

298 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

at nearly every meeting of both organizations until the gap in
the later history induced by the war.

As President of Amherst College he was called upon to ex-
ercise unwonted judgment. The institution had almost broken
down because of heavy indebtedness. The historian of the col-
lege declares that it was saved from destruction by the skill and
wisdom of President Hitchcock. As an instructor and guide
no one was more loved and honoured. The number of stu-
dents doubled during his administration. It was while he was
president that his Religion of Geology appeared, in which he
expounded the applications of science to theology. Most of
the positions there maintained are accepted by the advanced
Christian thinkers of to-day. The work appeared before the
advent of Darwinism, but its principle was discussed as creation
by law. While not accepting any development hypothesis,
Prof. Hitchcock took pains to insist that its adoption would
not be at variance with any fundamental principle of theology.
During his lifetime the doctrine of creation was the prevalent
fashion of thought, just as now everybody is an evolutionist,
and as in the Mesozoic age every vertebrate animal assumed
some reptilian feature.

Prof. Hitchcock devoted much thought to the relations be-
tween science and theology. He believed that his suggestions
— original with him — would tend to bring together truths
often divorced, but which only man puts asunder. The follow-
ing are topics upon which he made important suggestions : i.
Proof of the general benevolence of God from geology. 2.
Evidence from the same, of special divine interpositions in Na-
ture. 3. Evidence from the same, of special providence. 4.
Mode of answering objections to the doctrine of the resurrec-
tion of the body by the nature of bodily identity. 5. The re-
ligious bearing of man's creation. 6. The adaptedness of the
world for the redemptive work. 7. The Mosaic days properly
interpreted by vmbolism. These and related views were
taught by him to his classes under the title of natural theology.
Through his efforts the chair of Geology and Natural Theology
was endowed in Amherst College, with the understanding that
the science should always be taught from a religious stand-
point.

A list of Prof. Hitchcock's published writings shows a total
of twenty-six distinct volumes, thirty-five separate pamphlets,

EDWARD HITCHCOCK. 299

ninety-four papers in periodicals, and eighty newspaper articles
— a total of 8,453 pages, with 256 plates and 1,134 woodcuts.
Half of these were scientific papers ; of the others, most were
religious books, essays, sermons, and tracts. He published
also biographies, reviews, poetry, and temperance documents.

In 1821 Mr. Hitchcock married Miss Orra White, daughter
of Jarib White, of Amherst, Mass., and they lived together for
forty-two years. Mrs. Hitchcock was an artist, and prepared
many of the illustrations of her husband's reports. Six of their
children, two sons and four daughters, reached maturity. The
oldest son is the Professor of Hygiene and Physical Education
at Amherst College; the youngest is the Professor of Geology
at Dartmouth College. Three of the daughters were married
—the first to Rev. Dr. H. M. Storrs, lately of Orange, N. J. ;
the second to G. B. Putnam, of the Franklin Grammar School,
Boston, Mass. ; the third to the late Rev. C. M. Terry, of Min-
neapolis, Minn. The oldest daughter is known as an amateur
botanist, residing at Hanover, N. H.

HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT.

1793-1864.

MR. SCHOOLCRAFT was a conspicuous figure in the scien-
tific life of the early part of the century. A pioneer in some
fields, the immediate follower of the pioneers in others, he
was, in all the branches of research to which he gave atten-
tion, earnest, ready, diligent, sagacious, original, and modest.
As among his titles to be remembered, the biographer who
prefaces his Personal Memoirs names the early period at which
he entered the field of observation in the United States as a
naturalist ; the enterprise he manifested in exploring the geog-
raphy and geology of the great West ; and his subsequent
researches as an ethnologist in investigating the Indian lan-
guages and history. " To him we are indebted for our first
accounts of the geological constitution and the mineral wealth
and resources of the great valley beyond the Alleghanies, and
he is the discoverer of the actual source of the Mississippi
River in Itasca Lake. For many years, beginning with 1817,
he stirred up a zeal for natural history from one end of the
land to the other, and, after his settlement in the West, he was
a point of approach for correspondents " — on these topics and
for all the Indian tribes.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born in Albany County,
N. Y., March 28, 1793, and died in Washington, D. C., Decem-
ber 10, 1864. He was the descendant, in the third generation,
of an Englishman, James Calcraft, who, having served with
credit in the armies of the Duke of Marlborough, came to
America in the reign of George II, in the military service, and
was present at operations connected with the building of Forts
Anne, Edward, and William Henry. After these campaigns
he settled in Albany County as a land-surveyor, married, and
in his old age, conducted a large school — the first English
school that was taught in that frontier region. In connec-

300

HENRY HOWE SCHOOLCRAFT.

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 301

tion with this incident his name became changed to School-
craft. He died at the age of one hundred and two years.
John, his third son, was a soldier under Sir William Johnson.
Lawrence, John's son, distinguished himself during the siege
of Fort Stanwix. He was afterward director of the glass-
works of the Hon. Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, at Hamilton,
near Albany ; and established the manufacture of glass in
Western New York.

Henry Schoolcraft spent his childhood and youth in Ham-
ilton, cultivated poetry, and maintained an excellent standing
in scholarship. At an early age he manifested a taste for
natural science, which was then (about 1808) little known
outside our seats of learning; formed the beginnings of col-
lections ; and organized an association for mental improve-
ment. He investigated the drift stratum of Albany County as
seen in the bed of Norman's Kill ; and afterward, while living
at Lake Dunmore, Vt., put himself under the teaching of Prof.
Hall, of Middlebury College ; added chemistry, natural phi-
losophy, and medicine to his studies ; erected a chemical
furnace, and went into experimenting ; and picked up a
knowledge of Hebrew, German, and French. He began writ-
ing for books and periodicals in 1808 — contributing, among
other things, papers on the Burning Springs of Western New
York, and on archaeological discoveries that had been made in
Hamburg, Erie County. In the last paper, which was pub-
lished at Utica in 1817, he pointed out the necessity of dis-
criminating between the period of early European occupancy,
and that of aboriginal American antiquity. He was en-
gaged for a time in directing the building of works con-
nected with his father's glass-making enterprises in Vermont,
New Hampshire, and western 'New York. The ideas and
knowledge gained in these operations supplied the ma-
terial for his proposed work on Vitreology, or the applica-
tion of chemistry to glass-making, the publication of which
was begun in 1817. The supervision of these works re-
quired the making of considerable journeys, and these
created in him the desire to travel through the wilds of
the " Far West," which then hardly extended beyond the
Missouri River.

He made some " preliminary explorations " to his con-
templated journey, in Western New York in 1816 and 1817, and

302

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

started from Olean on the Alleghany River for a journey
down the Ohio and up the Mississippi in 1818. A large com-
pany of intending emigrants had gathered there waiting for
the season to open, and Schoolcraft took passage in the first
ark. Arrived at Pittsburg, he stopped to explore the geology
of the Monongahela Valley, and was greatly interested in the
rich coal and iron beds. He stopped to visit the Grave Creek
mound and the ancient works at Marietta. At Louisville he
found " organic remains " of several species in the limestone
rocks of the falls, and published anonymously in the paper
some notices of its mineralogy. At the mouth of the Cumber-
land River he exchanged the ark for a keel-boat or barge,
with which, propelled by poles pushing on the bottom, he
made from three to ten miles a day against the swift current
of the Mississippi to Herculaneum, Mo. On this voyage he
travelled over a large part of the west bank on foot, and
gleaned several facts in its mineralogy and geology which
made it an initial point in his future observations. He spent
three months in examining the lead mines, personally visiting
every mine or digging of consequence in the Missouri country
and tracing its geological relations into Arkansas. Hearing
of syenite suitable for millstones on the St. Francis, he visited
that stream and discovered the primitive tract ; and he pushed
his examinations west beyond the line of settlement into the
Ozark Mountains. He now determined to call the attention
of the Government to the importance of its taking care of its
domain in the mines, and with this purpose packed his collec-
tions and took passage in the new steamer St. Louis for New
Orleans. Hence, having inquired into the1 formation of the
delta of the Mississippi, he sailed by brig for New York. He
opened his collections and invited examination of them, pub-
lished a book on the mines and physical geography of the
West and a letter on its resources, and went to Washington
to present his views on the care of the mines to the officers of
the Government. While he was looking for a secretary within
whose purview the matter fell, Mr. Calhoun invited him to
accompany General Cass, Governor of Michigan, as naturalist
and mineralogist on an expedition to explore the sources of
the Mississippi and to inquire into the supposed value of the
Lake Superior copper mines. He accepted the position,
though the compensation was small, because, he says, " it

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

303

seemed to be the bottom step of a ladder which I ought to
climb."

Mr. Schoolcraft left New York in March, 1820, reached
Niagara Falls on the ist of May, and Detroit by steamer a
week later. While waiting for the completion of arrangements
for embarkation, he attended to the correspondence which had
been provoked by the publication of his work on the mines
and the resultant awakening of interest in the varied resources
of the Mississippi Valley and the subject of geographical and
geological explorations. He determined to reply to all letters
that appeared to be honest inquiries for geographical facts,
" which I only, and not books, could communicate." The
route of the expedition " lay up the Detroit and St. Clair
Rivers and around the southern shores of Lakes Huron and
Superior to Fond du Lac, thence up the St. Louis River in its
rugged passage through the Cabotian Mountains to the Savan-
nah summit which divides the Great Lakes from the Missis-
sippi Valley. The latter was entered through the Cantaguma
or Sandy Lake River. From this point the source of the
Mississippi was sought up rapids and falls and through lakes
and savannahs, in which the channel winds. We passed the
inlet of Leech Lake, which was fixed upon by Lieutenant Pike
as its probable source, and traced it through Little Lake Win-
nipeg to the inlet of Turtle Lake in upper Red Cedar or Cass
Lake in latitude 47°. On reaching this point the waters were
found unfavourable to proceeding higher. The river was then
descended to the falls of St. Anthony, St. Peter's, and Prairie
du Chien. From the latter point we ascended the Wisconsin
to the portage into Fox River, and descended the latter to
Green Bay." At this point the expedition was divided. The
party to which Mr. Schoolcraft was attached proceeded to
Chicago, thence traced the eastern coast of Michigan, and
rejoined the other party, which had gone north to trace the
shores to Michilimackinack. About four thousand miles were
traversed. Reports were made to the Government by Mr-
Schoolcraft on the mineralogy and geology of the region ; on
the copper deposits of Lake Superior ; on the botany, fresh-
water .conchology, zoology, and ichthyology; soil, productions,
and climate received attention ; and the Indian tribes were
subjects of observation by General Cass. " In short, no ex-
ploration had before been made which so completely revealed'

304 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the features and physical geography of so large a portion of
the public domain." A new interest in mineralogy and geol-
ogy was awakened by this expedition, and Mr. Schoolcraft's
narrative of it was hurried into press under the pressure of
the public clamour for its results. The book was published in
May, 1821.

Mr. Schoolcraft shortly afterward embarked, with General
Cass, on another expedition. The route lay from the present
site of Toledo, up the Maumee, down the Wabash and Ohio
to Shawneetown, overland across the " knobs " and prairies,
taking a famous locality of fluor-spar on the way, to St. Louis;
thence up the Illinois to the rapids and on horseback to Chi-
cago, stopping to find the fossil tree in the bed of the Des
Plaines. In Chicago, a treaty was made with the Pottawat-
tamies for the surrender of about five million acres of land,
to which Mr. Schoolcraft should have given his signature
among the others, but he was too ill — " did not, indeed, ever
expect to make another entry in a human journal." The in-
cidents and observations of the journey have been published
as Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley.
In the next year (1822) Mr. Schoolcraft was appointed Indian
agent at Sault Ste. Marie, of which he says, giving his reasons
for accepting it : "I had now attained a fixed position ; not
such as I desired in the outset and had striven for, but one
that offered an interesting class of duties, in the performance
of which there was a wide field for honourable exertion, and,
if it was embraced, also of historical inquiry and research.
The taste for natural history might certainly be transferred
to that point, where the opportunity for discovery was the
greatest." The position afforded him excellent opportunities
for studying the Chippewa language and Indian mythology
and superstition, characteristics and customs, of which he
made the best use. He determined to be a labourer in the
new field of Indian studies. His diary during the whole term
- of his office shows him leading a busy and varied life. We
find in it notes on his subjects of study, of his readings on
various general topics, observations on the natural features
of the region, remarks on mineralogical specimens and in-
cidents of official work.

Mr. Schoolcraft spent the winter of i824-*25, on leave of
absence, in New York, where he superintended the printing of

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 305

his Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley.
" Society " was much interested in Mrs. Schoolcraft, the
" Northern Pocahontas," a lady of aristocratic Irish descent
on one side, and tracing her ancestors on the other side to the
royal house of the Chippewas, who was withal, having been
educated abroad, highly accomplished and refined in her man-
ners. She was the daughter of Mr. John Johnston, of Sault
Ste. Marie, who had married the daughter of Wabojeeg, a
distinguished Chippewa chieftain. In 1825 Mr. Schoolcraft
attended a convocation of the Indian tribes at Prairie du
Chien, where a treaty was signed, through which it was hoped
internal disputes between the tribes might be settled by fixing
the boundaries to their respective territories. In the next year
he attended a similar gathering of the Chippewa tribes at Fond
du Lac, where the principles of the treaty of Prairie du Chien
were reaffirmed, and a new treaty was made, under which the
Indians acknowledged the sovereign authority of the United
States ; ceded the right to explore and take away the native
copper and copper ores, and to work the mines and minerals
in the country ; and provision was made for the education of
the Indians and their advancement in the arts. The system
of Indian boundaries established by these treaties was com-
pleted by the treaty of Butte des Morts, August, 1827. The
three treaties embodied a new course and policy for keeping
the tribes in peace, and were founded " on the most enlarged
consideration of the aboriginal right of fee simple to the
soil." In 1827 he was elected a member of the Legislative
Council of the newly organized Territory of Michigan — an
office which was not solicited, and was not declined. As a
member of this body during four sessions, he directed his at-
tention to the incorporation of a historical society ; to the
preparation of a system of township names derived from the
aboriginal languages ; and to some efforts for bettering the
condition of the natives.

A proposition was made to Mr. Schoolcraft in 1828 to go
as one of the scientific corps of an exploring expedition which
the Government contemplated sending to the south seas,
under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy. In his
reflections on the prospects of this expedition and the acqui-
sitions to knowledge that might be expected to accrue from it,
he regarded the experiments of Dr. Maskelyn, denoting a

306 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

greater specific gravity in the central portion of the globe
than in its crust, as opposed to a theory that was then advo-
cated of an interior void. Yet he thought " we are advertised,
by the phenomena of earthquakes, that this interior abounds
with oxygen, hydrogen gas, caloric, and sulphur, and that ex-
traordinary geological changes are affected by their action.
It does seem improbable that the proposed expedition will
trace any open connection with such an interior world ; but
it may accumulate facts of the highest importance." There
was something, however, about the getting up and organiza-
tion of the expedition which he did not like, and an appre-
hension whether Congress would not cripple it by voting
meagre supplies and outfits. He declined to go.

A note from Mr. G. W. Featherstonaugh, giving a disparag-
ing view of American scientific achievement, and inclosing the
prospectus of a journal designed to correct these things, gave
Mr. Schoolcraft opportunity for bearing strong tribute to the
genuineness of real American scientific research. The critic's
remarks might be true as to a certain class, who had not made
science a study ; but, if applied to the power and determin-
ation of the American mind devoted to natural history, it was
"not only unjust in a high degree, but an evidence of an over-
weening self-complaisance, imprecision of thought, or arro-
gance. No trait of the American scientific character has
been more uniformly and highly approbated by the foreign
journals of England, France, and Germany than its capacity
to accumulate, discriminate, and describe facts. For fourteen
years past, Silliman's Journal of Science, though not exclu-
sively devoted to natural sciences, has kept both the scientific
and the popular intelligent mind of the public well and
accurately advised of the state of natural science the world
over. Before it, Bruce's Mineralogical Journal, though con-
tinued but for a few years, was eminently scientific ; and
Cleaveland's Mineralogy has had the effect to diffuse scientific
knowledge not only among men of science, but other classes
of readers. In ornithology, in conchology, and especially in
botany, geology, and mineralogy, American mind has proved
itself eminently fitted for the highest tasks."

The Michigan Historical Society was founded, chiefly
through Mr. Schoolcraft's instrumentality, in 1828, and the
Algic Society on February 28, 1832. The latter organization

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 307

had in view the reclamation of the Indians, and, connected
with this, the collection and dissemination of information re-
specting their language, history, traditions, customs, and char-
acter ; their numbers and conditions ; the geological features
of their country, and its natural history and productions. It
also proposed some definite means of action for furthering
the moral instruction of the Indians, and for helping the mis-
sionaries in all work for their benefit. As president of this
society, Mr. Schoolcraft was asked to lecture on the gram-
matical construction of the Algonquin languages as spoken by
the Northwestern tribes, and to procure a lexicon of it ; also
to deliver a poem on the Indian character at the annual meet-
ing of 1833. Other literary efforts of this period were, an
address before the Historical Society of Michigan in 1830,
and an address, in 1831, before the Detroit Lyceum, on the
natural history of the Territory. In the summer of 1832
Mr. Schoolcraft, under a commission from the Government,
organized and commanded an expedition to the country about
the sources of the Mississippi River. The primary object of
the expedition was to extend to the Indians living north of
St. Anthony's Falls the measures previously taken with those
south of that point, to effect a pacification ; also, to endeavour
to ascertain the actual source of the river. He ascended the
St. Louis from Lake Superior to Sandy Lake summit, and
passed thence direct to the Mississippi six degrees below the
central island in Cass Lake, which was till then the ultimate
point of geographical discovery. Thence he went up the
river and its lakes, avoiding too long circuits of the stream
by portages, to the junction of the two branches, where by the
advice of his Indian guide he took the left-hand, or Plantage-
nian branch, to Lake Assawa, its source. Thence he went by
portage, a distance of " twelve resting-places," to Itasca Lake,
which he struck within a mile of its southern extremity. The
lake was judged to be about seven miles in length, by one or
two broad ; " a bay, near its eastern end, gave it somewhat the
shape of the letter y" The discoverer returned, through the
stream and its lakes, to St. Peter's.

The narrative of this expedition was published in 1834;
and was republished, with the account of the expedition of
1820, in 1853, under the title, Narrative of an Exploratory
Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River in 1820,

308 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

completed by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake in
1832. The whole of Mr. Schoolcraft's earlier life and work
up to this time is recorded, mostly from day to day, in his
Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the
Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, etc., 1812 to 1842, a
book having " the flavour of the time, with its motley incident
on the frontier, with Indian chiefs, trappers, government
employees, chance travelers, rising legislators, farmers, min-
isters of the gospel, all standing out with more or less of indi-
viduality in the formative period of the country." This book
abounds with evidence of Mr. Schoolcraft's scientific and liter-
ary activity, as well as of his efficiency in work in whatever
field. As early as 1820 we find a letter from Amos Eaton,
asking him for information for the second edition of his In-
dex to Geology, respecting the secondary and alluvial forma-
I tions and the strata of the Rocky Mountains. Dr. Samuel
Mitchell writes him, in 1821, about the shells and other speci-
mens he has sent, including a " sandy fungus," and inviting
specimens for the cabinet of the Emperor of Austria. Profs.
Silliman and Hall acknowledge the value of his examination
of the mining regions of Missouri ; Prof. Silliman asks for
articles for his journal ; and Sir Humphry Davy thinks his
book would sell well in England. Prof. Cleaveland writes
him, in 1827, that he is about preparing a new edition of
his work on mineralogy, and solicits the communication of
new localities. In the same year Mr. Schoolcraft himself
writes that the collection he made in Missouri, etc., in 1819,
appears to have had an effect on the prevalent taste for
those subjects, " and at least it has fixed the eyes of natural-
ists on my position on the frontiers." Mr. Peter S. Dupon-
ceau addresses him, in 1834, on the structure of the Indian
languages, " in terms which are very complimentary, coming,
as they do, as a voluntary tribute from a person whom I never
saw, and who has taken the lead in investigations on this ab-
struse topic in America." He pronounces Mr. Schoolcraft's
book on the Chippewa languages one of the most philosoph-
ical works on the Indian languages which he has ever read.
In another letter Mr. Duponceau acknowledges having used
Mr. Schoolcraft's grammar, giving due credit, in preparing a
prize essay for the Institute of France, on the grammatical
structure of Indian languages. Dr. Thomas H. Webb, of

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

309

Providence, in 1835, notifies him of his election as an honorary
member of the Rhode Island Historical Society, and asks
about aboriginal inscriptions on rocks. The Massachusetts
Historical Society, in 1836, asks him to proceed with his
work on the Ojibway language, complete it, and let the society
publish it. John J. Audubon asks for aid in preparing his
work on American quadrupeds. There are numerous notices
of specimens that have been sent to Mr. Schoolcraft to pass
upon, and solicitations from persons representing the prin-
cipal magazines, to contribute of the results of his researches.

A new disposition of official posts having been made, Mr.
Schoolcraft transferred his residence in 1837 to Michilimack-
inac or Mackinaw. Thence he removed, in 1841, to New
York, where he expected to find the surroundings more fa-
vourable to the collation and publication of the results of his
observations on the red race, whom he " had found in many
traits a subject of deep interest ; in some things wholly mis-
understood and misrepresented ; and altogether an object of
the highest humanitarian interest." But the publishers were
not yet prepared in their views to undertake anything corre-
sponding to his ideas. In the next year he carried out a long-
deferred purpose of visiting England and continental Europe,
attending the British Association at Manchester. On his re-
turn he made a tour through western Virginia, Ohio, and
Canada. In 1845 he was appointed by the Legislature of New
York as a commissioner to take the census of the Indians of
the State, and collect information concerning the Six Nations.
The results of this investigation were embodied in his Notes
on the Iroquois, a second enlarged edition of which was pub-
lished in 1847. The latter part of his life was spent in the
preparation — under an act passed by Congress in 1847 — of an
elaborate work on all the Indian tribes of the country, based
upon information obtained through the reports of the Indian
Bureau. This work — which was published in six quarto vol-
umes— is described in Duyckink's Cyclopaedia of American
Literature as covering a wide range of subjects in the general
history of the race ; their traditions and associations with the
whites ; their special antiquities in the several departments of
archaeology in relation to the arts ; their government, man-
ners, and customs ; their physiological and ethnological pecul-
iarities as individuals and nations ; their intellectual and moral

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

cultivation ; their statistics of population ; and their geo-
graphical position, past and present.

His Indian wife having died in 1852, Mr. Schoolcraft mar-
ried, in 1857, Miss Mary Howard, of Beaufort, S. C. Being
highly educated she was able to render him great assistance in
the preparation of his last work when he was helpless from pa-
ralysis.

Mr. Schoolcraft became interested in religion at an early
period in his career, and his journals show him ever more earn-
estly co-operating in local religious movements; furthering the
progress of missionary effort among the Indians, by whatever
denomination ; labouring for the promotion of temperance
among them; and taking the lead in whatever might contribute
to their well-being or to the repression of wrong against them.
His literary activity was prolific, and appears to have been
nearly evenly divided between poetry, Indian lore and ethnol-
ogy, and the objects of his explorations and scientific investiga-
tion. Besides books of poems and the narratives already
named, he published Algic Researches, a collection of Indian
allegories and legends (1839) ; Oneota, or the Characteristics of
the Red Race in America (i844-'45), republished in 1848 as
The Indian and his Wigwam; Report on Aboriginal Names and
the Geographical Terminology of New York (1845); Plan for
investigating American Ethnology (1846); The Red Race of
America (1847) 5 A- Bibliography of the Indian Tongues of the
United States (1849) ; and American Indians, their History.
Condition, and Prospects (1850). He received the degree of
LL. D. from the University of Geneva in 1846; and was a
member of many learned societies.

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA.

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA.

1795-1868.

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA, the second son of Lucy (Giddings)
and Captain Luther Dana, was born July n, 1795, in the town
of Amherst, not far from Nashua, N. H. He was descended
from Richard Dana who came to this country and settled in
Cambridge about 1640. His father was a native of Groton,
Mass., and in the latter part of the Revolutionary War en-
tered the navy of the United States as a midshipman, he being
then seventeen years of age. Soon after his marriage in 1788,
he took up his residence at Amherst, and engaged in mercan-
tile business. This not proving successful he took to the sea
again, becoming a shipmaster in the merchant service. He
followed the sea until a few years before his death, in 1832,
and made about seventy voyages to ports in Europe, Asia, and
America. Captain Dana was fond of knowledge and took
pleasure in collecting objects of natural history, many valu-
able specimens being given by him to the Marine Museum at
Salem, Mass. He had no faith in the superstitions with which
seafaring men are haunted, and rather preferred to go out of
port on Friday. On one of his most successful voyages he
left Salem on a Friday, called at two European ports, reaching
and leaving both on Fridays, and it was on a Friday that he
finally reached home. His daughter-in-law, Mrs. James Free-
man Dana, has described him as " tall and well formed, with a
sensible, frank, cheerful countenance. He had clear blue
eyes, dark-brown hair, which became silvery white at an early
period of life, and a fair complexion, somewhat embrowned by
exposure." She also speaks of him as ever ready to assist any
who might require aid — one whom the weakest or lowliest
might appeal to with the certainty of receiving a kind re-
sponse. Lucy Giddings was married to him when she was
sixteen years of age. She was very handsome and viva-

311

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA.

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA.

1795-1868.

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA, the second son of Lucy (Giddings)
and Captain Luther Dana, was born July u, 1795, in the town
of Amherst, not far from Nashua, N. H. He was descended
from Richard Dana who came to this country and settled in
Cambridge about 1640. His father was a native of Groton,
Mass., and in the latter part of the Revolutionary War en-
tered the navy of the United States as a midshipman, he being
then seventeen years of age. Soon after his marriage in 1788,
he took up his residence at Amherst, and engaged in mercan-
tile business. This not proving successful he took to the sea
again, becoming a shipmaster in the merchant service. He
followed the sea until a few years before his death, in 1832,
and made about seventy voyages to ports in Europe, Asia, and
America. Captain Dana was fond of knowledge and took
pleasure in collecting objects of natural history, many valu-
able specimens being given by him to the Marine Museum at
Salem, Mass. He had no faith in the superstitions with which
seafaring men are haunted, and rather preferred to go out of
port on Friday. On one of his most successful voyages he
left Salem on a Friday, called at two European ports, reaching
and leaving both on Fridays, and it was on a Friday that he
finally reached home. His daughter-in-law, Mrs. James Free-
man Dana, has described him as " tall and well formed, with a
sensible, frank, cheerful countenance. He had clear blue
eyes, dark-brown hair, which became silvery white at an early
period of life, and a fair complexion, somewhat embrowned by
exposure." She also speaks of him as ever ready to assist any
who might require aid — one whom the weakest or lowliest
might appeal to with the certainty of receiving a kind re-
sponse. Lucy Giddings was married to him when she was
sixteen years of age. She was very handsome and viva-

311

3I2 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

cious, and managed the affairs of her home and family during
her husband's long absences at sea with rare judgment and
tact.

As Captain Dana's residence was not confined by his call-
ing to any particular place, he changed it twice for the benefit
of his boys. In 1804 he removed to Exeter, N. H., in order to
give them the educational advantages of Phillips Academy,
and five years later, when the two oldest had been prepared
to enter Harvard College, the family removed to Cambridge.
Samuel passed through college in the same class with his
older brother, graduating- in 1813. From a pamphlet privately
printed, containing memoirs of several members of the Dana
family, it is learned that the two brothers were endowed with
the same love for natural science, and entered upon the study
of certain branches of it with great enthusiasm. They often
made excursions together on foot through the country lying
within thirty miles around Boston, for the purpose of examin-
ing its geological structure and collecting mineralogical speci-
mens. The result of these researches was a volume on the
Mineralogy and Geology of Boston and its Vicinity, published
by the brothers about the time they completed their medical
studies.

The younger brother also employed himself upon these
excursions in searching for entomological specimens, and
formed quite a large collection of beautifully prepared in-
sects. This was afterward given to the Linnsean Society of
New England, of which the brothers, if not the founders,
were among the earliest members. Another taste which
formed a strong bond of union between them was their
love of music. In college they belonged to the same musical
societies.

On graduating from college Samuel began reading law with
his uncle, Judge Samuel Dana, then residing in Charlestown,
Mass. The War of 1812 was in progress, and young Dana
caught the prevailing military spirit. He applied for a cadet-
ship at West Point, but received instead a commission as first
lieutenant in the First U. S. Artillery, with which corps he
served in New York and Virginia until the close of the war.
In June, 1815, the army was disbanded and Dana resigned
his commission.

A younger brother, Nathaniel G. Dana, was a cadet at

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA.

313

West Point during the War of 1812, graduating in 1814. He
remained in military life until his death in 1833.

Samuel did not return to the law, but took up the study of
medicine under Dr. Bancroft, of Groton. Receiving his med-
ical degree in 1818, he began the practise of his profession
in Gloucester, Mass. The next year he married Ann Theo-
dora, daughter of Rev. Joseph Willard, D. D., who had been
President of Harvard College from 1781 till his death
in 1804.

Dr. Dana now took up his abode in Waltham, Mass., where
he practised medicine until 1826. Toward the close of .this
period he established a laboratory for the production of sul-
phuric acid and bleaching salts. This enterprise soon devel-
oped into the Newton Chemical Company, of which he was
chemist till 1834. His friend Dr. A. A. Hayes, in the memo-
rial pamphlet of the Dana family, has testified to his wide
knowledge of the properties of substances and his great
fertility in original devices for general and technological
work. In his manufacture of acids and other chemicals im-
proved plans and processes were early employed, and Dr.
Hayes mentions especially Dana's device for deoxidizing man-
ganic oxide by heating it with sulphur, in order to form from
it (with pyroligneous acid) a crude manganous acetate, then
largely used in dyeing a fast brown.

The second of Dr. Dana's published writings was issued in
1833, while he was on a visit to England. It was a clear ex-
position of the chemical changes occurring in the manufacture
of sulphuric acid.

In the following year Dr. Dana became resident and con-
sulting chemist to the Merrimac Manufacturing Company, at
Lowell, Mass., in which position he remained for the rest of
his life — a period of thirty-four years. The improvements
which he introduced into the processes carried on in the
mills of this company were many and important. Dr. Hayes
gives an outline of these. He undertook systematic re-
searches on the action of the dung of beeves — then used for
removing the excess of mordant in printing calicoes with
madder — which resulted in the discovery that crude phos-
phates in a bath with bran are a complete substitute for the
expensive and disgusting material before deemed indispen-
sable. Arseniates, which are cheaper than phosphates, were

21

314

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

afterward substituted for them on the suggestion of Mercer,
and are the worldwide reliance of print manufacturers at the
present day.

Of the same systematic character was his study of the
chemical changes involved in the process of bleaching cotton
fabrics preparatory to printing them. This inquiry resulted in
his inventing a method which not only received high com-
mendation as scientific work but was universally adopted in
practice. As most of Dr. Dana's researches were made for
the exclusive benefit of the company with which he was con-
nected, their results were not always published promptly, and
hence the abilities that might have won a high meed of fame
remained known to only a small circle. His discoveries with
respect to bleaching cotton, however, were published in the
Bulletin de la Societe Industrielle de Mulhouse in 1838. The
principles therein established have led to the American method
of bleaching, of which Persez, in his Traite" de 1'Impression
des Tissues, says that " it realizes the perfection of chemical
operations."

The Merrimac Mills were at first run by water power
alone, but when the works were extended this was supple-
mented by the use of steam. Dr. Dana was now called to the
new field of engineering, in addition to his other duties. His
development of the whole subject of the evaporative power
of coal and the economical disposition of the heat in steam
and in water of condensation is a masterly effort, embracing
every detail, and was in advance of any published results of
the time.

For several years before he became a resident of Lowell,
Dr. Dana was frequently called to that city as a consulting
chemist. He was also one of the chemists consulted by the
water commissioners of both Boston and New York prior
to the introduction of the Cochituate and Croton water re-
spectively.

" While these varied applications of science to most useful
purposes were daily occupations," says Dr. Hayes, " he was
pursuing in his laboratory the great study of his life — madder,
its products and its application to dyeing — year after year.
He deemed the subject exhaustless, and while following the
published results of other labourers in the same field as test
trials, I happen to know that the most important discoveries,

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA. 315

from time to time, were made by him, and often applied, be-
fore their publication by others.

"The laboratory, in most busy moments, was exceptionally
neat ; the deft handling of the apparatus and order of experi-
ments expressed the system of thought."

Soon after removing to Lowell, Dr. Dana became interested
in the action of lead upon water, and made a report to the City
Council of that city on the danger arising from the use of lead
water pipes. His translation and systematic arrangement of
the treatise of Tanquerel on Lead Diseases was considered an
important contribution to medical knowledge. The discussion
of the lead-pipe question gave rise to several pamphlets from
Dr. Dana's pen.

Another division of chemistry in which Dr. Dana did valu-
able work was in its applications to agriculture. As the out-
come of a comprehensive series of experiments and observa-
tions, he published, in 1842, The Farmer's Muck Manual of
Manures, which was the sheet anchor of libraries in the rural
districts of New England for many years. The next year an
Essay on Manures submitted by him won the prize offered by
the Massachusetts Agricultural Society. He carried into his
agricultural investigations the same scientific methods that he
had found so important to success in other technical inquiries,
and added an overflowing love for the pursuit in all its varied
bearings. The younger Silliman wrote of him : " In point of
time, originality, and ability, Dr. Dana stood deservedly
first among scientific writers on agriculture in the United
States."

The fourth edition of the Muck Manual was published in
1855. Its preface states that " The author is not an agricultur-
ist; he does not assume the name even of agricultural chem-
ist," and mentions his position at the works of the Merrimac
Company. "While pursuing there," it continues, "during the
years 1835, 1836, and 1837, researches on the action of cow-
dung in calico dyeing, he pushed his inquiries, as a recre-
ation, during his few leisure hours, into the nature and
action of manures and of soil. Conversation on these
matters with the geological surveyor, and with the agri-
cultural commissioner of Massachusetts, led to a corre-
spondence between the parties, which partly appeared in
the published reports on the geology and agriculture of

316 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Massachusetts. This induced some zealous and active citi-
zens of Lowell to ask me to deliver a course of lectures on
agricultural chemistry."

From the notes of these lectures the Muck Manual was
prepared. " The work," Dr. Dana states further, " was fa-
vourably received at home and abroad, where a consider-
able portion was reprinted. It has passed through sev-
eral editions, each being enlarged by the addition of new
matter, to keep pace with the times. To the present edition
is added an entire new chapter on bones and superphosphates
of lime and alkalies. . . .

" One word respecting the title of my book. It is my own.
I have neither begged, borrowed, or stolen it. That last has
been done by an English author, who seems to be ashamed,
not of the act, but of the name he has filched from me, and so
eases his conscience by apologizing for his 'homely title.' I
shall not discredit my child by being ashamed of his name. It
was good at the christening, and I trust will be thought re-
spectable in manhood."

This edition of the Manual consists of nine chapters. In
the first three the author tells the origin and nature of the in-
organic ingredients of soil, and in the fourth he describes simi-
larly the organic constituents. Dr. Dana vigorously combats
the idea that the kind of rock underlying a district has any-
thing to do with the character of the soil in that district, show-
ing that the soil at any place is a mixture of materials, most of
which have been brought from a distance. His full Explana-
tions of the several topics that he takes up are summarized in.
brief statements in a conspicuous type, which he puts forth as
the first, second, third, etc., principles of agricultural chemis-
try. Among these are, " Rocks do not affect the vegetation
which covers them " ; " Soils contain enough of all the mineral
elements to grow any crop " (but it is otherwise with organic
constituents) ; " One base may be substituted for another in an
equivalent proportion."

After describing the mutual action of these two classes
of substances, he takes up the subject of manure. His chapter
opens characteristically :

"The true farmer, no less a sage than the ancient orator
who gave to action the first, second, and third place in elo-
quence, will answer, if it is asked him what is his first requisite,

SAMUEL LUTHER DANA.

317

Manure. What second ? Manure. What third ? Manure.
These answers are to be united. Action and manure are the
first and last requisites in agriculture ; and in the attempt to
show what is the last, and how it acts, will be offered every in-
ducement to action."

In the seventy-five pages of this chapter he describes the
action of the manures of all domestic animals, also poudrette
and certain waste materials valuable as fertilizers — wool wash-
ings, soot, bones, and spent lye from soapworks — and gives the
chemical composition of nearly all.

In a chapter on artificial manures and irrigation, he deals
with the use of swamp muck or peat, and tells how to make
it a first-class fertilizer by the addition of soda ash
or potash. There are a few pages on the physical prop-
erties of soils, and then the use of bones as a fertilizer is
discussed. An appendix contains the results obtained by
Dr. Andrew Nichols and others with the methods suggested
by Dr. Dana.

Dr. Dana's geological knowledge was kept bright and in-
creased by constant additions from the best and latest authori-
ties. It aided him greatly in his agricultural researches. One
of his courteous attentions to scientific visitors was an excur-
sion to a travelling sand, in an outlying part of the city of
Lowell, which was slowly and steadily advancing over arable
land, converting it into a desert place. His long-sustained and
minute observations threw strong light on the formation of
sedimentary rock deposits, where currents of air rather than
currents of water were the active agent, and made this field his
own.

Dr. Dana died at his residence in Lowell, March u, 1868, in
consequence of a fall upon the ice at his own doorstep. In
person he was tall and slender, with blue eyes, dark-brown hair,
and a fair complexion. The expression of his countenance was
intellectual and sympathetic. He was extremely witty, and, in
his hours of relaxation from study, he entered with great zest
into the pleasures of society, contributing his full share to the
enjoyment of others. Even in his scientific writings his hu-
mour had some scope, and added a charm and zest to his
descriptions that made them highly enjoyable and utterly in-
imitable.

Dr. Dana's first wife died in 1828 and he afterward

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

married her sister, Miss Augusta Willard. James Jackson,
the only son of Dr. Dana who survived childhood, when
arrived at a suitable age received a commission in the
United States army, and was afterward promoted to the
rank of brigadier general. Dr. Dana also left three daugh-
ters.

ZADOC THOMPSON.

ZADOC THOMPSON.

»

1796-1856.

THE slopes and intervales of the Green Mountains have
ever been a home of sterling worth. Much of it has lain
modestly hidden unless some compelling occasion called it
forth, as the Revolution brought out Ethan Allen and Stark
of Bennington. This region has had its workers in science,
who, with more generous facilities or a more assertive spirit,
could have equalled in prominence many whom the world calls
famous. The subject of the present sketch is an example, for
he became known in his lifetime only so far as the patient
performance of valuable labours of necessity brought him
into notice.

Zadoc Thompson was born in Bridgewater, Windsor County,
Vt., May 23, 1796. He was the second son of Barnabas Thomp-
son, whose father was one of the early settlers in that part of
the country.

His early life was a continual struggle with poverty. Hav-
ing from childhood a passion for writing and publishing books,
he earned part of the expenses of his education in this way.
His first publications were almanacs, which he sold travelling
about the State on foot. Thompson's Almanac became as
famous in Vermont as Robert B. Thomas's in Massachusetts,
and shared the honours with the latter publication in adjoin-
ing States. Its success was to a large extent due, it is said by
those who should know, to a chance remark — it can hardly be
called a prediction — which came one day when a clerk, who
was at work upon the almanac, found that no weather forecast
had been given for July. Prof. Thompson was at the time
much absorbed in some investigations, and when interrupted
by the printer's inquiry as to the July weather, hastily replied,
" Say, Snow about this time." The printer took him at his
word and printed snow as a part of the probable weather for

319

320 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

July. Contrary to all expectations or precedent, in July of
that year there was in Vermont a fall of snow ! This appar-
ently remarkable knowledge of the probabilities of the weather
made Prof. Thompson famous as a weather prophet, and
greatly increased the sale of his almanacs. It should be add-
ed that Prof. Thompson made constant use of such meteoro-
logical instruments as he could obtain, and that he was one of
the first in his State to study the weather in a careful and
scientific manner.

Mr. Thompson was graduated from the University of Ver-
mont in 1823, at the advanced age of twenty-seven years, and
immediately turned his attention to making known the natural
and civil features and history of his native State to its own in-
habitants and to the world beyond its borders, which was the
chief occupation of his life. Within a year his first publica-
tion in this field, a Gazetteer of Vermont, appeared at Mont-
pelier. His first bound volume was an arithmetic, published
in 1826, which had a general sale through the State. While
serving as principal of an academy in Canada, he issued a
geography and map of Canada for schools, which passed
through several editions. In 1832 Mr. Thompson edited and
was the chief contributor to the Green Mountain Repository,
a monthly magazine published for about a year at Burling-
ton. In the following year appeared his History of Vermont
from its earliest settlement to the close of the year 1832.

Taking up the study of theology and supporting himself
in part by teaching in the Vermont Episcopal Institute and
elsewhere, he was prepared for orders, and became a deacon
in the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1836. He preached
from time to time in various parishes of northern Vermont
and New York, and usually supplied the pulpit of St. Paul's
Church, Burlington, during the illness or absence of the rector.
His health not being good enough to allow of his undertaking
the labours of a parish, and being a man of " deep and un-
conquerable modesty of spirit," he never advanced to the
priesthood.

His earlier works aroused in him a desire to issue some-
thing larger and fuller in the same line, and for many years he
industriously collected from various " oldest inhabitants " and
scattered records facts relating to the history, geography, and
natural resources of Vermont. From 1838 to 1842 he devoted

ZADOC THOMPSON. 321

most of his time to putting together these materials and pub-
lishing the resulting Natural, Civil, and Statistical History of
Vermont. His attainments in natural history were at that
time limited, and he obtained considerable assistance in pre-
paring the accounts of the plants and several classes of
animals for this book from other New England naturalists.
Having made the mammalia quite a specialty, he described
these himself.

The undertaking was most thoroughly and conscientiously
carried out, and by the time the book was ready for the press
all his savings had been expended. At this juncture the
Burlington publisher, Mr. Chauncey Goodrich, who was a
neighbour and friend of Mr. Thompson, offered to get out the
book for him at the usual prices for the labour and materials
without any contingent share in the profit, and to wait for
payment from the sales of the work. This generous offer was
promptly accepted, and the volume, consisting of six hundred
and fifty-six closely printed octavo pages, was duly issued.
There were three parts to the work, each of which, if printed
less compactly, would have made a fair-sized volume. The
first was devoted to the natural features and productions of
the State ; the second was the civil history ; and the third was
Mr. Thompson's Gazetteer, revised and enlarged. When Mr.
Goodrich several times urged him to issue it in three volumes
at six dollars instead of one volume at two dollars and fifty
cents, and thereby get twice as much profit from each copy,
he steadily declined. Having felt the inconvenience of limited
means himself, his sympathies were with those in the same
position, and he did not deem it right that those who could
not afford the higher price should be deprived of a benefit
that their richer neighbours enjoyed, even though the lower
price would give him but scant return for the labour, time,
and money he had expended. On its appearance the General
Assembly of Vermont, regarding the work as a benefit to the
State, subscribed for a hundred copies and voted five hundred
dollars to the author. By this means and the proceeds of
other sales he was enabled to cancel his debt to his publisher
in little more than a year.

At about this time Mr. Thompson issued a text-book on
the Geology and Geography of Vermont, in which his power
of clear and concise statement is well exemplified. He found

322

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

time also to prepare annual astronomical calculations for the
Messrs. Waltons, of Montpelier. In 1845 he issued a pamphlet
Guide to Lake George and Lake Champlain, with a map and
other illustrations.

A State Geological Survey having been authorized by the
General Assembly, the Governor in 1845 appointed Prof. Charles
B. Adams State Geologist. Prof. Adams chose Mr. Thompson
and the Rev. S. R. Hall as his assistants. In one season these
two men explored together one hundred and ten townships.
The analyses required by the survey were made at New
Haven by Denison Olmsted, Jr., until his death in 1846,
afterward by Thomas Sterry Hunt. The survey came to an
untimely end by the refusal of the General Assembly of
i847-'48 to make an appropriation for preparing its final re-
port. The notes, specimens, and other materials gathered
were allowed to lie in boxes at Burlington and Montpelier
for about a year. Then, having had a partial sense of the
value of these materials impressed upon it, the General Assem-
bly authorized the Governor to appoint some suitable person
to get them together and deposit them in the State House.
Governor Coolidge appointed Prof. Thompson, and the latter
reported the execution of his commission in October, 1849.
Many of the field notes were in a peculiarly abbreviated
shorthand used by Prof. Adams, and, on his death in 1853,
became almost wholly useless.

In 1847 Governor Eaton had appointed Prof. Thompson to
carry out a resolution of the General Assembly in regard to
international literary and scientific exchanges. He wrote a
report of proceedings and instructions, presenting the advan-
tages of the exchange system so clearly as to reflect great
credit upon himself and upon his State.

From an address which he delivered in Boston, in 1850, on
the invitation of the Boston Society of Natural History, we
learn something of the difficulties under which his knowledge
of natural science was obtained. " What I have accomplished
in the business of natural history," he said, " I have done with-
out any associates engaged in like pursuits, without having any
access to collections of specimens, and almost without books."
In this address, while showing the difficulties, he at the same
time insisted upon the importance of the cultivation of natural
history in country places. A habit of observation and com-

ZADOC THOMPSON. 323

parison of objects, he said, could be acquired quite as readily
in the country as in the city. He urged that the study of nat-
ural history should be introduced more generally into our col-
leges and common schools, for the reason that such a study
" would refine and improve the moral sensibilities of our peo-
ple, and sharpen and invigorate their intellectual powers."
Prof. Thompson's love for natural history was inborn, and
throughout his life amounted to absolute devotion. It was
the supreme force in his life. From early childhood until the
end, his diligent study of Nature and zeal in collecting facts,
and objects to illustrate them, never faltered. He was not
only a student of Nature but her ardent and most constant
lover. He also enjoyed mathematical studies and was fond
of statistics, and these qualities rendered his work in all
departments of science more accurate and orderly than it
might otherwise have been.

Certain of his friends (his modest worth had made him
many of these), knowing his great desire to see the Exhibi-
tion of 1851 at London, furnished him the means of making
the trip. After an absence of three months, during which he
had spent some time in Paris, he returned to his home in
Burlington much benefited in spirit and in health. Yielding
to repeated solicitation, he published soon after his Journal
of a Trip to London, Paris, and the Great Exhibition in 1851,
which gave a most realizing impression of what he had seen to
those who had not made the trip.

In the ten years following the publication of his History of
Vermont, railroads and telegraphs were introduced into the
State, and various discoveries in its natural history were made,
all of which furnished him material for a valuable supplement
of sixty-four pages, issued early in 1853. The General Assem-
bly of this year discovered what a blunder had been made in
strangling the geological survey, and passed a bill appointing
Prof. Thompson State Naturalist, " to enter upon a thorough
prosecution and completion of the geological survey of the
State, embracing therein a full and scientific examination and
description of its rocks, soils, metals, and minerals ; make care-
ful and complete assays and analyses of the same, and prepare
the results of his labours for publication under the three follow-
ing titles, to wit : first, Physical Geography, Scientific Geology
and Mineralogy ; second, Economical Geology, embracing Bot-

324 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

any and Agriculture ; third, General Zoology of the State." At
first he planned to do no more than collate and arrange such
material as had been accumulated by his predecessors ; but he
soon found this very unsatisfactory, and, abandoning this plan,
he undertook to go over the whole ground anew. He had for
years been unknowingly preparing for just this task, and he
threw himself into it with his accustomed energy and devotion,
and suspended all other work; but ere long his overtaxed
strength gave way, and his last illness was upon him. At first
he seemed unwilling to lay aside a task so congenial, and
which he so greatly desired to finish; but soon his naturally
quiet and trustful disposition overcame all discontent, and in
full acquiescence in the will of the God in whom he had always
trusted and whom he had tried to serve, he came to the end in
peace, on January 19, 1856. At this time he also held the pro-
fessorship of Natural History in the University of Vermont, to
which he had been appointed in 1852.

His friend for over a score of years, Dr. Thomas M. Brewer,
editor of the Boston Atlas, and himself a naturalist of no small
ability, thus referred to Prof. Thompson's death : " His loss,
both as a citizen and a public man — he has not left his superior
in science behind him in his own State — is one of no ordinary
character. We have known him long and well ; and in speak-
ing of such a loss we know not which most to sympathize with,
the family from whom has been taken the upright, devoted, and
kind-hearted head, or that larger family of science who have
lost an honoured and most valuable member. Modest and
unassuming, diligent and indefatigable in his scientific pur-
suits, attentive to all, whether about him or at a distance, and
whether friends or strangers, no man will be more missed, not
merely in his immediate circle of family and friends, but in
that larger sphere of the lovers of natural science, than Zadoc
Thompson."

When his death was announced to the Boston Society of
Natural History, of which he was a member, Prof. William B.
Rogers took occasion to express the high respect in which he
had held him as a thorough and persevering worker in geology,
saying that he possessed a larger amount of accurate practical
knowledge than would have been supposed from his modest
and retiring manners, and exhibited a great natural sagacity
in those departments of science which he loved.

ZADOC THOMPSON.

325

No account of the life and labours of Prof. Thompson is at
all complete without some mention of his wife, for without her
aid arid sympathy he never could have accomplished what he
did. In childhood they roamed the fields together in search
of interesting objects, and later, as husband and wife, they
pursued with increased enthusiasm the same study of Nature ;
and long after Mr. Thompson's death his wife continued her
observations of animals and plants. Moreover, being a very
shrewd and efficient manager in all household matters, she was
able to carry the family through financial difficulties which
otherwise would have frustrated many of her husband's scien-
tific undertakings. Their house was not only a home, but it
was also a museum and a laboratory. It was a very modest
little white cottage, surrounded by a profusion of flowers when
the season permitted, and inside, every available shelf or stand
was crowded with specimens which either had been or were to
be carefully studied, while not seldom there were in or about
the house pens, cages, or tubs in which were kept many living
animals, whose daily life was under closest scrutiny. Mrs.
Thompson not only tolerated these inroads upon her housekeep-
ing, but delighted to assist her husband in his work, and really
deserves to be considered a colleague in many of his labours.

Personally, Prof. Thompson was tall, angular, of a very
quiet and sedate yet very pleasant manner, a man of most
amiable and sweet temper, loved by all who knew him, and
respected for his sound sense and accurate judgment. Though
retiring by nature, he was fond of long chats aroundthe winter
hearth with such neighbours as were congenial. Prof. Joseph
Torrey was his most intimate friend, being an excellent bota-
nist, and with him Mr. Thompson's intercourse was most de-
lightful. He was simple, almost childlike in his tastes. Natu-
rally somewhat conservative, his training in science had given
him an open mind to all new truth. It is not improbable that
the sober manner which he usually maintained came from the
shadow of death which had long rested upon him. He was
affected by organic disease of the heart, which finally ended
his life, and for many years, knowing the possibility of sudden
death, he did not trust himself far from home alone. Most
often his companion was a Mr. Hills, who was draughtsman
and engraver of nearly if not quite all the cuts used in his
publications.

326 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

The museum in the Vermont State House contains about
three thousand specimens collected by Prof. Thompson. He
was one of the most reliable correspondents of the Smith-
sonian Institution, and corresponded also with many of the
leading naturalists both at home and abroad. His achieve-
ments won him a medal from the French Exposition of 1855.

JOHN TORREY.

JOHN TORREY.

1796-1873.

ALTHOUGH never noted as a scientific centre, the city of
New York has had several men of science of eminent abilities.
Among the foremost of these was the subject of the present
article.

John Torrey was born in New York, August 15, 1796. He
lived most of his life in that city and died there March 10,
1873. He is believed to have been descended from William
Torrey, who emigrated from Somersetshire, in England, and
settled at Weymouth, Mass., about 1640. His grandfather,
John Torrey, and his father, William, removed from Boston to
Montreal when the Boston Port Bill came into force. William,
then a boy of seventeen, soon ran away to New York and
joined a Continental regiment of which his uncle was major.
He was made an ensign, served throughout the war, and re-
ceived his discharge as a captain. His father also came down
from Canada and served as quartermaster of the same regi-
ment.

Captain Torrey married Margaret Nichols, of New York, in
1791. John was their second child and the first that reached
adult age. His birthplace was in John Street, a locality long
since given over to trade. He has been heard to tell that
when a boy of some twelve years of age he was sent on an
errand one evening as far as Canal Street, and that he consid-
ered it a great hardship to be obliged to go so far into the
country after dark. When he was fifteen or sixteen years old
his father was appointed fiscal agent of the State prison at
Greenwich, whither the family removed. Canal Street is now
considered to be away down town, while Greenwich, although
a suburban village in 1812, is also a down-town district, being
below Fourteenth Street.

Young Torrey received his education in the public schools

328 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

of his native city, with the addition of one year at a school in
Boston. He had in youth a strong liking for machinery, and
at one time had the intention of becoming a machinist, but
chemistry offered still greater attractions, and he finally con-
cluded to study medicine. His mechanical talent was in after
years of great service to Dr. Torrey, as it enabled him to de-
vise and construct various ingenious forms of apparatus for
the illustration of his lectures. While in his teens he came
under the influence of that famous teacher of science, Amos
Eaton, who explained to him the structure of flowers and thus
kindled a zeal for botanical study that persisted to the end
of his pupil's life. Torrey's interest in natural science soon
extended to mineralogy and chemistry, probably determining
his choice of a profession. In 1815 he entered the office of Dr.
Wright Post, then one of the leading physicians of the city.
At that day physicians dispensed their own medicines, and it
was the duty of the office students to prepare the various
powders, tinctures, etc., and put up the prescriptions for the
patients. The writer has frequently heard Prof. Torrey refer
to the great value this experience was to him in after-life, as it
gave him an early training in chemical manipulation such as
the medical students of the present day rarely acquire.

Dr. Torrey took his degree in 1818 at the College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons, in New York, where Drs. Mitchill and
Hosack, then among the leaders of science in America, were
professors. He opened an office in New York city, but he
never liked the practice ef medicine, and did not try very
earnestly to become established in it, and we find him, in 1824,
entering upon the duties of Professor of Chemistry at the
United States Military Academy at WTest Point. At this time
he married Miss Eliza Robinson Shaw, of New York. We
may here remark that Dr. Torrey's scientific life was twofold.
While he is best known to the world as a botanist, it was as a
chemist that he found his remunerative occupation. From the
time of his acceptance of the chair at West Point, up to the
day of his death, he was engaged either in teaching chemistry
or in some position to which his profound chemical knowledge
adapted him.

In early life Prof. Torrey was an enthusiastic mineralogist,
and the first and following volumes of the American Journal
of Science contain important contributions made by him to this

JOHN TORREY. 329

science. His botanical career commenced while he was yet a
student of medicine. In 1817 he aided in founding the New
York Lyceum of Natural History, and was one of the eleven
corporators named in the charter of that institution. The early
volumes of the Annals of the Lyceum are enriched by some of
his most important contributions to science. His first botanical
publication was A Catalogue of Plants growing spontaneously
within Thirty Miles of the City of New York. This was pre-
sented to the Lyceum in 1817, but was not published until 1819.
It contains 100 pages, is now exceedingly rare, and chance
copies offered at sales of libraries bring fabulous prices. We
find quoted in this catalogue the names of those who were dis-
tinguished botanists half a century ago, the author acknowl-
edging aid from Mitchill, Nuttall, Rafinesque, Eaton, Eddy, Le
Conte, Cooper, and others. When we consider the youth of the
author, barely twenty-one, we must regard this catalogue as a
remarkable performance. Only those who have undertaken
similar works can appreciate the amount of labour necessary
to its production, and botanists who go over the same ground
at the present day wonder at the completeness of the list. It
gives us some idea of the astonishing growth of the city to
read in this catalogue of some of the author's favourite locali-
ties, such as " Love Lane," " Bogs near Greenwich," and
" Swamp behind the Botanic Garden," places that have long
been covered by paved streets and brick and brown-stone
blocks.

This catalogue, was the precursor of a considerable number
of most valuable botanical publications. One of the earliest of
these was A Flora of the Northern and Middle United States,
or a Systematic Arrangement and Description of all the Plants
heretofore discovered in the United States north of Virginia.
Elliott's Botany of South Carolina and Georgia was being pub-
lished in numbers at the time Dr. Torrey commenced this
Flora, which, as he says in his preface, was intended as a
" counterpart " to Elliott's work. Like the latter, his was is-
sued in numbers, and the first volume was completed in 1824.
But one volume of this work was published, and, as a portion
of the edition was destroyed by fire, it is now only rarely to be
met with. It contains over five hundred pages, and includes
the first twelve classes of the Linnsean system, the species
being described with a clearness and minuteness and the synon-

22

330 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ymy elaborated with a care not heretofore displayed in any
work upon American botany. It was the first work in which
our Northern grasses were treated in a thorough manner, and
students of the Graminacecz at the present day find it a most
useful book of reference. At an early day the author foresaw
that the Linnsean system must be superseded by the natural
system of Jussieu. This consideration, together with the loss
of a large part of the first volume, led him to abandon the
undertaking. In order to supply the immediate wants of stu-
dents, he prepared a compendium, which gave brief descrip-
tions of the plants contained in the first volume of the Flora
and of those which would have been included in the second
volume.

In the same year he published, jointly with Schweinitz, A
Monograph of the North American Species of Carex. Two
years later his paper entitled Some Account of a Collection of
Plants made during a Journey to and from the Rocky Moun-
tains in the Summer of 1820, by Edwin P. James, M. D., Assist-
ant-Surgeon United States Army, was read before the Lyceum,
but it was not published until 1828. It is a memoir of some
eighty pages, and enumerates four hundred and eighty-one
plants, many of which were new species. This was, up to the
date of its publication, the author's most important contribu-
tion to science, and is even now frequently referred to by the
student of our Western plants. Besides, it has an especial in-
terest, as it was the first American work of any importance in
which the arrangement was according to the natural system,
the only earlier publication in which this system was followed
being a list by Abbe Correa, of the genera in Muhlenberg's
catalogue, arranged according to the natural orders of Jussieu.

In 1838 The Flora of North America, by John Torrey and
Asa Gray, was commenced. It was published in numbers, and
at irregular intervals, until the year 1843. Dr. Asa Gray, then
a young physician in Western New York, who had already shown
great acuteness in his investigations of the flora of the part of
the State in which he resided, was happily associated with Dr.
Torrey in this great undertaking of publishing a Flora of North
America. The work was suspended with the completion of the
Composite, and for sufficient reasons. Just at this time our
Government began to explore its Western territory, soon
greatly enlarged by the annexation of Texas and the acquisi-

JOHN TORREY. 33!

tions by the war with Mexico. New botanical material accu-
mulated at an astonishing rate, and our 'chief botanists had to
choose between continuing the Flora, and allowing these bo-
tanical treasures to pass into other hands. They wisely deter-
mined to devote themselves to elaborating the new material,
knowing that this work would be contributing to the future
flora of North America, which, from the enlarged possessions
and more thorough exploration of the older territory, must
be taken up anew. Both authors industriously worked at
the collections brought home by the various Government and
private explorers ; those wholly or in large part examined by
Dr. Torrey were those of Nicollet's expedition, Fremont's ex-
peditions to the Rocky Mountains and to Oregon and North
California, Emory's reconnaissance, Captain Stansbury's expedi-
tion to the Great Salt Lake, Captain Marcy's exploration of the
Red River of Louisiana, Captain Sitgreaves's expedition to the
Zuni and Colorado Rivers, the Mexican Boundary Survey, and
Lieutenant Ives's Colorado exploring expedition.

When the New York State geological survey of 1836 was
organized, Dr. Torrey was commissioned State botanist. He
prepared for the survey The Flora of the State of New York,
being a portion of The Natural History of New York, and
issued in 1843. This work is in two large quarto volumes, of
over five hundred pages each, and illustrated with one hundred
and sixty-one plates. The descriptions are all redrawn, elab-
orate, and in a somewhat popular style. It is a most striking
testimony to the industry of the author, who, while engaged
upon this work, and making important explorations incidental
to it, was at the same time discharging his professorial duties
at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and at Princeton.

The years i855-'6o saw the publication of the Reports of
the Pacific Railroad Survey, to the several volumes of which
Dr. Torrey made the following contributions : Vol. II, Botany
of Captain Pope's Expedition, Botany of Lieutenant Beck-
with's Expedition, Botany of Captain Gunnison's Survey (in
these three memoirs Prof. Asa Gray was joint author) ; Vol.
IV, Botany of Whipple's Expedition ; Vol. V, Botany of Lieu-
tenant Williamson's Report; Vol. VIII, Botany of Lieutenant
Parke's Expedition.

We do not include here the contributions of Dr. Torrey to
the memoirs of Prof. Gray and others, for which he frequently

332

IK'NEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

elaborated genera and families; nor do we enumerate his minor
contributions to the sciences.

Nearly all of these memoirs are illustrated by engravings,
and some of them profusely. Dr. Torrey rarely attempted to
give the portrait of a plant, leaving that to the professional
draughtsman ; but in all the sketches showing minute structure
— that which gave the illustrations their greatest value to the
botanist — his ready pencil found frequent employment. He
drew with great neatness and rapidity, and it was his custom to
record his observations by means of sketches of remarkable
distinctness and accuracy.

For several years subsequent to 1861 he was engaged in
herbarium work. His removal to Columbia College, and the
disposal of his most valuable collection to that institution, ren-
dered it necessary that the accumulations of years, including
numerous typical specimens, should be put in complete order.
He entered into the drudgery of assorting, determining, label-
ling, and mounting in the herbarium the mass of unarranged
material, with the same industry and zeal that he brought to
more congenial work. No other hands than his could have
completed this important task, and botanists have reason to be
grateful that he was spared long enough to put it, in some
respects, the most important herbarium in the country, in
proper condition for study and reference.

This work being completed, we find him, though advanced
in life, again contributing to his favourite science, and, in 1870,
The Revision of the Eriogonese, the joint production of him-
self and Prof. Asa Gray, was published in tin Proceedings of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. On the return
of Wilkes's exploring expedition, the botanical collections were
divided between Drs. Torrey and Gray, except the Crypto-
gamia, which were given to specialists. In the division Dr.
dray took the extra-American share, while those collected
on our Pacific coast were elaborated by Dr. Torrey. Before
his memoir could be published, the civil war came on, and
stopped all appropriations for such work. A few months
before his death the proposition to publish was revived, and
the last botanical work of Dr. Torrey was to take up, during a
rally from his fatal illness, this long-delayed manuscript of the
IjMt.my of Wilkes's expedition, and prepare it for the press.
Although his mind was as clear and his perceptions as acute as

JOHN TORREY. 333

ever, his strength was unequal to the task. For several years
his health had been so delicate as to cause anxiety to his family
and friends, and each succeeding winter he seemed to be more
susceptible to atmospheric changes. In the winter of i872-.*73
he had a severe attack of pneumonia, which left him so weak
that he was unable to rally, and his death, which was in a
measure sudden, soon followed. He left one son and three
daughters, also a grandson, Gray Torrey.

Speaking of his list of works his pupil and associate, Prof.
Asa Gray, says : * " There would have been more to add, per-
haps of equal importance, if Dr. Torrey had been as ready to
complete and publish as he was to investigate, annotate, and
sketch. Through undue diffidence and a constant desire for a
greater perfection than was at the time attainable, many inter-
esting observations have from tjme to time been anticipated
by other botanists." Throughout all his botanical labours the
flora of North America was constantly kept in view, and each
special monograph that he wrought out was regarded as a piece
of material for that grand edifice — a complete system of Amer-
ican botany — which he hoped would some day be completed.

" In the estimate of Dr. Torrey's botanical work," Prof.
Gray continues, " it must not be forgotten that it was nearly
all done in the intervals of a busy professional life." In 1827
he gave up his professorship of chemistry at West Point, already
alluded to, and took a similar chair in the College of Physicians
and Surgeons, where he had received his own medical degree.
For twenty-seven years he held this position, and for part of
this time he was also Professor of Chemistry at Princeton, where
he was associated with Prof. Henry. Then, in 1854, a United
States Assay Office was established at New York, in which
Prof. Torrey became the assayer, and so remained until his
death. " The Secretary of the Treasury," says Prof. Gray, " se-
lected Dr. Torrey to be its superintendent, which would have
given to the establishment the advantage of a scientific head.
But Dr. Torrey resolutely declined the less laborious and bet-
ter paid post, and took in preference one the emoluments of
which were much below his worth and the valuable extraneous
services he rendered to the Government, simply because he was

* In a memoir read before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
1873.

334

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

unwilling to accept the care and responsibility of treasure."
Difficult problems relating to counterfeiting and other coinage
matters, also various delicate and confidential commissions, were
frequently intrusted to Prof. Torrey by the head of the Treas-
ury Department, the utmost reliance being placed upon his
skill, wisdom, and probity. Two of these commissions took
him to California — once by way of Panama and once across
the continent — and were especially gratifying to Dr. Torrey, as
they enabled him to gather from its native soil many a plant
that he had himself described and named from the dried speci-
mens of some other collector. Dr. Torrey's chemical skill
made his advice sought for by various industrial establish-
ments, among them being the Manhattan Gas Company, whose
consulting chemist he was for a number of years. In his posi-
tion as United States assayer he was succeeded by his son,
Herbert G. Torrey.

This enumeration of his scientific labours would be incom-,
plete without reference to his great work in educating others
in science. In the various professorships he held he was
always to the students a loved instructor, and many now emi-
nent in science can trace the commencement of their careers to
the teachings of Dr. Torrey. His greatest service in this field
was in teaching Asa Gray, who came to him with a letter of
introduction when nineteen years of age, was invited to a cor-
respondence, and soon became an assistant and associate. Not
only in the class-room, but out of it, was his influence con-
stantly exerted, and he was always surrounded by a circle of
young men who never came to him in vain for sympathy and
encouragement. He gave to such what was better than pecun-
iary aid, comfort, hope, and help in its best sense. There is
many a chemist, now standing high in his profession, who owes
much to his kindly aid, and scarcely a botanist in the country
who has not been a recipient of favours from his ever-open
hand.

As trustee of Columbia College and of Princeton he was
largely influential in giving scientific studies their proper prom-
inence in these institutions. It was through his influence, more
than to that of any other one person, that the School of
Mines was established. He always took the liveliest interest
in its progress, and its ultimate success was to him a source of
great gratification.

JOHN TORREY. 335

Dr. Torrey was a member of many scientific organizations,
domestic and foreign. He had presided over the American As-
sociation for the Advancement of Science, and was twice, for
considerable periods, President of the New York Lyceum of
Natural History. It has been said of him that the sole distinc-
tion on which he prided himself was his membership in the order
of the Cincinnati — which came to him through his father and
grandfather. An association formed by the botanists of New
York and vicinity, to which they gave the name of the Tor-
rey Botanical Club, grew rapidly from small beginnings to a
considerable size. An act of incorporation was obtained for it
in 1871 and Dr. Torrey was elected the first president under
the charter. This election took place when he was too ill to
attend the meeting of the club, and he never assumed the office.

Two attempts, by Sprengel and Rafinesque, to render to
Torrey the customary testimonial that a botanist receives from
his fellows having failed, it was fortunately possible to give his
name to a remarkable ever-green tree discovered in our own
Southern States. Three other species have since been found
respectively in California, Japan, and China. All four have
been introduced into Europe, and are greatly prized there as
ornamental trees ; so that all round the world Torreya taxi-
folia ', Torreya Calif ornica, Torreya nucifera, and Torreya grandis,
by their perpetual verdure, give aid to his own achievements
in keeping green the memory of one of America's foremost
botanists.

Of Dr. Torrey as a man, aside from his scientific work, a
friend who had known him long and well has remarked : " He
is the only man I ever knew of whom it could be said he was
truly lovable." However distinguished his position as a man
of science, there was something beyond and beneath this, a per-
sonal charm that was the admiration of all his friends. A de-
voted Christian, he never obtruded his Christianity, but let it
appear in his every relation in life. Belonging to a denomina-
tion that is by some considered exceedingly strict, he was most
charitable for the opinions of those who believed differently.
Knowing that all truths are compatible, he was never dis-
turbed by the results of scientific research, being confident, on
the other hand, that they would be found in final agreement
with all that is truest and best in man's religious beliefs.

GEORGE CATLIN

GEORGE CATUN.

GEORGE CATLIN. 337

but keeping and teaching the commandments." In 1797 the
family removed to Ona-qua-gua Valley, Broome County, N. Y.,
travelling on horseback over an Indian trail, the baby George
being carried in his mother's arms. They afterward removed,
at different times, to Hop Bottom, Montrose, and Great
Bend, Pa.

George was the fifth of fourteen children. Until he wds
about fifteen years old the boy lived much with Nature, and
became an accomplished hunter and fisherman — occupations
for which he had an inveterate propensity, and from which his
father and mother had great difficulty in turning his attention
to books. By virtue of his associations his mind and imagina-
tion were filled with stories of Indians and Indian life. His
parents had vivid recollections of the terrible adventures in
which they had participated ; his father's generous hospitality
caused the place to be frequented by Revolutionary soldiers,
Indian fighters, hunters, trappers, and explorers, for whose
stories he had an always ready ear ; even the noonday rests
in the farm fields were enlivened by the relation of incidents
of the early settlement ; and the very valley where he lived
had been the rendezvous of Brant and his army during the
frontier war.

His early training, which was that usual for the sons of
persons of means in the colonies, was carefully attended to
by his father and his mother. In 1817 and 1818 he attended
the law school of Reeves & Gould, at Litchfield, Conn. He
continued his law studies in Pennsylvania, and entered upon
the practice of the profession in the courts of Luzerne and the
adjoining counties. But during the time of his practice, from
1820 to 1823, the passion for painting, in which he had already
in Connecticut become noted as an amateur, was getting the
advantage of him, and soon all his love of pleading gave way
to it; and, he says, " After having covered nearly every inch of
the lawyer's table (and even encroached upon the judge's
bench) with penknife, pen and ink, and pencil sketches of
judges, juries, and culprits, I very deliberately resolved to
convert my law library into paint pots and brushes, and to
pursue painting as my future and apparently more agreeable
profession."

He settled in Philadelphia in 1823, and was at once ad-
mitted to the fraternity of artists there, which included Thomas

338 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Sully, John Nagle, Charles Wilson, and Rembrandt Peale. In
the next year he was admitted as an academician of the Penn-
sylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He was most successful as a
miniature painter in water colours on ivory. Among his more
famous paintings were one of Mrs. Madison in a turban ; the
Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1839 ; the portrait of
De Witt Clinton, which hangs in the Governor's Room of the
New York City Hall, and of which the Franklin Institute, of
Rochester, N. Y., has a copy from his hand ; and portraits of
members of the Legislature and other prominent men of New
York. While at Albany painting the portraits of Clinton and
others, Mr. Catlin met Miss Clara B. Gregory, and was mar-
ried to her, May 10, 1828.

He visited New York, Buffalo, Norfolk, and other cities in
the exercise of his art, and often saw the delegations of
Indians that were in the habit of visiting Washington at that
period of our history. While in Philadelphia, he writes, his
mind was continually reaching for some branch or enterprise
of the art " on which to devote a whole lifetime of enthu-
siasm, ... a delegation of some ten or fifteen noble and
dignified looking Indians from the wilds of the far West
suddenly arrived in the city, arrayed and equipped in all of
their classic beauty, with shield and helmet, with tunic and
manteau, tinted and tasselled off exactly for the painter's
palette." Having an eye for nature rather than for the con-
ventionalities of civilization, he had long been of the opinion
that the wilderness of our country afforded models equal to
those from which the Grecian sculptors transferred inimitable
grace and beauty to marble ; and a short experience in the
woods among Indians confirmed him in this view. In the
midst of his success as a painter, he wrote in 1861, "I again
resolved to use my art, and so much of the labours of my
future life as might be required, in rescuing from oblivion the
looks and customs of the vanishing races of native man in
America, to which I plainly saw they were hastening before
the approach and certain progress of civilization." If he
should live to accomplish his design, he thought, " the re-
sult of my labours will doubtless be interesting to future
eyes, who will have little else left from which to judge of
the original inhabitants of this simple race of beings." So he
set out alone unaided and unadvised, to collect his portraits

GEORGE CATLIN. 339

and illustrations of primitive looks and customs, to set them
up " in a gallery, unique and imperishable, for the use and
benefit of future ages." He was never even comfortably off
in money matters, says his biographer, Mrs. Clara Catlin
Clarke, " relying for his livelihood upon his brush or his
pen. He lived poor and died the same. He received no
pecuniary aid, governmental or individual, in the prosecution
of his work." He accomplished it with remarkable thorough-
ness.

He followed this work for forty-two years — from 1829 to
xgyi — and during that time travelled through the wildernesses
of North and South America, and visited Europe, making his
name known everywhere. During eight years, from 1829 till
1838, he lived among the Indians, traders, trappers, and hunt-
ers of the West.

In 1830 and 1831 he accompanied Governor Clark, Superin-
tendent of Indian Affairs, to treaties held with the Winneba-
goes and Menomonees, the Shawnees and Sacs and Foxes, and
in these interviews began the series of his Indian paintings.
In 1831 he visited, with Governor Clark, the Kansas, and re-
turned to St. Louis. In 1832 he painted the portraits of Black
Hawk and his warriors, prisoners of war. In the same year, on
his second journey, he ascended the Missouri, by steamer, to
Fort Union, mouth of the Yellowstone, and returned to St.
Louis in a canoe with two men, steering his frail craft the
whole distance of two thousand miles with his own paddle,
visiting and painting ten tribes. Of these tribes the most
important were the Mandans, to whom he devoted more time
and labour than any other in North America. The red pipe-
stone is now classified at the Smithsonian Institution as Catlinite,
being considered his discovery. While on the way to gather
specimens in 1832 he stopped at the point where Chicago now
stands, and made a sketch of Fort Dearborn, then one of
the few landmarks. The sketch is still extant. In 1833 he
ascended the Platte to Fort Laramie, visiting villages of the
Pawnees, Omahas, and Otoes, and seeing many Arapahoes and
Cheyennes, and rode to the shores of the Great Salt Lake,
while the Mormons were yet building their temple at Nauvoo.
In 1834 he accompanied a regiment of mounted dragoons to
the Comanches and other Southwestern tribes, making an ex-
tensive journey and seeing many Indians of various tribes;

340

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

then from Fort Gibson, Ark., on his horse " Charley," without
a road or a track, rode to St. Louis, a distance of five hundred
and fifty miles, guided by his pocket compass, and swimming
the rivers as he met them. In 1835 he ascended the Mississippi
to the Falls of St. Anthony, saw the Mississippi Sioux, the
Ojibways and Saukees or Sacs, and descended the river again
to St. Louis in a bark canoe with one man, steering with his own
paddle. In 1836 he made a second visit to the Falls of St.
Anthony, steaming from Buffalo to Green Bay, ascending the
Fox and descending the Wisconsin Rivers, six hundred miles
in a bark canoe to Prairie du Chien, and thence by canoe four
hundred and fifty miles to the Falls of St. Anthony. Thence
he ascended the St. Peter's to the " Pipestone Quarry " on the
Coteau des Prairies, and descended the St. Peter's in a canoe,
with a companion, to the Falls of St. Anthony, and from them
a second time to St. Louis in a bark canoe, nine hundred miles.
In 1837 he went to the coast of Florida to see the Seminoles
and Euchees, and in the same year made a voyage from New
York to Charleston to paint Osceola and the other Seminole
chiefs, then prisoners of war. The letters embodying the ob-
servations made during these journeys — to which thirty-eight
tribes sat to him for their portraits — on the tribes and country
furnished the text for the book, Illustrations of the Manners,
Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, which
passed in England through more than twenty-five editions, and
of which more than sixty thousand copies were sold.

Mr. Catlin's chief object on these journeys was to observe
the Indian as a man, and to perpetuate the representation of
the kind of a man he was. He watched him in every aspect,
caught him in every mood, studied him in every relation, and
put him down, on canvas or in his notes, as he found him.
He enjoyed and improved, to the full extent of his power,
•opportunities which have occurred to few so ready to make a
record of them, and will never occur again to any one, of be-
coming familiar with the red man in his natural, unsophisti-
cated state, with the intention of making mankind, as far as
possible, a sharer in his privileges.

Most of the places he visited, the names of many of which
have become familiar to us, and which now seem commonplace,
were then away out beyond the bounds of civilization, and
visited by the ordinary tourist, if visited by him at all, with

GEORGE CATLIN. 34!

an apprehension not unlike that with which he would now start
out for Central Africa. The Indians knew little of the white
man, and his inventions were strange and mysterious to them.
Thus, the people on the Yellowstone had never seen or heard
of a steamboat, and at some places were at a loss what to do
or how to act at the sight of one.

The art of portrait painting was new to the savages, and
the strange, whimsical, and superstitious notions which they
conceived of Mr. Catlin's operations were the source of many
curious incidents. The portraits produced great excitement
in the villages, with intense interest in the personality of the
artist. The people pronounced him the greatest medicine
man in the world, for he made living beings ; they said " they
could see their chiefs alive in two places ; those that he had
made were a little alive ; they could see their eyes move, could
see them smile and laugh, and if they could laugh they could
certainly speak, if they should try, and they must therefore
have some life in them." The squaws generally agreed that
" they had discovered life enough in them to render my medi-
cine too great for the Mandans ; saying that such an operation
could not be performed without taking from the original some-
thing which I put in the picture, and they could see it move,
could see it stir." Then the cry went around that the artist was
a dangerous man ; " one who could make living persons by
looking at them, and at the same time could, as a matter of
course, destroy life in the same way, if I chose." When a
movement was made to expel him from a village, and a council
was held about the matter, which sat for several days, he got
admittance to their council, and assured them, he says, " that
I was but a man like themselves ; that my art had no medicine
or mystery about it, but could be learned by any of them if
they would practise it as long as I had ; and that in the
country where I lived brave men never allowed their squaws
to frighten them with foolish whims and stories. They all
immediately arose, shook me by the hand, and dressed them-
selves for their pictures. After this there was no further diffi-
culty about sitting — all were ready to be painted ; the squaws
were silent, and my painting room a continual resort for the
chiefs and medicine men." But Mr. Catlin always noticed that,
when a picture was going on, the braves who were assisting
kept passing the pipe around, smoking for the success of the

242 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

picture and the preservation of the sitter. Then he was feasted,
a doctor's rattle was presented to him, and a magical wand, or
doctor's staff, " strung with claws of the grizzly bear, with
hoofs of the antelope, with ermine, with wild sage and bats'
wings — and perfumed with the choice and savoury odour of the
polecat ; a dog was sacrificed and hung by the legs over my
wigwam, and I was therefore and thereby initiated into the
arcana of'medicine or mystery."

Mr. Catlin was called by the Iowa Indians Chip-pe-ho-la ; by
the Mandans, Te-ho-pe-nee Wash-ee, or Great Medicine White
Man ; and by the Sioux at Fort Pierre, Ee-cha-zoo-kah-ga-wa-kou,
the Medicine Painter, and also We-chash-a-wa-kou, the Painter.
Associating with the Indians almost constantly, and seeing
their best side, Mr. Catlin's sympathies were wholly enlisted
for them ; and we find much in his observations appreciative
of their character and revealing an anxious interest in their
future. He often speaks as one who felt that a doom of ex-
termination which they did not deserve had been pronounced
against them. He wrote an " Indian creed " in 1868, pertinent-
ly to his being called the " Indian-loving Catlin," in which he
described those people as having always loved him and made
him welcome to the best they had ; as being honest without
laws, having no jails or poorhouses, keeping the command-
ments without ever having read them or heard them preached
from the pulpit, having never taken the name of God in vain,
loving their neighbours as themselves, worshipping God without
a Bible and believing that God loved them also, and — " I love
all people who do the best they can, and oh, how I love a peo-
ple who don't live for the love of money ! " He asserted, in
his North American Indians, that the Indian " is everywhere,
in his native state, a highly moral and religious being, endowed
by his Maker with an intuitive knowledge of some great
author of his being and the universe ; in dread of whose dis-
pleasure he constantly lives, with the apprehension before him
of a future state, where he expects to be rewarded or punished,
according to the merits he has gained or forfeited in this
world." He found him the worshipper of a spiritual God, with
no idolatry. He discerned the evil of allowing traders to go
among the Indians to corrupt them, and thought that, if they
were obliged to come to the settlements to do their trading,
they would enjoy the advantages of competition, and see the

GEORGE CATLIN.

343

better features of our civilization. His theories respecting the
origin of the Indians do not seem to have taken settled shape.
He believed that the primary race did not come here from
abroad, but originated here on the soil independently of other
races, although wanderers from other lands may have mingled
with it. He found reasons for supposing that there may have
been a Jewish element in the race, but not that the race was
derived from the Jews ; and he speculated upon the possible
derivation of the Mandans from a Welsh colony under Prince
Madoc in the early part of the fourteenth century. There are
not many scientific observations in his itineraries. His journal
at Fort Gibson, in 1834, contains a notice of the death of Mr.
Beyrich, a Prussian botanist, who had made an immense collec-
tion of plants, and died at Fort Gibson while engaged in chang-
ing and drying them.

Mr. Catlin supported himself in his journeys by painting
portraits and by the sale of his books. It was his custom to
leave the Indian country in the fall and go in his canoe down
to St. Louis or New Orleans. There he would select some
place promising good custom and settle himself as a portrait
painter for the winter. His collections having become large
enough to form a gallery and museum, he exhibited them in
the chief Eastern cities from 1837 to 1839. He then offered
them for sale to the Government, and their purchase was advo-
cated in Congress by such men as Clay and Webster. But the
bill making the appropriation was lost, the casting vote being
given by Jefferson Davis, then in the House. Bitterly disap-
pointed at the want of appreciation of his work by his own
country, Mr. Catlin then took his collections to Europe, and
exhibited them in London and Paris. He gave his exhibi-
tion and lectured upon the Indians, with the aid of men and
boys in costume, for three years in succession, in London.
Then in order to help a stranded party of nine Chippewas that
a Canadian had been exploiting in England he associated them
with his exhibition for several months. A party of lowas,
among them being several whose portraits he had painted,
and still another party of Chippewas enjoyed his protection
under similar circumstances in London and Paris. Mr. Catlin
never took any Indians abroad for exhibition himself, and was
very indignant that any one should speculate with them in this
way. The support of those who came under his care fell

344 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

largely on him ; many died on his hands ; some were buried
from his own house ; and their expenses and the responsibilities
of their affairs forced upon him, helped to bring on his finan-
cial ruin. Richly he repaid the hospitalities that the Indian
at home had extended to him.

Mrs. Catlin accompanied her husband on his expeditions of
1834 and the three following years, and aided him enthusi-
astically in his researches and work. She joined him with two
of their children in London in 1840, was with him during his
English travels, and proceeded with him to Paris, where she
died in 1845. She had borne him three daughters, Elizabeth
Wing, Clara Gregory, and Louise Victoria ; also a son, George,
who died at the age of three years.

His visit to France, from 1845 to 1848, led to pecuniary
disaster, and was saddened by the loss of his wife and son ;
and in 1852 he suffered a financial wreck in London, from
which he never recovered. His collection was seized for debt,
but Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia, advanced the
funds necessary to release it, and took it as security himself.
It was brought back to this country and stored until 1879,
when so much of it as had escaped the ravages of time was pre-
sented by Mr. Harrison's widow to the Smithsonian Institution.

Mr. Catlin then started anew. Between 1852 and 1857 he
made three voyages from Paris to South and Central America.
He found great difficulty in getting the Indians of the Amazon
to sit for their pictures, but by catching them unawares and
sketching from his boat while they were detained on the shore
by some pretext of entertainment, he was able to make sketches
among thirty different tribes, on the Amazon, the Uruguay, the
Yucayali, and in the open air of the pampas and llanos, con-
taining many thousand people, in their canoes, at their fishing
occupations, and in groups on the river's shore. These voy-
ages had also another object, having been suggested by his
friend von Humboldt, who wished him to pursue some of the
questions relative to the origin of the Gulf Stream which the
great geographer was then too old to investigate personally.

After he returned from his South American campaigns, Mr.
Catlin lived in Brussels for about ten years upon the proceeds
of his brush, and working at the same time upon a new gallery
of paintings to be known as his "cartoon collection." This
was not a replica of the other collection. Instead of being

GEORGE CATLIN. 345

portraits the pictures consist of costumes in groups, hunting
scenes, views illustrating customs, etc. A price was offered
for this in Europe, but Mr. Catlin, always loyal to his country,
thought he could join it to the collection still in the hands of
Mr. Harrison and sell both to the Government. Subsequent to
his death this was attempted by his daughters. Frelinghuysen
introduced the bill ; Prof. Joseph Henry spoke before the Sen-
ate Library Committee in its favour ; it was backed by letters
from all the college faculties of the United States, but again
the motion was lost, and the cartoon collection still remains in
the possession of his daughters. In 1871, after an absence of
thirty-two years, he returned to the United States, and exhibited
his cartoon collection in New York and Washington until his
death. Mr. Catlin's last illness was contracted from an expos-
ure which he suffered in Washington, in October, 1872. He
was removed thence to Jersey City, where his daughters and
his brother-in-law, the Hon. Dudley S. Gregory, were living,
and died there in December.

The George Catlin Indian Gallery of the United States Na-
tional Museum consists of his first collection of pictures and
other articles given to the Smithsonian Institution by Mrs.
Harrison, as above stated. A full description of this collection,
with notes and statistics, a memoir of Catlin, extracts from
his works, and other related matter, was prepared by Mr.
Thomas Donaldson and published in the Smithsonian Report
for 1885. This description, upon which the present account is
based, occupies 947 pages and is illustrated with 144 plates,
most of which are engravings from Catlin's paintings. In his
pictorial work he sought to represent the truth, and invented
nothing. He regarded the domestic and everyday customs,
habits, and manners of the Indians as the essentials to the
proper study of their origin and descent, and aimed to repro-
duce them thoroughly. His principal book was Letters and
Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North
American Indians ; written during eight years of travel among
the wildest tribes of Indians in North America, first published
in 1841, and reproduced in several editions, in English and
German, with divers variations of title. He wrote also Cat-
lin's Notes in Europe, two volumes; Life amongst the Indians,
a book for youth, 1867, which was translated into French.
The list also includes works on the O-kee-pa, a religious cere-
23

346 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

mony of the Mandans ; catalogues of his gallery ; a pamphlet
on breathing, entitled Shut your Mouth, giving the results of
observations made during his life among the Indians, 1865 ; a
pamphlet concerning a Steam Raft suggested as a Means of
Security to Human Life on the Ocean, 1850; Last Rambles
amongst the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes,
1868 ; The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America, with their
Influence on the Oceanic, Atmospheric, and Land Currents,
and the Distribution of Races, 1870 ; a Letter to William Black-
man, concerning his life among the aboriginal races of Amer-
ica ; and newspaper, review, and magazine notes and articles.

He put forward in 1832 a suggestion for forming a large
reservation of public lands to be a nation's park, containing
man and beast in all the wildness and freshness of their nat-
ural beauty, saying that he would want no better monument
than the reputation of having been the founder of such an in-
stitution. More than this: He was the man who picked out
the Yellowstone region for a park, and it is time that the credit
of the Yellowstone Park should be given to George Catlin and
some part of it named after him. In 1845 he published a plan
for disengaging and floating quarterdecks on steamers and
other vessels for the purpose of saving human lives at sea, and
proceeded to take out a patent for it, but found afterward that
he had been anticipated. In 1842 he was invited to lecture at
the Royal Institution in London, and took advantage of the
occasion to introduce a subject on which he had long medi-
tated— that of forming a museum to contain and perpetuate the
looks and manners and history of all the declining and vanish-
ing races of mankind.

Attention may properly be called to the extraordinary
energy and industry of this man, who produced over twelve
hundred oil paintings, besides endless numbers of etchings, pen-
and-ink drawings, manugraphs of his own works resembling
the perfection of the ancient manuscripts, miniatures, etc., and
at the same time travelled and wrote and left few subjects un-
examined. His conversational abilities were sought for at the
best houses in London. At seventy-six he retained his natural
sight, his own teeth, his uprightness of carriage, and could
walk for miles without fatigue.

EBENEZER EMMONS.

EBENEZER EMMONS.
1799-1863.

AUTHORITIES differ as to the year in which Ebenezer Em-
mons was born. The first General Catalogue of Williams
College, published in 1880, puts " cet. 65" after the year of his
death. In Durfee's Williams Biographical Annals the year of
his birth is given as 1799, while, according to Prof. Jules
Marcou, in Science, Prof. Emmons always stated to his chil-
dren that he was born in 1800. His sister has informed the
writer that 1799 is the correct year. The month and day were
May i6th, and the place was Middlefield, Mass. He was an
only son, but had two sisters older and two younger than he.
Prof. Emmons's father, who also bore the name of Ebenezer,
was a farmer. His mother's maiden name was Mary Mack.
The Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, who was quite a noted
preacher in his day, was an uncle. The first ancestor in
America of this branch of the family came from England,
and settled at East Haddam on the Connecticut River. A
brother who came with him settled in Boston.

Young Eben's interest in nature appeared at an early age.
The doors in his room were covered with bugs and butterflies
pinned on when he was a small boy. His mother often used
to say : " Eb, why do you always have your pockets filled with
stones ? I have to mend them every week." His birthplace
and the adjoining town of Chester were noted for rare min-
erals. When he came home for a vacation from school or
college he generally brought some fellow-student with him.
He and his friend would set off for the mineral localities and
be gone all day, coming back tired and hungry, but were
always ready to go again the next morning.

He was fitted for college under the instruction of the Rev.
Moses Halleck, of Plainfield, Mass., a well known educator of

847

348 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

his time, and was graduated from Williams College in due
course. Prof. Marcou gives 1820 as the year of his gradua-
tion, but the General Catalogue has him in the class of 1818,
which seems to be conclusive. As a college student his in-
terest in the sciences was quickened by the instruction of Pro-
fessors Amos Eaton and Chester Dewey, and he subsequently
had a large share in introducing the study of these subjects
among the young men of the country. After completing his
college course Mr. Emmons continued his favourite studies at
the Rensselaer School, graduating there with the class of 1826.
In the same year he published his Manual of Mineralogy and
Geology for the use of the students of that institution. He
also studied medicine at the Berkshire Medical School, and
established himself as a practising physician in Chester,
Mass.

In 1818, at the age of nineteen, Mr. Emmons married Miss
Maria Cone, of Williamstown, and at the age of thirty-seven
became a grandfather by the birth of a son to his eldest
daughter.

In 1828 Dr. Emmons removed to Williamstown, where he
continued to practise medicine, and in the same year was ap-
pointed lecturer on chemistry in Williams College. A cabinet
of mineralogical and geological specimens which he began to
collect here was presented by him to the college after it had
received the valuable accretions of twenty years. He resided
in Williamstown until 1838, becoming the most eminent prac-
titioner in Berkshire County. In 1830 he was appointed junior
professor in the Rensselaer School and held the position till
1839. He was also a lecturer in the Medical School of
Castleton in the days of its renown. His chair in Williams
College was enlarged in 1833* to a professorship of Natu-
ral History, which he held till 1859, when the department
was divided, he retaining the mineralogy and geology till his
death.

Having been appointed upon the Geological Survey of New
York in 1836 and Professor of Chemistry in the Albany Medical
College in 1838, Dr. Emmons removed in the latter year to Al-

* The History of Williams College, another book by the Rev. Calvin Dur-
fee, D. D., above quoted, gives 1848 as the year of his election to the professor-
ship of Natural History.

EBENEZER EMMONS. 249

bany. He was afterward transferred to the professorship of Ob-
stetrics, and remained on the faculty of the Medical College till
1852. During this period he used to go to Williamstown each
year to deliver the course of lectures belonging to his professor-
ship there. His position on the New York survey enabled him
to make the valuable present of a suite of the minerals of that
State to his alma mater in 1842. One of his Williams College
students — now himself a venerable though young-hearted pro-
fessor— well remembers the strong face and beetling brows of
Dr. Emmons, and his manner of giving instruction. His dis-
position was kindly. Being a non-resident, not much was seen
of him by the students ; he would appear at the lecture room,
give his lecture, and disappear. There was not much of the
pedagogue about him. Students who had a special liking
and capacity for his subject profited much from his instruction ;
but his enthusiasm in telling the wonders of the rocks carried
him along at a rate which left the indifferent student far be-
hind. If only a fraction of his class appeared at the lecture, or
if he projected a question at Brown and a response came from
Jones or Robinson, he seemed not to notice the difference.
Williamstown is in the heart of the Berkshire Hills. One of
the summits of East Mountain, a neighbouring eminence, is
the only place in that region where gneiss crops out, and here
Prof. Emmons used to bring his students to display to them as
best he could the relations of his much disputed Taconic Sys-
tem to the other and then better known geological formations.
Very likely only a couple of the class would reach the summit
with him, yet he would discourse just as earnestly to these as
to the whole party that set out with him. This height, says
Prof. Arthur L. Perry, in his Origins in Williamstown, " has
been justly designated Mount Emmons, by one who was once
a pupil and later a colleague and always an admirer of the
distinguished Professor of Natural History in the college, Ebe-
nezer Emmons."

It is related of Prof. Emmons, as illustrating his enthusi-
asm, that once when on a journey with President Hopkins, of
Williams, and the president's brother, he asked his friends to
turn aside with him to visit a certain cave. They consented
to the delay, although the brother was on his way to be mar-
ried, and waited just within the entrance of the cavern while
Emmons penetrated to its inmost depths. After a time they

35O PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

heard the excited cry, " I've got it ! I've got it ! " and out
rushed the geologist, bearing triumphantly a muddy fragment
of rock. He had secured a piece of evidence in support of his
Taconic System.

In 1836 a law was passed providing for a geological survey
of the State of New York, and in the organization of the staff
for carrying on that work Dr. Emmons was appointed by Gov-
ernor Marcy to the charge of the second district, which in-
cluded the northeastern counties of the State. This district
was chosen by Dr. Emmons as a field more especially interest-
ing to him on account of its mineral localities and minerals,
and giving him a field more congenial to his tastes and ex-
perience. He made the public acquainted with the Adiron-
dack region and named its principal mountains. In 1837 he
named, described, and classified the celebrated Potsdam sand-
stone. Among the other rocks and divisions to which he gave
a name or a place in geology are the Chazy limestone, black
marble of Isle la Motte, Lorrain shales, Champlain group,
Ontario group, Helderberg series, and Erie group. Dur-
ing the progress of this survey, also, he made the impor-
tant discovery that is most closely associated with his
name. In 1842 he pointed out a great system of stratified
rocks under the Potsdam, which he called the Taconic
System. This announcement brought upon him a storm of
contradiction and ridicule, and for a time he was scien-
tifically ostracized. Subsequent discoveries by the Canada
survey, and by Barrande, in Bohemia, however, as well
as the investigations of later eminent geologists, have
completely sustained him. In propounding the term Ta-
conic* System Prof. Emmons was following the instruc-
tion and views of his teacher, Prof. Amos Eaton, who promul-
gated his opinions regarding the age of these rocks in his
lectures at Williams College from 1817 onward; and subse-
quently in his lectures at the Rensselaer School to the end of
his life, although never having published any satisfactory ac-
count of the relations of these rocks to the formations above or
below them.

Two years later Dr. Emmons described the primordial
fauna, thus preceding the celebrated discoveries of Barrande,

* From the Taghkanic Mountains.

EBENEZER EMMONS. 35!

who recognised the priority of Emmons in the following courte-
ous language :

" In comparing these dates it is clear that Dr. Emmons
was the first to announce the existence of a fauna anterior to
that which had been established in the Silurian System as
characterizing the Lower Silurian Division, and which I have
named the Second Fauna. It is, then, just to recognise the
priority, and I think it all the more fitting to state it at this
time, that it has not hitherto been claimed."

Prof. Emmons's Report on the Second District of the New
York Geological Survey was published in 1842. In the autumn
of that year his colleagues presented his name to Governor
Seward as a proper person to act as custodian of the collections
of the geological survey, then arranged, and in progress of
arrangement, in the old State Hall on State Street, which build-
ing had been assigned for that purpose by the Legislature of
1840. He was appointed to this position by Governor Seward
and assumed charge of the collections the latter part of 1842.
On the same occasion on which this recommendation was made
it was also recommended by the staff that the work in agricul-
ture and in paleontology which had been left unfinished should
be assigned to Dr. Emmons and Prof. Hall.

In the spring of 1843 Governor Bouck directed Dr. Emmons
to investigate the agricultural resources of the State; and the
paleontology was placed under the charge of Prof. Hall, while
Dr. Emmons still retained his position as custodian of the col-
lections of the survey until 1845. The five volumes of his re-
port on the Agriculture of New York appeared in 1846, 1849,
1851, and 1854. The first was devoted to a "topographical
sketch of the State, climate, and temperature; agricultural
geology, the Taconic System, and the soils of New York " ; the
second to analyses of grains and other vegetable products;
the third and fourth, one consisting of text, the other of plates,
to cultivated fruits; and the fifth to injurious insects. This
fifth volume has been severely criticised, but it should be re-
membered that the writer to whom its preparation was in-
trusted not being versed in entomology, could only compile
from the best sources at his command, at a time when the sci-
ence was in its infancy and comparatively little was known of
the insects of the State. The many illustrations, which are
well coloured in the larger portion of the edition, were mainly

352 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

drawn from nature, and in some of the orders, as in Coleoptera
and Hemiptera, have a degree of excellence which is rarely sur-
passed even at the present day. ;

About the time the third volume came from the press he
was appointed State geologist of North Carolina. In his new
field he made further important contributions to the advance
of American geology. In the coal measures of the Deep and
Dan rivers he discovered a grand Triassic flora, and a fauna
that included among many ancient vertebrates the Droma-
therium sylvestre, the oldest mammal yet found anywhere in
the world. His description of the new red sandstone flora of
North Carolina proved so valuable that twenty years after his
death the United States Geological Survey reproduced all the
plates and descriptions given by him in the sixth part of his
American Geology. Three volumes of North Carolina reports
were published by him. One on the Geology of the Midland
Counties was issued in 1856; a volume devoted to the Agri-
culture of the Eastern Counties, with descriptions of the fossils
of the marl beds, in 1858; and a second part of his report on
the agriculture of the State, " containing a statement of the
principles of the science upon which the practices of agricul-
ture as an art are founded," appeared in 1860. The Civil War
interrupted his labours. The anxieties and separation from
friends occasioned by it probably hastened his death, which
took place at his residence in Brunswick County, N. C,
October i, 1863. His wife, a son, and two daughters, sur-
vived him.

Besides the works already mentioned, Prof. Emmons pub-
lished an account of the Taconic System (Albany, 1844). Hav-
ing been commissioned by Governor Edward Everett to report
upon the Zoology of Massachusetts, he prepared a volume,
devoted to the quadrupeds, which was printed at Cambridge
in 1840. His American Geology, which appeared in 1855, was
supplemented by a Manual of Geology in 1859.

A clear-sighted and energetic worker, Dr. Emmons was a
living force for the advancement of his chosen science. The
Rev. Mark Hopkins, President of Williams College from 1836
to 1872, said of him: "Emmons was a man of remarkable
power and great accuracy of observation. He seemed to have
an intuitive perception of the differences in natural objects.
He possessed an intense enthusiasm in his work, but in his

EBENEZER EMMONS.

manner was remarkably quiet. I have never seen the two
things combined to the same extent. His perseverance
knew no limit. It ought to be added, that, in connection
with his science, he was deeply religious. Williams College
is greatly indebted to him for its collections in natural
history."

JOSEPH HENRY.

1799-1878.

THE popular mind often fails to distinguish between the
scientist and the inventor — between one who discovers new
truths and one who applies truths already known to a useful
purpose. Sometimes the two functions are united in the same
person, but more often he who is intent on enlarging the bounds
of knowledge feels that he has no time for tilling the field that
he has won. On the other hand a chance to make a rough way
smooth or to save a waste of energy or material, is what appeals
most strongly to the mind of the inventor. While the inven-
tor, like Atlas, takes the world upon his shoulders, it is the dis-
coverer who furnishes a support for Atlas. The subject of the
present sketch belonged to the latter class.

Joseph Henry was born in Albany, N. Y. There is good
authority for Dec. 17, 1799, as the date, but owing to the entry
in the family Bible not being distinct, the year is sometimes
given as 1797. One of his daughters writes " I have always
thought he numbered his years with those of the century,"
meaning that he was born in 1800, but her impression is not in-
consistent with the date here adopted. His grandparents on
both sides came from Scotland in the same vessel, reaching
America on June 16, 1775. His mother's family, whose name
was Alexander, settled in Saratoga County, while the Henrys,
whose name had been Hendrie, took up their abode in Scot-
land, in Delaware County, N. Y. When Joseph was seven years
old he was sent, for what reason is not known, to live with his
grandmother Alexander at Galway, Saratoga County, where he
attended the village school. Of William Henry, his father, little
is known. He died when Joseph was eight or nine years of age.
When he was ten years old Joseph was put to work in the store
kept by a Mr. Broderick at Galway, but having his afternoons to
attend school. He showed no marked fondness for books until

354

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I). Appletoii 8c Co.

JOSEPH HENRY. 355

one day, in chasing a runaway rabbit, he crawled through the
broken foundation wall of the village church, and then, at-
tracted by a glimmer of light, made his way up into the vesti-
bule of the building. Here stood a bookcase containing the
village library. The boy took down a volume, which happened
to be Brooks's Fool of Quality, a novel with a moral purpose,
and soon became deeply interested in the story. He afterward
spoke of this as the first book he ever opened voluntarily. Re-
turning again and again by the underground passage, young
Joseph regaled himself at will upon the fiction in the library.
After a time access to the books in the legitimate way was pro-
cured for him by Mr. Broderick, who seems to have been a
kind employer.

When about fourteen years of age young Henry returned to
his mother's house in Albany. As at this time he manifested
little inclination for learning, temporary employment was
found for him by his uncle with a silversmith, but this arrange-
ment soon came to an end by the failure of his employer. He
now developed a great fondness for the theatre. Besides see-
ing all the plays he could, he obtained entrance behind the
scenes and learned the methods of producing stage effects.
Joining a society for debating and amateur theatricals, called
the Rostrum, he soon distinguished himself by his ingenuity
in stage management, and became president of the society.
Having from lack of employment plenty of time on his hands,
he wrote a comedy for the Rostrum and dramatized a tale
of more serious character. While occupied with such matters,
his active mind struck the trail that led it to the road it
was destined to pursue. He was kept at home a few days
by a slight illness, and chanced to take up an elementary
book of science belonging to a Scotchman who lodged in his
mother's house. It was Lectures on Experimental Philoso-
phy, Astronomy, and Chemistry, intended chiefly for the use
of Young Persons, by G. Gregory. The style of the book —
suggesting queries about common things and afterward giv-
ing the answers to them — was stimulating to a vigorous mind.
This volume was preserved in Henry's library until his death,
and the effect it had upon him is attested by the following
inscription which he put upon its fly leaf: "This book, al-
though by no means a profound work, has, under Providence,
exerted a remarkable influence upon my life. It accidentally

356 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

fell into my hands when I was about sixteen years old, and was
the first work I ever read with attention. It opened to me a
new world of thought and enjoyment ; invested things before
almost unnoticed with the highest interest ; fixed my mind on
the study of Nature, and caused me to resolve at the time of
reading it that I would immediately commence to devote my
life to the acquisition of knowledge." In accordance with that
resolve he resigned from the dramatic society and betook
himself to study. At first he attended a night school and
after a time entered Albany Academy, paying his way by teach-
ing a country district school and later serving as assistant in
the academy. On leaving this institution he obtained the posi-
tion of tutor in the family of the patroon, General Stephen Van
Rensselaer, of Albany, occupying his leisure hours in studies
preparatory to the medical profession, to which he added the
higher mathematics. General Van Rensselaer was an old
friend of the family. He regarded Henry in the light of a
son, and Henry was wont to say that the general taught him
what it was to have a father, and what were the feelings of a
son. Later he made a survey for a road across the southern
part of the State, from West Point to Lake Erie. In 1826 he
returned to the Albany Academy as an assistant, and in 1828
was made Professor of Mathematics.

Mr. Henry had now become interested in the subject of
electro-magnetism, which had recently been much advanced by
the discoveries of Oersted and Ampere. In 1827 he read before
the Albany Institute a paper entitled On Some Modifications
of the Electro-magnetic Apparatus. "By his skilful experi-
mental investigations," says Mr. William B. Taylor, in speaking
of this paper, " Henry was enabled to exhibit all the class illus-
trations, attempted by Sturgeon, not only on a still larger and
more conspicuous scale, with the use of feeble magnets (where
required), but with a still further reduction of the battery
power ... by the simple expedient of adopting, in every case
where single circuits had hitherto been employed, the manifold
coil of fine wire which Schweigger had employed to increase
the sensibility of the galvanometer." This was Henry's first
contribution to electrical science. "Should any one be dis-
posed to conclude that this simple extension of Schweigger's
multiple coil was unimportant and unmeritorious, the ready an-
swer occurs that talented and skilful electricians labouring to

JOSEPH HENRY.

attain the result had for six years failed to make such an ex-
tension. Nor was the result by any means made antecedently
assured by Schweigger's success with the galvanometer. If
Sturgeon's improvement of economizing the battery size and
consumption by increasing the magnet factor (in those few
cases where available) was well deserving of reward,* surely
Henry's improvement of a far greater economy, by increasing
the circuit factor (entirely neglected by Sturgeon), deserved
a still higher applause."

In describing Henry's work during the next few years Mr.
Taylor continues: " To Henry belongs the exclusive credit of
having first constructed the magnetic spool or bobbin, that
form of coil since universally employed for every application
of electro-magnetism, of induction, or of magneto-electrics.
. . . By means of the Henry ' spool ' the magnet, almost at a
bound, was developed from a feeble childhood to a vigorous
manhood, and so rapidly and generally was the new form in-
troduced abroad among experimenters, few of whom had ever
seen the papers of Henry, that probably very few indeed have
been aware to whom they were, really indebted for this familiar
and powerful instrumentality. . . .

" But, in addition to this large gift to science, Henry has the
pre-eminent claim to popular gratitude, of having first worked
out the differing functions of two entirely different kinds of
electro-magnet : the one surrounded with numerous coils of no
great length, designated by him the ' quantity ' magnet ; the
other surrounded with a continuous coil of very great length,
designated by him the * intensity ' magnet. The former and
more powerful system was shown to be most responsive to a
single galvanic element (a * quantity battery ') ; the latter
and feebler system was shown to be excited by a battery of
numerous elements (' an intensity battery ') ; but at the same
time was shown to have the singular capability, never before
suspected or imagined, of subtile excitation from a distant
source.

"But this was not all. In this distinction between the two
magnets Henry discovered the law that there must be a pro-
portion between the aggregate internal resistance of the bat-

* Sturgeon for this received, in 1825, the silver medal of the Society for
the Encouragement of Arts.

358 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

tery and the whole external resistance of the conjunctive wire
or conducting circuit ; with the very important practical con-
sequence that by combining with an ' intensity ' magnet of a
single extended fine coil an intensity battery of many small
pairs, its electro-motive force enables a very long conductor to
be employed with no sensible diminution of effect. ' It takes
nothing from Henry's discovery that Ohm had conceived a
mathematical theory of the same law in 1827. Except to a
few in Germany this theory was unknown, and did not affect
science in England, France, or America until much later. It
was unknown to Faraday and Wheatstone in 1837 ; to Bain in

In 1831, Henry made an apparatus by which he caused a
steel bar, suspended between the poles of an electro.-magnet,
to swing and give signals by its strokes on a bell. He operated
this through more than a mile of wire. Here was a device
which might readily have been developed into an electric tele-
graph.

Mr. Taylor says of this memorable arrangement :

" In the first place, it was the first electro-magnetic tele-
graph employing an intensity magnet capable of being excited
at very great distances from a suitable intensity battery. . . .

"In the second place, it was the first electro-magnetic
telegraph employing the armature as a signalling device ; or
employing the attractive power of the intermittent magnet as
distinguished from the directive action of the galvanic circuit ;
that is to say, it was, strictly speaking, the first magnetic tele-
graph.

" In the third place, it was the first acoustic telegraph."

This is the language of a eulogist, but it is a fact that
Morse did not succeed in making his telegraph operate through
any considerable length of wire until he adopted the intensity
magnet of Henry. To quote Henry's words in his Statement
in Relation to the History of the Electro-magnetic Telegraph,
published by the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution in
1857, "The principles I had developed were applied by Dr.
Gale to render Morse's machine effective at a distance." That
is Henry's connection with the Morse telegraph in a nut-
shell.

The discoveries which he announced in 1831 attracted wide
attention among men of science, and were the cause of his

JOSEPH HENRY. 359

being called the next year to be Professor of Natural Philoso-
phy in the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University.

His researches were interrupted for a year or more when he
removed to Princeton. At first he had his new course of lec-
tures to prepare, and in 1833 he supplied the place of the Pro-
fessor of Chemistry and Geology, Dr. Torrey, during the
absence of the latter in Europe. When he was able to resume
his experiments, Faraday was running neck and neck with him
on the same course. Several important discoveries were made
by both men independently. In August, 1829, Henry had
made in Albany the discovery of electrical self-induction in
a long helical wire — the extra current as it is called — in ad-
vance of Faraday, who made independently the same discov-
ery in 1834. He also made independently of Faraday the
great discovery of magneto-electricity. In Princeton, with
some coils of insulated copper ribbon — these coils are known
in electrical text-books as "Henry's coils" — he pursued
the subject, until he discovered that one induced current can
produce another, the second current a third, the third a
fourth, the fourth a fifth ; also that a current of quantity
may be produced by one of intensity, and the converse ;
also that currents can be induced at a distance, and from
obtaining currents in one room induced from primary cur-
rents in another room, with no connection merely by the dis-
turbance of the electrical plenum, he passed to the accomplishment
of the same result between an upper room of the Philo-
sophical Hall and the cellar of the same building ; then be-
tween two parallel wires stretched perpendicularly, several
hundred feet apart, and then, connecting the tinned roof of
his house with the ground, he magnetized needles in his libra-
ry, by induction, from a thunder cloud eight miles away. The
practical applications of these discoveries are numerous. In
1836, when in these experiments a Leyden jar was substituted
for galvanism, these coils led Henry to the discovery of the
oscillatory character of the electric discharge. They were
also used to investigate electric screening, which Henry at-
tributed to the neutralizing action of a current induced in the
interposed body. These discoveries were announced in the
years 1834, 1835, 1836, and 1838. Before leaving Albany Henry
had been employed to make one of his powerful magnets for
the laboratory of Yale College, then under the direction of Prof.

360 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Silliman. It consisted of an octagonal bar three inches thick
and thirty inches long, bent in the form of a horseshoe, and
was able to lift more than a ton. For his own laboratory at
Princeton be constructed one to surpass it. This lifted more
than three thousand pounds. One other contribution Henry
here made to the telegraph. He used the intensity spool and
battery, working through long distances, to open and close the
circuit of the quantity spool and battery, . . . thus making the
powerful magnet at short range the servant of the weak one
at long range. This device of opening one circuit by means
of another is used in the relay to call into play another inten-
sity circuit.

When he had been four years at Princeton he was given a
year's leave of absence on full salary, in which he made a very
enjoyable visit to Europe. He and his friend Dallas Bache
arrived in England in February, 1837. He received an en-
thusiastic welcome from the scientists of the old world, espe-
cially from Faraday. The importance of his visit to London
to the telegraph in England should not be overlooked. Wheat-
stone was then busy with his form of the invention. He had
discarded the electro-magnet, because, to use his own words,
" sufficient attractive power could not be imparted to an
electro-magnet interposed in a long circuit," and had substi-
tuted for it a secondary galvanic circuit. Henry at this time
explained to him his discovery of the intensity magnet. Wheat-
stone never acknowledged any indebtedness to Henry, but it
is a significant fact that before Henry's arrival in England the
electro-magnet was discarded as inefficient by Wheatstone, and
after two weeks of daily intercourse with Henry it was re-
stored to his telegraph, and the success of the English system
secured. Crossing over to Paris Henry made the acquaintance
of Arago, Becquerel, De la Rive, Biot, and Gay Lussac. A
visit to Edinburgh brought him into contact with other con-
genial minds, and in September he attended the meeting of the
British Association, which he addressed, by invitation, giving
some of his recent observations on the " lateral discharge "
from the Leyden jar or a conducting wire. He also gave the
section of Mechanics an account of the great extension of the
railway and canal systems in the United States. Returning
home in November, greatly invigorated by his tour, Prof.
Henry plunged again into his fruitful labours.

JOSEPH HENRY. ^6l

Electricity was not the only subject of Henry's investi-
gations during his years as a college professor. For several
years in Albany he was associated with Dr. T. Romeyn Beck,
Principal of the Albany Academy, and the Hon. Simeon De
Witt, Chancellor of the Board of Regents of the State Univer-
sity, in making annual tabulations of temperature and rainfall
obtained at stations in various parts of the State. During the
same period he made a series of observations for Prof. Ren-
wick, of Columbia College, to determine the magnetic intensity
at Albany, by which he was led to researches upon the aurora
borealis. His interest in meteorology continued throughout
his residence at Princeton, and prompted several communica-
tions to the Philosophical Society. In 1839 he and Prof.
Bache induced the society to memorialize the Government to
establish stations for magnetic and meteorological observa-
tions. This application was only in part successful.

In the field of physics outside of electricity he investigated
the capillary movement of liquid metals in solid metals, the
cohesion of liquids as seen in the soap bubble, on phosphores-
cence, on the radiation from sun spots, etc.

We come now to Prof. Henry's connection with the Smith-
sonian Institution. The origin of this great scientific bureau
was admirably described by Prof. Simon Newcomb in his
memorial address on Henry. He says : " James Smithson, a
private English gentleman of fortune and scientific tastes, a
chemist of sufficient note to be elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society, led a comparatively retired life, and died, unmarried,
in 1829. He does not seem to have left any near relatives
except a nephew. On opening his will it was found to be
short and simple. Except an annuity to his servant, he left the
nephew, for his life, the whole income from the property, and
the property itself to the nephew's children, should he leave
any. In case of the death of the nephew without leaving a
child or children, the whole property was bequeathed * to the
United States of America, to found at Washington, under the
name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the in-
crease and diffusion of knowledge among men.' . . .

" We thus have the curious spectacle of a retired English

gentleman, probably unacquainted with a single American

citizen, bequeathing the whole of his large fortune to our

Government to found an establishment which was described

24

362 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

in ten words, without a memorandum of any kind by which
his intentions could be divined or the recipient of the gift
guided in applying it.

" Hungerford [the nephew] died in 1835. An amicable suit
in Chancery was instituted by our Government, through the
Hon. Richard Rush as its agent, the defendant being the
Messrs. Drummond, executors of Smithson. Although there
was no contest at any point, the suit occupied three years.
On May 9, 1838, the property was adjudged to the United
States, and during the next few months disposed of by Mr.
Rush for about ^105,000. The money was deposited in the
treasury in the following autumn."

The absence of details in Smithson's bequest imposed upon
Congress the difficult task of making up its collective mind
as to what kind of an institution it would found. It took
nearly eight years to do this. <l The act under which the In-
stitution was at last organized became a law in August, 1846.
This law provided that the business of the Institution should
be conducted by a Board of Regents, who should choose a
suitable person as Secretary of the Institution. It also pro-
vided for the erection of a suitable building of plain and
durable materials and structure, without unnecessary orna-
ment, for the reception of objects of natural history, a
chemical laboratory, a library and gallery of art, and the
necessary lecture rooms."

The Regents took expert advice as to how the act of Con-
gress should be carried out, among those whom they consulted
being Prof. Henry. He responded with a statement which
showed such a comprehensive grasp of the subject that, on
Dec. 3, 1846, he was elected Secretary of the Institution. The
choice between continuing a career of successful and highly
gratifying research and entering upon a course whose direction
was largely problematical now had to be made. His decision
was quickly reached, being largely influenced by the plea of
Prof. Bache that Henry's efforts were needed to secure the
proper administration of Smithson's munificent bequest, and be-
fore the month was out he entered upon the duties of the office.
His suggestions above mentioned, recast to conform to the
positive commands of Congress, were adopted a year later by
the Regents as a programme of organization. He found himself
hampered by the appropriation of a large sum for a building,

JOSEPH HENRY. 363

and by the requirement that the fund should support a mu-
seum, a library, an art gallery, and courses of lectures. Not
one of these institutions, because of their purely local influence,
were, in his judgment, consistent with the purposes of the
founder, which were to u increase " and to " diffuse " knowl-
edge. By pursuing an unbending but judicious policy, some-
what aided by subsequent events, Henry succeeded in turning
most of the resources of the Institution upon the encourage-
ment of original research by prizes and subsidies, and the
publication of reports and treatises setting forth the progress
made in the different branches of knowledge. This result
was not attained without a long continued struggle against
narrow prejudice, selfish interests, and misguided schemes of
philanthropy, involving some sharp conflicts. As obstacles did
not turn the secretary from his course, neither did allurements
draw him away. He declined the professorship resigned by
Dr. Hare in 1847, which was tendered to him by the Trustees
of the University of Pennsylvania, although its income was
more than double his salary at the Smithsonian, and six years
later he refused his consent to a movement to make him presi-
dent of the college at Princeton.

Under Prof. Henry's able management the Smithsonian
Institution quickly became a power for the advancement of
science. In his first report he announced the acceptance for
publication of the famous work of Squier and Davis on
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. At the same
time he proposed " an extensive system of meteorological ob-
servations, particularly with reference to American storms,"
for which Prof. Loomis had suggested that the telegraph,
then in its infancy, could render valuable service. This work
was undertaken in 1849 and steadily grew in importance and
value, so that in 1870 the Government was induced to establish
the Signal Office as a bureau of the War Department.

American anthropology was a subject early taken up and
energetically promoted by the Institution. Special explora-
tions were conducted, a splendid collection of objects was
gathered, and numerous valuable publications in this field
were issued. Very early in his administration Prof. Henry
organized the Smithsonian system of exchanges by which the
scientific memoirs of societies or individuals in any part of the
United States are transmitted to foreign countries without ex-

364 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

pense to the senders, and similar publications from abroad are
distributed to their intended recipients. From this system of
exchanges, not only in publications but in objects of interest,
the great National Museum has sprung — a child grown larger,
in buildings at least, than its mother. The Library of Congress
has been increased from the same source, so that, while at
Henry's death the original sum of the bequest remained intact,
the objects desired by the opponents of his policy, have been
secured. A general index of memoirs on scientific subjects
from 1800 was one of Henry's ideas which could not be carried
out with the part of the income of the Institution available, but
it has been fortunately given form in the great Royal Society's
Catalogue of Scientific Papers, due credit for the suggestion
being given in the preface to that monumental work. The pub-
lications actually issued by the Smithsonian in the course of
Henry's administration comprise, first, over one hundred impor-
tant original memoirs, forming twenty-one large quarto volumes
of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, most of them
universally recognised as authorities on their respective topics;
and, second, fifteen octavo volumes of Smithsonian Miscella-
neous Collections, more technical than the Contributions, to
which should be added the thirty octavo volumes of annual
Reports, in which the secretary gave an account of his stew-
ardship. In 1870 the Regents testified to their appreciation of
his service by giving him a leave of absence, with an allowance
for expenses, in order that he might take a European trip. He
spent four and a half months abroad, being everywhere re-
ceived with consideration, and hearing abundant commenda-
tions of the institution which he represented.

Although no part of his duty as director of the Smithsonian,
Prof. Henry was frequently called upon to use his scientific
knowledge and ability in the service of the Government. On
the establishment of the Lighthouse Board, in 1852, he was
appointed one of its members, and in 1871 became its chair-
man. The advancing cost of whale oil soon made a more
economical illuminant necessary. By a series of thorough
tests he demonstrated that lard oil, which had been pronounced
unsuitable, was really superior to the colza or rape-seed oil
used in France, and the sperm oil heretofore used. Kerosene
had not yet become a reliable commercial article. Prof. Henry
also investigated the comparative advantages of the steam

JOSEPH HENRY. 365

whistle, trumpet, and siren for fog signals, deciding in favour
of the last named. This problem, however, had many perplex-
ing sides, and occupied a large share of his attention for the
last twelve years of his life.

" The value of Henry's services to the various executive
departments of our Government, faithfully and unostenta-
tiously performed through a long series of years and a suc-
cession of presidential administrations, can not be estimated,"
says W. B. Taylor, in the admirable discourse prepared for
the Philosophical Society of Washington, from which much of
the material of the present account has been taken. " When-
ever in any important case a scientific adviser could be useful
to the proper conduct of a bureau, Henry's reputation gener-
ally pointed him out as the most suitable expert and arbiter.
On the outbreak of the great Civil War, the number of such
references was naturally very considerably increased. The
departments of War, of the Navy, and of the Treasury were be-
sieged by projectors with every imaginable and impossible
scheme for saving the country and demolishing the enemy.
Torpedo balloons, electric-light balloons, wonderful com-
pounds destined to supersede gunpowder and revolutionize
the art of war ; cheap methods for the manufacture of Govern-
ment bonds and paper money ; multitudinous expedients for
the prevention of counterfeiting by devices in the engraving,
by secret markings, by anti-photographic inks, by peculiar tex-
tures of paper (applicable to coupons, to circulating notes,
to revenue stamps), each warranted to be infallible — such
were among the agencies by which patriotic patentees and
adroit adventurers were willing to serve their country, and to
reap their reward by the moderate royalty or percentage due
to the magnificence of the public benefit." When it was pro-
posed that the pay of an expert should be given for these serv-
ices Henry refused, preferring to make them a free gift to the
country.

With so many exacting duties is it to be supposed that
Henry would find any opportunity to use his splendid talents
for original research ? He had no expectation of it when he
left Princeton, yet in spite of the improbability he made some
valuable advances in directions of his own choice. He so im-
proved the thermo-galvanic multiplicator of Nobili and Melloni
as to produce his wonderfully sensitive "thermal telescope"

366 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

with which he tested the radiation of the atmosphere and the
clouds. He also made other researches in radiation ; he in-
vestigated the expansion of a bar of iron at the moment of
magnetization by a galvanic current, and many minor ques-
tions. In 1868 he was elected President of the National
Academy of Sciences to succeed his friend Prof. Bache, who
had died in the preceding year.

"After an almost uninterrupted period of excellent health
for fifty years," to quote his own words, Prof. Henry was
attacked early in December, 1^77, with what seemed to be
paralysis, but in a few days proved to be nephritis. The dis-
ease was already far advanced and steadily progressed, with
occasional alternations of more favourable symptoms, to the
inevitable result. On May 13, 1878^ calmly and with unim-
paired intellect, Joseph Henry passed away.

Prof. Henry was above the middle height, finely propor-
tioned, and of dignified bearing. In his character earnestness
was his most conspicuous trait. This was evinced in his pur-
suit of knowledge, which was so earnest that he never thought
about securing personal glory in connection with it, and had
no time for arguing when his hypothesis was assailed. His
friends early learned that the way to get him to take any de-
sired action was not to point out the honour or other benefit
that it would secure for him, but to show that it would promote
the interests of science. The same trait explains his intense
antipathy to scientific or other hoaxes, and the fact that in
working for any desired end he never concealed his purpose.
Thus, when he took charge of the Smithsonian he made no
secret of his wish to secure important changes in the act of
Congress which prescribed its scope, and he worked for this
end with the inflexibility of purpose, which was another of his
characteristics, until the soundness of his views was acknowl-
edged. He was also remarkably considerate of the feelings of
others, as was shown conspicuously in his dealings with those
who differed from him, and with the visionaries that afflict
every one in a conspicuous scientific station.

Prof. Henry married in May, 1830, Miss Alexander, of
Schenectady, the sister of Prof. Alexander, of Princeton, and
from the ardent devotion of his wife, and the fraternal sympathy
of her brother in his pursuits, he received assistance and support
beyond that which usually fall to the lot of men. The most

JOSEPH HENRY. 367

peaceful, and to himself the most profitable, part of his life
was that spent in Princeton, for which place, and the college
located there, he ever retained the warmest attachment. Mrs.
Henry survived him three years. His first born, a son, died in
early manhood and three children in early infancy ; his remain-
ing children, three daughters, are still living.

Prof. Henry was the recipient of many well-deserved hon-
ours. He was elected to membership in many learned societies
at home and abroad. Several institutions of learning, includ-
ing Harvard College, conferred upon him the degree of LL. D.
A year after his death a memorial meeting was held in his
honour in the House of Representatives, and later Congress
erected a statue to his memory in the grounds of the Smith-
sonian Institution. Fifteen years after his death the electrical
congress, held at the time of the Columbian Exposition in Chi-
cago, gave his name to one of the electrical units. The
" henry " is " the induction in a circuit when the electro-motive
force induced is one volt, while the inducing current varies at
the rate of one ampere per second." When, in 1895, the sub-
jects of statues to stand in the new Library of Congress were
chosen, Henry was selected as one of the two for the scientific
alcove.

JAMES BLYTHE ROGERS.

1802-1852.

SCIENCE has need of all manner of men among its votaries.
He whose career will be traced in this memoir devoted to its
service a warm sympathy, an inspiring utterance, a high de-
gree of constructive faculty, and a conscientiousness which
caused him ever to give his best efforts to the duty before
him.

James Blythe Rogers was born in Philadelphia, Feb. n,
1802, being the first child of Hannah (Blythe) and Patrick
Kerr Rogers. His grandfather, Robert Rogers, was one of
the gentry of County Tyrone, Ireland. At the age of twenty-
one he married Sarah Kerr, daughter of a gentleman living
near, whose family, like his own, were adherents of the Pres-
byterian Church. Mr. Rogers was owner of the Edergole or
Knockbrack estate, lying between Omagh and Fintano, forty
miles from Londonderry, and held on lease a piece of land ad-
joining it. Dr. W. S. W. Ruschenberger, whose excellent
memoir on The Brothers Rogers * is the chief available source
of information concerning this family, mentions as additional
evidence of his social standing that he inherited the large cen-
tral pew in the neighbouring Presbyterian Church, which he
rebuilt and furnished anew when the church was reconstructed.
Robert Rogers was twice married ; his first wife bore him
twelve children, and the second five. Patrick Kerr Rogers
was his eldest child. "The rudiments of Patrick's education,"
says Dr. Ruschenberger, " were received in a schoolhouse
built upon the estate. It is described as having clay walls, a
thatched roof, clay seats covered with bits of carpet, and being
warmed by a turf fire. The teacher was a lame rustic boy,
whom Patrick's aunt, Margaret Rogers, a lady of notable in-

* Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. xxiii, pp. 104-146.

JAMES BLYTHE ROGERS.

JAMES BLYTHE ROGERS. 369

telligence, had trained for the office. It is conjectured that he
acquired his classical learning from a private tutor at the
house of a kinsman." The father of Sarah Kerr evidently did
not believe in the law of primogeniture, for he had exacted,
as a condition of his daughter's marriage to Robert Rogers, a
settlement of all the latter's lands upon the children of this
union, share and share alike. Accordingly Patrick, although
the eldest child, could expect only one twelfth of .his father's
landed estate, and must prepare himself for some other occu-
pation than that of a landlord. " Entertaining opinions not
rigidly orthodox, he was unwilling to enter the clerical profes-
sion, though he had the example of two uncles who were clergy-
men." All things considered, a commercial career seemed best,
and he therefore entered a counting house in Dublin. When
the Irish rebellion broke out, in the spring of 1798, he con-
tributed to Dublin newspapers certain articles inimical to the
Government, on account of which he was obliged to leave the
country. At that period ships plied directly between Ireland
and Philadelphia, and on one of these he embarked, landing at
his destination in August, after a passage of eighty-four days.

In the following May Mr. Rogers obtained an appoint-
ment as a tutor in the University of Pennsylvania, and soon
afterward began to study medicine under the famous Dr. Ben-
jamin S. Barton. Mr. Rogers was married January 2, 1801, his
wife being the youngest of the three orphan daughters of a
Scotch father and an English mother. Their father, James
Blythe, had been a stationer and newspaper publisher in Lon-
donderry, whither he had gone from Glasgow. After the
death of both parents the three sisters had come to America,
where they were received by a cousin, Mrs. Thomas Moore.
At the time of his marriage Mr. Rogers was described as " a
tall, erect man, of grave deportment, having dark hair well
sprinkled with gray, and soft sleepy eyes. He played the vio-
lin and sang well, but never in company or in the presence of
strangers, because such performance or display seemed to him
inconsistent with the dignity of a gentleman."

After receiving his medical degree from the University of
Pennsylvania, in June, 1802, Dr. Rogers began the practise of
his profession in Philadelphia. He also took private pupils
and lectured to classes in botany, chemistry, and other
sciences. He was called to Ireland in 1803 to settle the

370 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

estate of his father who died in that year. This business
disposed of, he returned to Philadelphia, bringing with him
two brothers and a sister.

The next five years of effort did not bring him a satisfactory
income and he removed to Baltimore, where he was more pros-
perous until he became involved in a controversy on methods
of vaccination, which injured his practice. When Dr. Robert
Hare resigned the professorship of Natural Philosophy and
Mathematics in the ancient College of William and Mary, at
Williamsburg, Va., Dr. Rogers was elected to succeed him.
In this congenial position he remained, a competent and force-
ful instructor, until he died of malarial fever in 1828. His
wife had succumbed to the same disease eight years before.

James B. Rogers received his elementary education in
Baltimore during the residence of his parents in that city, and,
after attending the college of William and Mary, took up the
study of medicine in the office of Dr. Thomas E. Bond. In
1822 he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the
University of Maryland. It is said that while a student he
assisted his brothers William and Henry in teaching their
school at Baltimore. After graduating he taught for a time
a class of girls in conjunction with a Dr. McClellan, of Balti-
more. This enterprise proving unsatisfactory, was given up.
Being now in need of employment, he thought of seeking the
post of surgeon to a colony of free negroes which it was pro-
posed to establish at Cape Mesurado. He consulted his
father on this matter, and must have written a rather queru-
lous letter, for he got this chunk of paternal hard sense in
reply : " What is the use of your complaining of mankind ?
The world as yet owes you nothing. Up to this time you
have been simply a recipient of its benefits. Make yourself
worthy of a place here and you will find one." The project of
going to Africa was abandoned.

Dr. Rogers now joined an intimate friend and fellow-
student, Dr. Henry Webster, in a partnership to practise
medicine at Little Britain, Pa., about two miles north of the
Maryland line. But after a few years' experience he aban-
doned the profession, having found it repugnant to his mental
habits and sensitive nature. He returned to Baltimore, and
was soon appointed superintendent of the extensive chemical
manufactory of Messrs. Tyson and Ellicott.

JAMES BLYTHE ROGERS. 371

From this time on Dr. Rogers made pure and applied
chemistry his chief concern. The professorship of Chemistry
in the Washington Medical College being offered to him, he
hesitated to accept it, thinking he was not sufficiently ready
of speech for a lecturer. He finally undertook the work, and,
although it was not remunerative, it served to discover the
fact that he shared the gift of eloquence which distinguished
his brothers. The ice being thus broken, he found it easy to
give chemical lectures before the Mechanics' Institute, in
Baltimore, and later he lectured also on physics.

Dr. Joseph Carson states in his memoir of Dr. Rogers that
it was William B. Rogers who induced his brother to venture
upon the career of a college lecturer, and thus relates how it
was accomplished : " To convince him that he had nothing to
apprehend on that score [lack of fluency], his brother William
prevailed upon him to accompany him to the lecture room, and
there, placing the future professor behind the desk, consti-
tuted himself the audience. The theme was named, which
being instantly taken up and amplified upon, the ease and full-
ness with which he spoke relieved him of his diffidence and
apprehension. This was his first effort to lecture, and, like
this, all his future performances were without notes or facilities
of recollection, except those incident to the arrangement of the
topic."

In September, 1830, being then twenty-eight years of age,
he married Rachel Smith, of Baltimore, a birthright member
of the Society of Friends.

Cincinnati was the residence of Dr. J. B. Rogers from 1835
to 1839, this period being the whole term of existence of the
Medical Department of Cincinnati College, in which he had
accepted the professorship of Chemistry. The summer vaca-
tions of these four years he spent as an assistant to his
brother William in fieldwork and chemical investigations on
the Geological Survey of Virginia. While in Cincinnati he
declined the office of melter and refiner in the branch mint at
New Orleans, offered to him by the President of the United
States.

Dr. Rogers now, 1840, removed to Philadelphia and be-
came an assistant to his brother Henry, who was the State
geologist of Pennsylvania. He also turned his knowledge of
chemistry to account in various other occupations. He was

372

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

appointed in 1841 lecturer on chemistry in the Philadelphia
Medical Institute, then a flourishing summer school, which had
been founded by Dr. Nathaniel Chapman. From 1844 to 1847
he was Professor of General Chemistry in the Franklin In-
stitute, of which institution he had become a member when
he went to live in Philadelphia. In this period he and his
brother Robert compiled a text-book on Chemistry from the
Inorganic Chemistry of Dr. Edward Turner and the Organic
Chemistry of Dr. William Gregory. It was published in 1846.
He also conducted quiz classes of medical students. He was
for a time Professor of Chemistry in the Franklin Medical
College, and represented this institution in the National
Medical Convention, held at Philadelphia in 1847, which or-
ganized the American Medical Association.

In 1847 he succeeded the celebrated Dr. Robert Hare as
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania
— a curious coincidence in connection with his father's suc-
ceeding Dr. Hare at Williamsburg. In this position he re-
mained until his death, five years later. He was also one
of the representatives of the university in the National Con-
vention of 1850 for revising the Pharmacopoeia of the United
States.

In 1846 he was elected to membership in the American
Philosophical Society, and the following year joined the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

Dr. Rogers was of slight frame and never enjoyed robust
health. 'In his latter years he suffered at times from nervous
exhaustion and defective nutrition, probably induced by unre-
mitting labour. He died June 15, 1852, leaving a widow, two
sons, William B. and Henry A., also a daughter, Mary V.
Rogers.

Never favoured by prosperity, Dr. Rogers was particularly
straitened in circumstances during the first part of his resi-
dence in Philadelphia. It was not until he entered upon his
last professorship that he received a comfortable salary. The
institutions with which he had been connected before were
small and weak or came to grief in some way that could not
be anticipated. While lack of shrewdness and assertiveness
on his own part may have contributed to hinder his ad-
vancement, his worth as a teacher is beyond question. He
was everywhere esteemed by his colleagues and popular

JAMES BLYTHE ROGERS. 373

among his students. Dr. Carson said of him, " Disinterested
and generous in his relations with the world, mild and con-
ciliating in deportment, open and affable when approached,
urbane to every one, his virtues shone conspicuously within
the circle of his friends. With his pupils he was sympathiz-
ing ; he entered cheerfully into their discouragements and
difficulties ; and those who confided to him received that en-
couragement and counsel so grateful to the student's feelings.
He was emphatically the student's friend."

JOHN ERICSSON.

1803-1889.

THE arts of marine engineering and naval construction
have been revolutionized through the inventions of Captain
Ericsson. As is remarked in Mr. W. C. Church's biography of
him, " in the closing years of his life he could look back upon
* a change in the physical relations of man to the planet on
which he dwells, greater than any which can be distinctly
measured in any known period of historic time,' and this he
had no small part in creating."

John Ericsson was born at Langbanshyttan, in the province
of Wermland, Sweden, July 31, 1803, and died in the city of
New York, March 8, 1889. His ancestry is traced back to the
family of Leif Ericsson, the son of Eric the Red, the Norse
discoverer of America. He was also related to Thorwaldsen,
the sculptor, who was descended, according to Mr. John Fiske,
from the son of Thorfmn Karlsefne, the first white child born on
American soil. His father, Olaf Ericsson, was a proprietor of
mines ; his mother was a daughter of an ironmaster, and was pos-
sessed of gifts which, according to Mr. Church, she transmitted
to her sons Nils and John. She used to relate that an old
man had prophesied to her father that two boys would be born
in the family who would become famous. John manifested an
aptitude for constructive work at an early age. As a child he
amused himself with drawing, boring, and cutting. A little
older, he watched the engines at the mines, copied their
models in his drawings, and studied their motions. He traced
the first suggestion of his future career to the day when, in
his seventh year, he dug a mine a foot deep and made a ladder
for the use of imaginary miners. When nine years old he had
learned the use of drawing instruments and the art of prepar-
ing constructive plans.

374

JOHN EKICSSON.

JOHN ERICSSON. 375

In the industrial disturbances occasioned by the war with
Russia Ericsson's father lost all his property and was thrown
out of business. In 1811 he obtained a responsible position in
connection with the construction of the Gotha Canal, in which
he gradually rose. John in the meantime was improving in
the exercise of his rare talents. In the deep forests, to which
his father had removed, drawing tools were hard to get. He
had a pen and pencil. He made compasses of wood with
needles for the points ; contrived a drawing pen out of a pair
of tweezers ; and made brushes of the hairs of his mother's
sable cloak. With these home-made instruments he executed
the drawings for a pumping engine to be operated by a wind-
mill.

The best use was made for the Ericsson boys of the limited
educational advantages which the region afforded. A govern-
ess was furnished them in the years 1811 and 1812. A
draughtsman, connected with the work on the canal, taught
them how to finish their drawings in a style which rivalled that
of engraving. They were given access to the draughtsman's
office of the canal company. John exhibited his first drawing
to the scale when eight years old, and he learned to sketch
maps. One of the superintending constructors of the canal
was engaged to teach the boys algebra and architectural
drawing. Another tutor " plagued them with lessons in Latin
grammar," from whom also John learned " chemistry and
many other things," he says, " of great use to me ; for in-
stance, how to make and mix colours for my drawings out
of materials bought at the druggists for a few cents." The
curate at Fredsberg on the Lefsang was engaged to teach
them French. The most distinguished mechanical draughts-
man in the country gave them further perfection in his art ;
and other instructors, drawn also from the professional men
engaged on the canal, taught them algebra, field drawing,
geometry, and English. While John was naturally disposed
to think and act for himself, these lessons tended to promote
and encourage his intellectual self-reliance. When a friend
spoke to him with regret of his not having been graduated
from some technological institute, he answered that the fact,
on the other hand, was very fortunate. If he had taken a
course at such an institution, he would have acquired such a
belief in authorities that he would never have been able to

376 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

develop originality and make his own way in physics and
mechanics.

When John was eleven years old he and his brother be-
came pupils in engineering of Captain Edstrom, who had been
sent to England to study the most approved methods in canal
construction. He was so pleased with their work that he
recommended them to Count Platen, President of the Gotha
Ship Canal. This officer had been shown specimens of what
John had done, and, receiving him, predicted that if he con-
tinued as he had begun, he would some day produce something
extraordinary. When twelve years old John was employed,
under the direction of his chief, in drawing profile maps and
plans for use on the canal, and to be filed in the archives of
the company ; in the next year he was assistant to the niveleur
(or leveler) in charge of the station of Riddarhagen ; and in
another year, when only fourteen years old, and obliged to
stand on a stool to reach the eyepiece of his surveyor's level,
he was put in charge of the Rottkilms station, where he had to
give directions daily to six hundred men. About this time he
became assistant to the chief of the work. While engaged as
leveler he made drawings of the Sunderland iron bridge, which
Count Platen admired very much. He drew for his private
use maps and sketches of important parts of the canal and of
the machinery used in its construction, which he began to pub-
lish several years afterward, inventing an engraving machine
to enable the work to be more speedily done. He found, how-
ever, that the machinery illustrated by his drawings was being
superseded in the rapid progress of improvement in mechan-
ical construction, and discontinued this enterprise.

In 1820, when Ericsson was seventeen years old, after his
father had died, he entered the military service of Sweden,
and was appointed an ensign in the Royal Field Chasseurs of
Jamtland, and stationed at Froson, near Ostersund. The step
was taken against the protest of Count Platen, and was the
occasion of a breach between them. Soon after joining his
regiment he was recommended for promotion, but his colonel
was out of favour at court, and the recommendation would
not have been heeded, had not the Duke of Upland, son of
King Bernadotte, pleaded for him. The Duke showed his
Majesty one of Ericsson's military maps, whereby the pro-
motion was secured, and the king's attention was directed to

JOHN ERICSSON.

Ericsson's skill as an engineer. Ericsson was subsequently
commissioned to draw maps to illustrate the campaigns of
Bernadotte as marshal of Napoleon. He passed the exam-
ination for and obtained an appointment on the survey of
northern Sweden, and in connection with that -work made
detailed drawings of fifty square miles of the country.

On the advice of friends, including the king, who considered
his abilities greater than could be adequately rewarded in
Sweden, and himself, no doubt, willing to seek a larger field of
usefulness, Ericsson in 1826 secured a leave of absence from
the service and went to England. He took with him plans,
including a flame engine which he had experimented on suc-
cessfully with wood as fuel, but which was not available when
coal was used; and a still undeveloped idea in his mind of
a vessel which "it was possible for Sweden to build, and
which would render the wooden walls of England of no avail
against her." He had intended to resign his lieutenancy, but,
overstaying his leave of absence without obtaining an accept-
ance of his resignation, he was placed in an embarrassing posi-
tion, from which he was extricated by the intercession of the
crown prince; and in October, 1827, he received a promotion
to a captaincy and an acceptance of his resignation. The
title of captain thus obtained, and a degree of LL. D. from
an American university, were the only honours he cared to
display to the public, though he had many others equally
high.

In the two years 1828 and 1829, after he went to England,
Captain Ericsson completed seven inventions. One of these,
a machine for compressing air, was used in clearing one of
the Cornish mines of water ; another involved the use of arti-
ficial draught for steam-boiler furnaces. Sir John Ross was
preparing for his second arctic expedition, but not wishing his
purpose known, concealed it in ordering the engines of his
vessel ; and the contractors, Braithwaite and Ericsson, suppos-
ing that the voyage was to be of an ordinary character, put in
one of these engines with other appendages not adapted to
arctic navigation. When Captain Ericsson learned the destina-
tion of the vessel, he warned Captain Ross that the engine had
not been built for that kind of work and would be useless. His
prediction was fulfilled as soon as the vessel entered arctic
waters, and the engine was thrown overboard. The principle
25

378 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

was, however, retained for ordinary steam vessels, with results
quite satisfactory. The third invention was a steam fire en-
gine. The first, an experimental engine, was followed by four
others, completed, one of which, sent to Prussia, proved so
efficient that the designer received, in recognition of its value,
an honorary membership in the Berlin Institute. Another en-
gine, employed in London, "extinguished the fires, but was ob-
jected to and rejected on account of the quantity of water it
required; and it was nearly thirty years before London would
have another steam fire engine, inferior to Ericsson's.

In 1829, while it was still undecided whether stationary or
locomotive traction should be adopted for the railway between
Liverpool and Manchester, a prize of five hundred .pounds was
offered for the best locomotive. Although five months were
given to the competitors in which to prepare themselves,
Ericsson did not learn of the offer till within seven weeks of
the day of trial. Stephenson brought out his " Rocket " en-
gine, with every appointment perfect and tested. Ericsson
produced his " Novelty," graceful in design and structure, and
with every part planned on sound principles, but built in haste
and untested. It suffered two breakdowns in the trial, caused
by undetected faults in workmanship ; but not before it had
passed the " Rocket " and reached a speed of thirty-two miles
an hour. Ericsson withdrew it in disgust, and the prize went
to Stephenson. But every one admired the beauty of the
" Novelty" ; the judges spoke of its appearance as being very
much in its favour, and commended the ingenuity with which
the machinery was so contrived as to work out of sight, and the
compactness of its form ; and John Scott Russell, the eminent
English engineer, wrote in the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1840
that " the 4 Novelty ' had to be withdrawn through a series of
unfortunate accidents which had no reference to the character
or capabilities of the engine. And we well recollect that it
made a profound impression on the public mind at the time.
On the first day of the trial it went twenty-eight miles an hour
(without any attached load), and did one mile in seven seconds
under two minutes." Two other elegant locomotives were
built by Ericsson, but they failed to give entire satisfaction
in the working, and this field of construction was left to
Stephenson.

In 1830 Captain Ericsson devised the centrifugal fan blower

JOHN ERICSSON. 379

which afterward came into general use on our river steamers;
in 1834 he took out a patent for a deep-sea lead, on a prin-
ciple similar to the one employed in a lead designed by Sir
William Thomson. He received a prize from the London
Society of Arts for a hydrostatic weighing machine. He ex-
hibited at the International Exhibition in 1852, and received a
medal for them, an instrument to measure distances at sea ; an
alarm barometer which sounded a gong in warning of approach-
ing storms; and a pyrometer which measured temperatures up
to the boiling point of iron. He invented an instrument for
measuring the compressibility of water; methods of propelling
boats on canals, one of which has been applied to the heavy
grades of Swiss mountain railroads ; a water meter, a centrif-
ugal pump, a file-cutting machine, an apparatus for making
salt from brine, and numerous applications to the steam engine,
many of which came into use, while others were abandoned.
He experimented with superheated steam; and Mr. Church
says that he designed more than five hundred steam engines.

While he was making all these machines he was also experi-
menting with designs for a caloric engine. His researches in
this direction were begun with the " flame engine " already
mentioned. He contributed a paper on the subject to the
English Institution of Civil Engineers in 1826; built three en-
gines in 1827 based on the principle of the expansion of air;
brought out a completed caloric engine in 1833, to which he
applied improvements as his investigations continued ; received
the Rumford medal in 1856 for his researches into the nature
of heat ; and, according to Mr. Church, spent in thirty years,
including the engines for his caloric ship, more than a quarter of
a million of dollars in building twenty-seven experimental en-
gines. The caloric system was not successful when applied to
the propulsion of large vessels like the Ericsson, although
that vessel registered a speed of eight and attained at one
time a speed of eleven miles an hour, but for lighter work it
has proved very practicable and efficient ; the smaller machines
have been extensively used, and the inventor derived large
profits from them.

The first experiment with the screw propeller was made in
1836 by Captain Ericsson, in conjunction with his friend Francis
B. Ogden, of New Jersey, United States consul at Liverpool.
A model of the apparatus was built and tested in a public bath.

380 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Then a boat forty feet long, propelled by a double screw, at-
tained a speed of ten miles an hour on the Thames. The
Lords of the Admiralty were passengers on the trial trip ; but
seeing was not believing with them, and, while they witnessed
the successful performance of the craft, they declared that no
vessel could be steered if the power was applied at the stern,
and would have nothing to do with it. Captain Robert J.
Stockton, of New Jersey, afterward United States Senator, was
visiting England at the time on business connected with the
Delaware and Raritan Canal, and, witnessing the performance
of the propeller vessel, ordered one built for himself and
named after him. It was sent across the Atlantic, and when
it reached New York the freedom of the city was given to its
captain. This vessel was employed for many years in the
waters of the United States, and, passing into the possession
of the Messrs. Stevens, of Hoboken, N. J., was known as the
tug New Jersey till 1866, when, or about that time, it was
broken up.

On the invitation of Captain Stockton, Captain Ericsson re-
signed, in 1839, the position of Superintending Engineer of the
Eastern Counties Railroad in England, and removed to the
United States. By the aid of Captain Stockton's influence he
obtained a commission to build a steam-propeller frigate, the
Princeton, for the United States Navy. Before this vessel was
finished, in 1844, his screw h^d been placed in forty-one com-
mercial vessels of the United States. Another new and valu-
able principle was introduced in the Princeton — that of apply-
ing the power directly to th£ shaft turning the screw. Erics-
son's propellers with direct-acting engines below the water line
were also applied in the French frigate Pomona in 1843, and
in the British frigate Amphion in 1844. The Princeton was
fitted with a twelve-inch wrought-iron gun, forged after Erics-
son's designs, and strengthened with bands, which had been
tested ; and with a heavier gun ordered by Captain Stockton,
called the Peacemaker. This gun, when fired — Ericsson's
friends claim, against his advice — during a visit of President
Tyler and members of his Cabinet to the Princeton, February
28, 1844, burst, killing the Secretaries of State and the Navy,
and Colonel Gardiner, of New York.

From the year 1826 Ericsson had entertained the idea of
contriving an " impregnable and partially submerged instrument

JOHN ERICSSON. 381

for destroying ships of war," and had a plan matured for it in
1835 ; and the idea of protecting war engines for naval pur-
poses was as old with him, he wrote, as his recollection. He
had become satisfied also that armour plates that a vessel
could carry could not be forged which a gun could not be con-
structed to penetrate if fired directly at them. From these
ideas was developed the plan of the submerged vessel carrying
a turret, which was embodied in the Monitor. In August,
1861, he proposed to President Lincoln to build a vessel for
the destruction of the Confederate war craft, declaring that
his purpose was not private profit but only to serve his country.
No settled purpose or idea of what was to be done seems to
have existed in Washington ; but Ericsson, after presenting
his plans, was directed to construct the Monitor according to
them, within a hundred days. The result of the first experi-
ment with this vessel constitutes one of the sensational incidents
of history. The Monitor's guns were not allowed to be
charged in that action as heavily as Ericsson desired — they
would have borne, in fact, a charge three times as great as
was given them — consequently the Merrimac was not de-
stroyed, as it probably might have been. Nine other moni-
tors were built for the Government by Ericsson and his busi-
ness associates, of which the Dictator was completed, as he
reported to the Navy Department, with a displacement of a
fraction of an inch less than he had calculated.

In 1869 Captain Ericsson contracted to furnish the Spanish
Government with thirty gunboats after his own designs, for
use against Cuban insurgent blockade runners. They were all
afloat within four months, two months before the time they
were to be called for by the contract, and half of them had
their engines and boilers on board. Several novel features
were introduced upon them ; they proved admirably adapted
to their purpose ; and in recognition of his service the Span-
ish Government conferred upon Ericsson the decoration of
Isabel la Catolica.

Captain Ericsson's ideas of a war vessel for submarine work
more seaworthy than the monitors were embodied in the De-
stroyer, which was launched in 1878. " It is an iron vessel,
one hundred and thirty feet long, seventeen feet wide, and
eleven feet deep, protected by a wrought-iron breastwork of
great strength near the bow," carrying a submarine sixteen-

382 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

inch gun thirty feet long, the muzzle of which projects through
an opening in the stem near the bottom, and which is intended
to carry a fifteen-hundred-pound projectile charged with three
hundred pounds of guncotton. The vessel is intended to
attack "bow on," and to discharge its projectile from within
three hundred feet of the object of assault. The bill for the
purchase of this vessel by the United States, although it
passed the Senate in 1885, failed to become a law.

" Three distinct purposes," says Mr. Church, " are apparent
in Ericsson's labours : first, to improve the steam engine and
extend the scope of its application ; next to discover some
more economical and efficient method for changing the mode
of motion we call heat into the mode of motion we call power;
third, to force the great maritime nations to declare the ocean
neutral ground, by making naval warfare too destructive a
pastime to be indulged in." We have seen how he worked
out the first of these ideas in his numerous adaptations of the
steam engine, and the third in the monitors and the Destroyer.
In trying to make the second idea practical he devised the
caloric engine and devoted many of the later years of his life
to the investigation of the solar heat and of methods of con-
verting it into a direct source of mechanical power. He devised
and constructed a solar engine in 1883, which was described
and illustrated in Nature (Vol. XXIX, p. 217), and laboured
until within two years of his death to improve and perfect it
In his description of this engine he showed that with reflecting
plates of one hundred and thirty by one hundred and eighty
inches and a steam cylinder of six by eight inches he could
obtain a speed of one hundred and twenty turns per minute,
with an absolute pressure on the working piston of thirty-five
pounds per square inch.

He devoted himself regularly and, except for the daily walk
and gymnastics for his health, unremittingly to his work. Fit-
ting up his office and workshop in Beach Street, N^w York, he
occupied his whole time in investigation, experiment, and con-
struction, refusing to be interrupted, and shutting himself out
from general visitors. The callers who, in spite of his well-known
habits, came to congratulate him on his eightieth birthday
were not received. He was a man of great physical strength,
and some remarkable stories are told of his feats in lifting.
In one of them, when in youth he raised a weight of six

JOHN ERICSSON. 383

hundred pounds, he thought he overstrained himself, and he
ascribed to it certain pains in his back from which he suf-
fered.

He participated eagerly in physical sports, was expert in
Swedish gymnastics, was one of the best shots, the best leaper,
and the champion wrestler in his regiment, and was famed as
an athlete, skater, and swimmer. Mr. E. H. Stoughton, for-
merly minister to Russia, is said to have surprised him once
at sixty years of age standing on his head, to prove that he
had not lost his agility. He was a man of unbounded benevo-
lence, and never refused the petitions of those who came to
him in need.

Domestic life was not for him, but his passion for work so
absorbed him that he did not regret this. In the course of his
brief service in the Swedish army he contracted a union with
a Jemtland girl of good family, by whom he had a child. The
union was dissolved, and for forty-eight years Ericsson held
no communication with his only son, for whom, nevertheless, he
seems to have made provision as soon as his circumstances
permitted. In 1833 he made a second matrimonial venture,
marrying an English lady named Amelia Byam. She came to
America with him, but not liking the country, and having little
companionship with her husband, she soon returned to Eng-
land, and died without ever seeing Ericsson again. There was
probably no ill feeling between them, for when the Monitor
made Ericsson famous the wife wrote him of her gratification
at his triumph.

It was a notable coincidence that Ericsson died on the
anniversary of the Monitor's famous fight. In the year follow-
ing his death, on August 23, 1890, his body was taken on board
the United States ship Baltimore and conveyed to Sweden.
All the United States naval vessels available were assembled
in New York harbour and took part in the ceremonies attend-
ing the shipment of the remains, each firing a national salute
as the Baltimore passed it on the way out to sea. Arrived in
his native land, Ericsson's body was placed in a chapel that
had been erected for it in the cemetery at Filipstad.

A bronze statue, of Ericsson, eight feet high, standing on
a granite pedestal of the same height, was placed in Battery
Park, by the city of New York, in April, 1893. The unveiling,
which took place on the 26th day of the month, was accom-

384 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

panied by a parade of Swedish societies and appropriate exer-
cises. No more fitting time could have been chosen to do
honour to the inventor of the screw propeller and the Monitor,
for the harbour was filled with picked vessels from the navies
of the world, assembled for the Columbian naval parade of
the following day.

While his literary works'were not numerous, Captain Erics-
son was a writer of force and ability, with imaginative facul-
ties that might have been developed under cultivation. In
his youth, and while engaged in his surveying work, he some-
times, he says, " wrote poetry to the wonderful and enchanting
midnight light of Norrland. Connoisseurs often doubted that
it came from the second lieutenant and surveyor among the
mountains." His communications to the periodical press on
the subjects in which he was interested were clear and vigor-
ous, and always acceptable.

He was a man of intense patriotism, which he manifested
equally toward his native land, although he never returned to
it, and the United States, the country of his adoption. In his
studies and inventions he had always in view the protection
of Sweden against the aggressive stronger powers; and he
gave the fruits of them ungrudgingly to the United States —
not always insisting upon his reward as persistently as he
had a right to do, and too often not receiving it, or receiving
it at the expense of delay and trouble not creditable to our
Government. His gifts to Sweden, after he became prosperous,
were numerous and beautiful, and included contributions for
the relief of sufferers from famine and from a fire at Carlstad,
and for a benevolent fund for the aged miners and miners'
widows of his native province ; a subscription to the Royal
Library of Stockholm ; the guns for the first Swedish monitor ;
and a gunboat for coast defence. In 1867 the miners of his
native region erected in front of the house in which he was
born, at their own expense, a large granite monument, bearing
the inscription, in Swedish, " John Ericsson was born here in
1803."

We are very largely indebted for the detail of the facts
concerning Captain Ericsson's inventions to the excellent biog-
raphy of him by Mr. William C. Church, in two volumes, which
was published in 1890.

TIMOTHY ABBOTT CONRAD.

TIMOTHY ABBOT CONRAD.

1803-1877.

IN Philadelphia, early in the present century, there was a
strongly developed taste for natural history pursuits, and eager
collectors of the local fauna naturally became so acquainted
and thrown together that the formation of a club and then the
organization of the Academy of Natural Sciences were the
logical outcome. Previous to this, local zoology had not
been overlooked, as the quartos of the American Philosoph-
ical Society show, and Peale's Museum was also an incentive
to natural history studies ; but all was more or less chaotic
until the academy came into existence. Then fresh enthu-
siasm was roused and every member became a collector, and
every collector a describer of new species. To-day these old
naturalists would irreverently be called " species mongers " ;
but if possibly there was a little less " science " in their
labours, all credit is due them for excellent intentions, and
every evidence of careful, correct, and valuable work, which
has not had to be done over. Looking back to the time
when Say, Nuttall, Rafinesque, Lesueur, Vanuxem, Troost,
Harlan, Morton, and Conrad filled the pages of the acade-
my's journal, we get a glimpse of a remarkable company, who
collected eagerly and studied carefully their " finds " and
spicily defended their positions when the great question of
" priority of publication " came up. These men were not
given to theorizing ; evolution was not in their vocabularies,
although we see at times some evidence of looking beyond a
species to its real significance. De Maillet's strange book had
been translated and informally discussed, but, as a general
thing, no one troubled himself with Lamarck, or all accepted
Cuvier without question. In short, these Philadelphia natural-
ists gathered specimens all day, and when they had the
material sat up all night describing new species. And among

385

386 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

them all there was no one more eager in the quest and more
popular with his fellows than Solomon White Conrad, the
father of the subject of the present sketch. That the elder
Conrad was a remarkable man all who remember him assert
without reserve. That he was a popular one, the fact that
his house was a favourite gathering place for all the scientific
notables of the city clearly proves. His was the first natural
history salon opened in Philadelphia, and, being a matter of six
days in the week, instead of at stated intervals, was fully as
popular as the celebrated Wistar parties.

A descendant of Thones Kunders (subsequently anglicized
to Dennis Conrad), who left Crefeld, Germany, July 24, 1683,
and settled at Germantown, then nine miles from Philadelphia,
but now in the city limits, like his American ancestry, Solomon
W. Conrad was a strict Quaker and an approved minister of
that faith. His father was John Conrad, a blacksmith, and
Solomon was born July 31, 1779, an^ died October 2, 1831.
Of his early life nothing is positively known, but it is probable
that he was apprenticed to a printer or bookseller. It is
known that a strong fancy for scientific study was early de-
veloped, and the fears of his friends were realized that he
would not be successful in business, because of attention
divided between his shop and his cherished specimens at
home. His partner ruined him financially. His herbarium is
now in the possession of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural
Sciences. As evidence that the country was more attractive
than the shop on Market Street, I quote the following from
the manuscript journal of a nephew : " My father, . . . with
Solomon Conrad, would take long walks in search of new
specimens. I went with them once on a stroll along the banks
of the Schuylkill, when they saw at the same time, in the
shallow bed of the river, a fine lot of mussels. Both rushed
to the spot, regardless of the rough stones and splashing of
the muddy water, the broad tails of their plain coats standing
out behind and their arms reaching out in front, eager to se-
cure the prize." In the spring of 1829 Solomon Conrad,
who at that time had acquired a wide reputation as a mineral-
ogist and botanist, was elected Professor of Botany in the
University of Pennsylvania, and delivered, May ist, his intro-
ductory address. In The Friend of fifth month, 9, 1829, the
late Roberts Vaux, of Philadelphia, gives the following es-

TIMOTHY ABBOT CONRAD. 387

timate of the lecture : " With a succinct review of the history of
botany he very happily blended some biographical notices of
the distinguished men to whom the science owed its origin and
illustration. He traced with great acuteness and perspicuity
the analogy of vegetable and animal life, admitting the limit
of human knowledge. Every view that he furnished of the
subject, upon which he is so well qualified to impart instruc-
tion in all its details, was just and forcible, while the simplicity
of his manner and chasteness of his style were by no means
the least interesting traits of the lecturer." The venerable
Frederick Fraley, Esq., of Philadelphia, recently informed me
that he was present at the introductory lecture referred to,
and that Mr. Vaux had in nowise allowed his enthusiasm to
outrun his discretion.

On June 21, 1803, when his father was but twenty-four
years old, Timothy Abbott Conrad was born. His mother was
then staying at the home of her father, four miles from Tren-
ton, in Burlington County, New Jersey. To this birthplace
young Conrad became so strongly attached that he yearly made
pilgrimage thereto, even when no representative of the family
lived there. In his purely literary writings he so frequently
refers to the place that he was once twitted about it, but with-
out effect.

"Timothy," remarked an old Friend, "was thy grandfather
the only man who ever lived in the country ? "

" Other men exist in the country, but no one else lived like
my grandfather," he replied.

Brought up, when with his parents, in so scientific an at-
mosphere, and when at his birthplace so delightfully sur-
rounded not only by congenial kinsfolk, but Nature in her
most attractive guise, it is little wonder that Conrad became
a naturalist. Mr. Fraley tells me that, when a youth in early
teens, Conrad was the " president " of an " Academy of Sci-
ence" of which he, Mr. Fraley, was "secretary," and that it
was conducted with all the decorum and good faith of the
institution after which it was modelled.

Conrad was educated at select schools under the superin-
tendence of Friends, but really educated himself, so far as the
" higher branches " were concerned, acquiring without a teacher
a thorough knowledge of Latin, Greek, and French. His skill
in drawing was remarkable and early developed. He not only

388 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

made all his own illustrations, but did considerable for others,
as the shells, seaweed, and other small objects on some of Au-
dubon's plates of birds. Before seriously taking up the special
studies that subsequently made him famous, he wrote many
sketches of a popular- character, and occasionally drifted into
verse. His father being a publisher and printer, Conrad en-
tered the establishment as a clerk, reluctantly probably, and
there learned the printer's art, and when his father died, in
1831, he continued the business for a short time, but the love
of natural history was too strong to be overcome, and he
gave up the shop and its belongings. Because of a prefer-
ence for walking afield to attending religious services, a com-
mittee of Friends called upon Conrad, and, not accepting his
explanation, they directed his name to be stricken off their
roll of membership. Conrad did not like their action, and
probably it is due to this that he seldom afterward attended
any religious gathering, occasionally dropping into some coun-
try Quaker meeting, but always, as he said, for old times' sake
and not spiritual profit.

In 1831 he was elected a member of the Academy
of Natural Sciences, and, some years after, of the Amer-
ican Philosophical Society. Of many foreign learned
societies he was a correspondent, but, keeping no record of
such elections, the names and dates of election have been
lost.

Conrad's first volume bears date of 1831, and has the fol-
lowing title : American Marine Conchology, or Descriptions
and Coloured Figures of the Shells of the Atlantic Coast.
Of this little volume, printed for the author, Conrad says in
his preface, " it is designed to supply a deficiency which has
long been felt by the cultivators of American natural his-
tory." The work contains seventeen plates, all drawn by the
author, and coloured by hand by his sister. In 1834 Conrad
published New Fresh-water Shells of the United States, with
Lithographic Illustrations and a Monograph of the Genus
Anculotus of Say. Also, A Synopsis of the American Naiades ;
Philadelphia, Judah Dobson, 108 Chestnut Street, May 3, 1834.
The full title of this little volume, with precise date of pub-
lication (not much larger than the title is long) is given, be-
cause even then questions of priority had arisen, and others
laid claim to some of Conrad's species. This unhappy wran-

TIMOTHY ABBOT CONRAD. 389

gling was kept up for many years. Prof. Ball refers to this, as
we shall see further on, as " numerous controversies, which are
now ancient history." Conrad's own version should be given.
He claimed that the editions of his publications were largely
bought up and destroyed by a worker in the same field, and
this explains the rarity of some of his writings. In the preface
of the little volume above mentioned the author says : " While
residing in the mansion of my kind and hospitable friend,
Judge Tait, of Claiborne, Alabama, where I was employed in
collecting the organic remains of the vicinity, I occasionally
made excursions up and down the Alabama for the purpose of
procuring fresh-water shells. I have succeeded in obtaining
some species which I believe to be new, and hope to fix by
accurate delineations and descriptions." The result was the
little book, which is dedicated to the late Charles A. Poulson,
of Philadelphia, a prominent conchologist in his day, and one
of Conrad's financial backers in his several expeditions south
in search of both recent and fossil shells. In 1834, in the
Journal (old series) of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural
Sciences, Volume VII, Conrad published Observations on the
Tertiary and More Recent Formations of a Portion of the
United States, which appears to have been his first com-
munication to that body. In 1841 the Proceedings of the
Academy were commenced, and a new series of the Journal in
quarto. In the former, from Volume I to Volume XXXVI,
Conrad's contributions appear in every year, the articles vary-
ing from two to a dozen in number. In the first four volumes
of the new Journal he has eleven contributions, all of which
are profusely illustrated. In 1836 Conrad published Monog-
raphy of the Family Unionidse, or "Naiades of Lamarck
(fresh-water bivalve shells), of North America. Illustrated
by Figures drawn on Stone from Nature. Philadelphia :
J. Dobson, 1836. This work, like the Marine Conchology,
was never finished. It would seem as if the magnitude of the
work had not occurred to him at the time, or that he was
soon tired of any subject that he took up, but the real diffi-
culty was a want of financial support. There were never
enough subscribers to meet the expense of publication. At
this time, too, his health was very bad, and he seemed to lose
all interest in every undertaking. " A period of moping would
usually end in his writing some verses which nobody would

390 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

praise, and this seemed sufficiently to nettle him, to rouse him
thoroughly, and he would become again enthusiastic in the
matter of shells and fossils."

In 1837 Conrad was appointed geologist of the State of
New York, and after resigning the position remained as paleon-
tologist of the survey until 1842. " He prepared official re-
ports on the fossils collected by the United States exploring
expedition under Wilkes; by Lieutenant Lynch's expedition
to the Dead Sea ; by the Mexican Boundary Survey, and some
of the surveys for a railroad route to the Pacific undertaken
under the supervision of the War Department. Many papers
were written by him on the Tertiary and Cretaceous geology
and paleontology of the eastern United States, and published in
the American Journal of Science, the Bulletin of the National
Institution, the American Journal of Conchology, Kerr's Geo-
logical Report on North America, and other publications. A
list of Conrad's papers, which covers most of those bearing on
paleontological topics, may be found in Miscellaneous Publi-
cations of the United States Geological Survey of the Terri-
tories, No. 10 ; Bibliography of North American Invertebrate
Paleontology, by Drs. C. A. White and H. Alleyne Nicholson
— Washington, Interior Department, 1878. It contains a hun-
dred and twelve titles " (Dall).

In 1832 Conrad published Fossil Shells of the Tertiary
Formations of North America. Illustrated by Figures drawn
on Stone from Nature. Vol. I. Philadelphia, 1832. It is dedi-
cated to Samuel George Morton, M. D. In 1838 Conrad pub-
lished Fossils of the Tertiary Formations of the United States.
Illustrated by Figures drawn from Nature. Philadelphia : J.
Dobson. These are known generally as the Eocene and Mio-
cene volumes, and both, as original editions, are extremely
rare. They have recently been reprinted in facsimile, the
former by Mr. G. D. Harris, of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D. C., and the latter by the Wagner Free Insti-
tute, under the editorial supervision of William H. Dall, of the
National Museum. In his introduction Prof. Dall says : " Stu-
dents of the American Miocene and the later Tertiary deposits
of the New World are well aware of the importance to them of
Conrad's work, usually referred to by the title of The Medial
Tertiary. There can be little doubt that the scarcity of this
work and its predecessor, the Eocene volume, is the chief

TIMOTHY ABBOT CONRAD. 391

cause of the delay in investigating our rich and interesting
Tertiary beds."

Prof. Ball, in considering Conrad as a paleontologist, re-
marks as follows : " Mr. Conrad had several peculiarities ; he
wrote his letters and labels frequently on all sorts of scraps of
paper, generally without date or location. He was naturally
careless or unmethodical, and his citations of other authors'
works can not safely be trusted without verification, and are
usually incomplete. He had a very poor memory, and on
several occasions had redescribed his own species. This de-
fect increased with age, and, while no question of wilful mis-
statement need arise, made it impossible to place implicit con-
fidence in his own recollections of such matters as dates of
publication. He himself says in a characteristic letter to F. B.

Meek, written in July, 1863 : ' I go on Monday to help H

ferret out my skulking species of Palaeozoic shells. May the
recording angel help me ! God and I knew them once, and
the Almighty may know still. A man's memory is no part of
his soul.'

" In spite of this constitutional defect, Conrad had an acute
and observant eye, and an excellent, if sometimes hasty, judg-
ment on matters of geology and classification. He was in
advance of his time in discriminating genera, and in field
researches and work on the specimens showed more than
ordinary capacity. In those branches of his work which
required knowledge of literature and systematic research he
took less interest and pains.

"Like many shy people he was brought rather than ven-
tured into numerous controversies, which are now ancient
history, and need not be further alluded to. But the sketch
just given will enable readers to understand the origin of
much that is irritating to those who are obliged to rely upon
Conrad's work and find in it slips and errors so obvious that
they seem unpardonable. He had the defects of his qualities,
but whether for good or evil he was the principal worker in
the field of Tertiary geology in America for many years. He
has left a voluminous literature, and neither his faults nor his
virtues can by any method be ignored."

When Darwin's Origin of Species was published, Conrad
became intensely interested in the discussions that wonderful
book provoked. He did not take the theory up as subject-

392

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

matter for an essay, but contented himself with innumerable
notes and memoranda that I found on loose slips of paper
after his death. He was bitterly opposed to evolution; con-
sidered Agassiz the world's greatest naturalist, and predicted
that Darwin's " wild speculations " would soon be forgotten.
Every geological age came, Conrad held, to a complete close,
and the life of the succeeding one was a wholly new creation.
These utterly crude and untenable views he held to the last.

It would be unjust to the memory of the subject of this
sketch to pass over without notice his characteristics as a
man and author. Conrad was something besides a profound
paleontologist. This his friends well knew. He was of small
stature, thin and homely, yet he had, as an intimate friend re-
cently said, a refined countenance. There was a kindly light
in his eyes that words can not describe nor the cunning of the
artist depict. I have said " homely " ; this on his own author-
ity, for in his poem The Watermelon he declares:

" The poet may sing of the Orient spices,

Or Barbary's dates in their palmy array,

But the huge rosy melon in cold juicy slices,

Is the Helicon font of a hot summer day,

"Where I bathe the dry wings of the spirit, and sprinkling

Sweet drops on the pathway of dusty old Care,
I hold Father Time from his villainous wrinkling
Of features that never had graces to spare."

As a conversationist Conrad had few superiors, but a weak-
ness of his voice made it difficult for him to be heard, and it
was only when with two or three intimate friends that this
quality shone out. He avoided large gatherings and never
spoke in public. He had a keen sense of humour and was an
inveterate punster. His memory was " very bad " scientifical-
ly, says Prof. Ball, but it was remarkably good so far as poetry
was concerned, and when walking alone in the country he
would repeat aloud long passages from the works of* his
favourite authors. His fondness for poetry led him to writing
verses, some of which were printed in the Philadelphia papers
as early as 1828, and his latest effort bears date of 1874. In
1848 Conrad published The New Diogenes, a Cynical Poem.
This is well described in the subtitle. It consists of some
twenty-five hundred lines of fault-finding. The edition was

TIMOTHY ABBOT CONRAD.

393

very small and is not yet exhausted. In 1871 his nephew, Dr.
C. C. Abbott, undertook to bring together the scattered short
poems, and found thirty-two of these, mostly in the corners of
newspapers and two in manuscript. The little volume was
"privately printed." It bears the title, A Geological Vision
and Other Poems. Trenton, N. J., 1871.

In his nonscientific writings Conrad invites a comparison
with Thoreau, but, while loving the outdoor world as devoted-
ly, he always had an eye to physical comfort, and preferred at
the end of a long tramp, a good bed at a tavern to sleeping
out of doors. So too, probably, did Thoreau, but then to say
so does not sound so prettily in a book.

Timothy Abbott Conrad died in Trenton, N. J., August 9,
1877, the last of the prominent group of early Philadelphia
naturalists, who paved the way for the more philosophical
biologists of the present day.

26

WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT.

1803-1873.

" IN him we lose the most accomplished bryologist which
this country has produced, and it can hardly be said that he
leaves behind anywhere a superior." This is high praise and
its value is enhanced by its coming from Prof. Asa Gray, who
certainly knew whereof he spoke.

William Starling Sullivant was born Jan. 15, 1803, at the
little village of Franklinton, then a frontier settlement in the
midst of primitive forest, near the site of the present city of
Columbus. He was the eldest of the four children of Lucas Sul-
livant, a Virginian, and Sarah (Starling), his wife. His father
had been commissioned by the Government to survey a district
in the Northwestern Territory lying in the centre of what is
now the State of Ohio, where he early purchased a large tract
of land, bordering on the Scioto River, and near by if not in-
cluding the site afterward chosen for the capital of the State.

The early life of William Sullivant was therefore that of the
frontier, with its mixture of hardships and opportunities. At
a time when the hominy mortar and the hand-grater served to
furnish coarse meal for bread, and grist mills were few and far
apart, young William, mounted astride of a bag of wheat on
one horse and leading another on which also was strapped a
well-filled bag, was often sent on a journey along the blazed
bridle-path through the forest to procure flour for the family.
These expeditions frequently occupied two or three days wait-
ing for the grist, and necessitated sleeping in the mill wrapped
in a blanket, where he was fortunate who had a pile of corn or
wheat for his couch, instead of the hard floor. But all this,
together with the athletic sports of the frontier settlement,
served to give him the fine physical development which was
often remarked in his adult years. He was also one of the
party on some of his father's shorter surveying expeditions,

WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT.

WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT. 395

thus gaining knowledge that he was soon destined to put in
practice.

He was sent to a private school in Kentucky, and entering
the Ohio University when that institution opened, received
there the rudiments of a collegiate education. He was then
transferred to Yale College, from which he was graduated in
1823. His father dying in the same year, he was obliged to
give up the idea of studying a profession in order to take
charge of the large family estate. The property consisted of
lands, mills, etc., and required much and varied attention.
The care of it required him to become a surveyor and a prac-
tical engineer, and to be much engaged in business for the
greater part of his life. He became a member of the Ohio
Stage Company, whose operations covered a wide field, and
before the introduction of railroads afforded the best accom-
modations and facilities to the travelling public. He was one
of the original stockholders and directors of the Clinton Bank,
and for a time its president.

Mr. Sullivant was not one of those whose predilection for
science appeared at ^an early age. He was nearly thirty years
old and his youngest brother, Joseph, was already somewhat
proficient in botany, conchology, and ornithology before his
interest in natural history was aroused. He had married Miss
Jane, daughter of Alexander K. Marshall, of Kentucky, and
niece of Chief Justice Marshall, and was living in his suburban
residence in a rich floral district. His wife had died within a
year after marriage, leaving him an infant daughter.

His first scientific observations were upon the birds. When
his attention was directed to botany, by his brother Joseph,
he took up the subject with the determination to acquire a
thorough knowledge of it. " He collected and carefully
studied," says Prof. Gray in the memoir already quoted
from, * " the plants of the central part of Ohio, made neat
sketches of the minuter parts of many of them, especially of
the grasses and sedges, entered into communication with the
leading botanists of the country, and in 1840 he published A
Catalogue of Plants, Native or Naturalized, in the Vicinity of
Columbus, Ohio (63 pages), to which he added a few pages of
valuable notes. His only other direct publication in phanerog-

* Read before the National Academy of Sciences, April 22, 1875.

396 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

amous botany is a short article upon three new plants which
he had discovered in that district, contributed to the Ameri-
can Journal of Science and Arts in the year 1842. The
observations which he continued to make were communi-
cated to his correspondents and friends, the authors of the
Flora of North America, then in progress.

"As soon as the flowering plants of his district had ceased
to afford him novelty, he turned to the mosses, in which he
found abundant scientific occupation, of a kind well suited to
his bent for patient and close observation, scrupulous accu-
racy, and nice discrimination. His first publication in his
chosen department, the Musci Alleghanienses, was accompanied
by the specimens themselves of mosses and hepaticae collected
in a botanical expedition through the Alleghany Mountains
from Maryland to Georgia, in the summer of 1843, the writer of
this notice being his companion. The specimens were not only
critically determined, but exquisitely prepared and mounted,
and with letterpress of great perfection ; the whole forming
two quarto volumes, which well deserve the encomium be-
stowed by Pritzel in his Thesaurus. It was not put on sale,
but fifty copies were distributed with a free hand among bryol-
ogists and others who would appreciate it.

" In 1846 Mr. Sullivant communicated to the American Acad-
emy the first part, and in 1849 the second part, of his Con-
tributions to the Bryology and Hepaticology of North Amer-
ica, which appeared one in the third, the other in the fourth
volume (new series) of the academy's Memoirs, each with
five plates from the author's own admirable drawings. These
plates were engraved at his own expense, and were generously
given to the academy.

"When the second edition of Gray's Manual of the Botany
of the Northern United States was in preparation, Mr. Sulli-
vant was asked to contribute to it a compendious account of
the musci and hepatica of the region, which he did, in the space
of about one hundred pages, generously adding, at his sole
charge, eight copperplates crowded with illustrations of the
details of the genera ; thus enhancing vastly the value of his
friend's work, and laying a foundation for the general study
of bryology in the United States, which then and thus began.
So excellent are these illustrations, both in plan and execution,
that Schimper, then the leading bryologist of the Old World,

WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT. 397

and a most competent judge, since he has published hundreds
of figures in his Bryologia Europ&a, not only adopted the same
plan in his Synopsis of the European Mosses, but also the
very figures themselves (a few of which were, however, origi-
nally his own), whenever they would serve his purpose, as was
the case with most of them.

" A separate edition was published of this portion of the
Manual under the title of The Musci and Hepaticae of the
United States East of the Mississippi River (New York, 1856,
imperial octavo), upon thick paper, and with proof impres-
sions directly from the copperplates. This exquisite volume
was placed on sale at far less than its cost, and copies .are now
of great rarity and value. It was with regret that the author
of the Manual omitted this cryptogamic portion from the en-
suing editions, and only with the understanding that a separate
Species Muscorum, or Manual for the Mosses of the whole
United States, should replace it." This work Mr. Sullivant
was about to prepare at the time of his death.

Mr. Sullivant married Miss Eliza G. Wheeler, of New York,
a lady of rare accomplishments, who became a zealous and
acute bryologist, and ably assisted her husband in his scien-
tific work until her death, of cholera, in 1850 or 1851. Her
botanical services were commemorated by Schimper in the
name of the Ohio moss, Hypnum Sullivantice. Two daughters
and a son were the fruit of this marriage.

In 1848 Mr. Sullivant secured the co-operation of the ac-
complished botanist Leo Lesquereux, by whose labours his
undertakings were substantially promoted. A characteristic
feature of his scientific work was the issuing of sets of speci-
mens, mounted on leaves with printed labels, and bound into a
volume having a title-page, index, etc. Specimens had accom-
panied Mr. Sullivant's text in the Musci Alleghanienses, and
now, from the ample stores collected by him and Lesquereux,
cr otherwise acquired, fifty-six sets of about three hundred and
sixty species each were made up, and all, except a few copies
for gratuitous distribution, were placed on sale at less than
cost, for the benefit of his esteemed associate. The title of
the volume was Musci Boreali Americani quorum specimina exsic-
cati ediderunt W. S. Sullivant et L. Lesquereux ; 1856. The
value of the work ensured the speedy sale of the edition. A
similar but larger collection, containing between five and six

398 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

hundred species, many of them recently gathered in California
by Dr. Bolander, was issued in 1865. The sets were disposed
of with the same unequalled liberality as before displayed.
Still later, Mr. Sullivant aided his friend Mr. Austin both in
the study of his material and in the publication of his Musci
Appalachiani.

In his Musci Cubenses, which appeared in 1861, Mr. Sulli-
vant named the species of Charles Wright's earlier acquisitions
in Cuba and described the new ones. These mosses were also
distributed in sets by the collector. His researches upon later
and more extensive collections by Mr. Wright, in which many
new species were indicated, were left in the form of notes
and pencil sketches at his death. The same is true of an
earlier collection, made by Fendler in Venezuela.

Mr. Sullivant was several times called upon to work up the
mosses gathered by Government exploring expeditions. Thus
the Bryology of Rodgers' United States North Pacific Explor-
ing Expedition was early prepared for publication by him in
the most elaborate manner. But, from causes over which he
had no control, it has never been published, although brief
characters of the principal new species have seen the light.
The fact that Sullivant's exquisite drawings of these species
were not promptly engraved and given to the scientific world
is especially to be regretted.

In the case of the South Pacific Exploring Expedition,
under Commodore Wilkes, the volume on the mosses was not
published in his lifetime, but Mr. Sullivant issued a separate
edition of his portion of it in 1859. It forms a sumptuous
imperial folio, the letterpress having been made up into large
pages, and printed on paper matching that used for the twenty-
six plates. The fourth volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports
contains Sullivant's descriptions of the mosses collected in
Whipple's Exploration, occupying about a dozen pages, and
accompanied by ten admirable plates of new species.

The Icones Muscorum, however, is Mr. Sullivant's crowning
work. It was issued in 1864, and consists of " Figures and
Descriptions of most of those Mosses peculiar to Eastern
North America which have not been heretofore figured," form-
ing an imperial octavo volume with one hundred and twenty-
nine copperplates. "The letterpress and the plates," says
Prof. Gray, u (upon which last alone several thousand dollars

WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT.

and immense pains were expended) are simply exquisite and
wholly unrivalled; and the scientific character is acknowl-
edged to be worthy of the setting." Most of the time which
Mr. Sullivant could devote to science in the last few years of
his life was given to the preparation of a second or supple-
mentary volume of the I cones. The plates were finished, the
descriptions partly written out, and it was to have been printed
in the spring in which he died.

Mr. Sullivant was attacked with pneumonia in January,
1873, about the time of his seventieth birthday, and, although
making a partial recovery, died from the effects of the disease
April 30. He had married Caroline E. Button, who survived
him. Four sons and two daughters were born to them.

He bequeathed all his bryological books and his exceed-
ingly rich and important collections and preparations of
mosses to the Gray Herbarium at Harvard University. The
rest of his botanical library, his choice microscopes, and other
collections, were left to the State Scientific and Agricultural
College, then recently established at Columbus, and to the
Starling Medical College, founded by his uncle, of which he
was himself the senior trustee.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected Mr.
Sullivant to membership in 1845 ; he was also an associate of
the other chief scientific societies of this country and of several
in Europe. The honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was
conferred upon him by Gambier College, while Torrey and
Gray honoured him early by bestowing the name Sullivantia
Ohionis upon a rare and modest plant discovered by him in
his native State, and belonging to the same order (saxifrages)
with the currant, syringa, and hydrangea.

For nearly forty years Sullivant corresponded with Asa
Gray, also collecting with him and co-operating in research
whenever practicable. He is often mentioned in Gray's Let-
ters. When Lesquereux, who had been Gray's curator at
Cambridge, left him to go and assist the Western bryologist,
Gray wrote in a letter to Torrey : " They will do up bryology
at a great rate. Lesquereux says that the collection and
library of Sullivant in muscology are * magnifique, superbe, the
best he ever saw.'" Under date of December 6, 1857, Gray
writes to W. J. Hooker : " Your first letter is now gone to Sul-
livant, because you speak of him so handsomely, and say that

400 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Mitten is instructed to prepare a set of mosses for him. A
noble fellow is Sullivant, and deserves all you say of him
and his works. The more you get to know of him the better
you will like him." And when, in 1877, he gave to Mr. Bur-
gess, since famous as a designer of yachts, a note of introduc-
tion to Charles Darwin, Gray wrote: " He has just married the
daughter of my dear old friend, the late Mr. Sullivant, who
did for muscology in this country more than one man is
likely ever to do again."

Prof. Gray said of him in the memoir already quoted, and
which has supplied the facts for a large part of this article :
" In personal appearance and carriage, no less than in all the
traits of an unselfish and well-balanced character, Mr. Sulli-
vant was a fine specimen of a man. He had excellent busi-
ness talents, and was an exemplary citizen ; he had a refined
and sure taste, and was an accomplished draughtsman. But
after having illustrated his earlier productions with his own
pencil, he found that valuable time was to be gained by em-
ploying a trained artist. He discovered in Mr. A. Schrader a
hopeful draughtsman, and he educated him to the work, with
what excellent results the plates of the Icones and of his other
works abundantly show. As an investigator he worked de-
liberately, slowly indeed and not continuously, but persever-
ingly. Having chosen his particular department, he gave him-
self undeviatingly to its advancement. His works have laid
such a broad and complete foundation for the study of bry-
ology in this country, and are of such recognised importance
everywhere, that they must always be of classical authority ;
in fact, they are likely to remain for a long time unrivalled.
Wherever mosses are studied his name will be honourably re-
membered; in this country it should long be remembered with
peculiar gratitude."

The following extract from a letter written immediately
after Sullivant's death to Mr. Joseph Sullivant by Leo Les-
quereux will be interesting :

" In everything, as well you know, W. S. S. was most accu-
rate. He was superficial in nothing. He worked his mosses
slowly, coming again and again to a doubtful species, compar-
ng authorities, repeating the most difficult anatomical prepar-
ations, till fully satisfied that his conclusions were warranted
as far as botanical science could warrant them. The numer-

WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT.

4OI

ous species to which he has given his authority have there-
fore been admitted and recognised by the most eminent bota-
nists of our time — Schimper, Miiller, Lindberg, etc. More
than ten years ago a very honourable account of his works as
a bryologist was published in the Botanische Zeitung of Leip-
sic, which, for botany, is the highest European authority.

"Another remarkable trait of' the character of your la-
mented brother was his perhaps too liberal disposition to work
in science for the benefit of others, without credit for himself.
Not only did he give his time to the determination of an im-
mense number of specimens which were sent to him by stu-
dents, or by so-called authors, etc., but often, without claim-
ing his right of authority, he determined the species, prepared
descriptions of the new ones, when he well knew that they
would be published under the names of his applicants. He
has thus fixed a far larger number than those which were pub-
lished in his name. Even lately he examined a large collec-
tion of mosses in which his opinion was requested, prepared
descriptions of new species, remarks on interesting ones, etc.,
and from this work a catalogue was made by the same appli-
cant, the notes copied as well as his remarks, and thus the
authorship was literally taken from him, and not even a word
of credit was given for his work. Such absence of scientific
honesty was not even resented by your brother, who merely
alluded to it as a poor reward for hard work. A character as
was his, without trace of envious or jealous feeling, marked
by true kindness for everybody, by a ready disposition to ac-
knowledge and help every effort for the advancement of his
science of predilection, to recognise errors and to correct them
without the slightest word of depreciation, could but excite
admiration and love ; and, indeed, your brother was truly and
sincerely loved by the few who knew him well ; for he was not
open to everybody. A man of few words, he never talked of
himself or his doings, and thus only those who had the privi-
lege of being intimate with him would recognise his noble
nature."

WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER.
1804-1859.

AMERICA will never cease to benefit from the influence of
its Puritan stock. Although the former preponderance in na-
tional affairs of New England as a section has disappeared
with the widening of our territory, the vigour, the intellect,
and the conscience of the settlers at Plymouth and at Bos-
ton have been diffused by their restless descendants through
every State in the Union. They are seen in the capacity
of the people of the United States for accomplishing great
undertakings, for bearing heavy burdens, and more than all in
their power of self-government and self-control.

William Williams Mather came from one of the most cele-
brated of the Puritan families in America. He was descended
from Rev. Richard Mather, who fled to Massachusetts in 1635
to escape persecution for nonconformity. Richard Mather
brought four sons to America, from the second of whom,
Timothy, was descended the subject of this article. Two
other sons, Eleazer and Increase, were born to Richard in this
country, and the latter of these was the president of Harvard
College from 1688-1701. Cotton Mather, the eminent divine
and author, whose misguided zeal was such a strong support
to the "witchcraft delusion," was a son of Increase. The
paternal grandfather of William, Eleazer Mather, and his
grand-uncle, Elisha, were officers of the Connecticut troops in
the Revolutionary War. The eldest son of this Eleazer, who
bore the same name, was the father of William. He learned
the hatter's trade in Norwich and set up a business for himself
at Brooklyn, in Windham County, Conn., which he carried on
successfully for a number of years. He then travelled for a
time in Canada, and returning to Brooklyn married Miss
Fanny Williams, daughter of Nathan Williams, who was also
a soldier of the Revolution. After his marriage he ceased to

WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER.

403

follow his trade, and kept a temperance hotel, also giving
considerable attention to the improvement of worn-out lands.
His son William W. was born in Brooklyn on May 24, 1804.

The Hon. Ivers J. Austin, who wrote the memorial sketch
of William Mather for the New England Historic Genealogical
Society,* was unable to find any information concerning Wil-
liam's childhood and very little in regard to his early youth.
While still in his teens William formed the purpose of becom-
ing a physician, and went to Providence, R. I., to take up
medical studies. There he became much interested in chem-
istry, and on the occasion of a visit home he brought with
him an elaborate piece of chemical apparatus, the cost of
which rather astonished and displeased his father. But he so
amused and instructed his family by his chemical experiments
and explanations that his father became entirely reconciled to
this outlay. In 1822 the young man applied for a warrant as
a cadet at West Point, which he obtained in the following
year. For this appointment he had recommendations of the
highest character. Twelve well-known men, living in seven
towns, certified to his ability and worth. The chief judge of
Windham County, wrote : " He is about eighteen years of age,
possessed of much more than common talents and literature.
He understands the Latin language, and some of the higher
branches of mathematical science, which he acquires with
much facility. His moral character is, I think, very fair and
unexceptionable."

He entered the academy in the summer of 1823, and, in
common with eight or nine other members of his class, spent
one year more than the usual period there, being graduated
in 1828. Young Mather was proficient in chemical analysis,
especially of ores and minerals, before going to West Point,
and in 1826, when Webster's Chemistry was passing through
the press, the proof-sheets of a part if not of the whole of the
work were sent to him by the author for suggestions and cor-
rections. These were furnished by him and were adopted, but
Mather's name was not mentioned in the preface of the book
among those who had contributed to it, and he expressed to
his classmate and memoirist, Austin, his disappointment at the

* It is from this memorial that most of the facts in the present article are
derived.

404 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

omission. In the fall of that year he entered the second class,
thus coming to the studies of chemistry and mineralogy in the
curriculum of the academy, Webster's book being used. Ca-
det Mather at once took the head of the class in these sub-
jects, and easily kept his place to the end of the course.
When off duty he explored the hills of the vicinity to collect
minerals for his private cabinet and that of the lyceum. The
chemical laboratory of the institution was also a place of re-
sort for his leisure hours. During the last year of the course
he was an assistant in the laboratory. He seemed to have a
special aptitude for science and took great delight in experi-
menting. Mr. Austin illustrates this tendency by the follow-
ing account :

" The winter of 1826-27 was very cold. The ice, floating
down to the narrow gorge between the precipitous shores of
West Point and the opposite bank, became wedged there and
was exceedingly thick. It occurred to Mather that a favour-
able opportunity was thus offered to ascertain the temperature
of the water at the bottom of the river while the surface was
covered with ice. After several attempts he succeeded in
making a self-registering thermometer, and an apparatus for
bringing up a specimen of the water of the lowest depth. A
hole was cut through the ice about the middle of the river,
and the apparatus, attached to a strong cord was let down
into the water, but the current was so strong that it failed to
reach the bottom. With a heavier weight it sank far enough,
but the pressure forced the cork into the bottle. The next
attempt was successful ; water was drawn from below, and its
temperature ascertained from the self-registering, compared
with that indicated by a detached, thermometer. The result
of this experiment, in which the writer assisted him, is not
remembered, but Mather declared that he was satisfied with it.
Such was his occupation, on one of the coldest days in winter,
during the whole of the Saturday afternoon allowed to the
corps for recreation."

On graduating he was assigned to the Seventh Infantry with
the customary rank of second lieutenant. He remained at
West Point as acting assistant instructor of artillery during the
summer encampment of 1828, and was then ordered to the
School of Practice at Jefferson barracks, where he remained
until April, 1829. From April to the end of June he was on

WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER. 405

frontier duty at Fort Jessup, La. He was then detailed to
serve as acting assistant Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy,
and Geology in the Military Academy, which duty he performed
until the summer of 1835. The assistant professors at the
academy at that time were usually detailed from recent gradu-
ates, and their terms of service rarely exceeded two years.
The fact that Lieutenant Mather was retained in that capacity
for six years indicates that he was an unusually successful in-
structor. During the recess of his course of instruction in
1833 he acted as Professor of Geology, with the permission of
the War Department, at Wesleyan University, Middletown,
Conn., and the following year received the honorary degree
of A. M. from this university. In the summer of 1834 he made
a geological survey of Windham County, Conn., and drew up
a report, which was published.

Within the first year after his graduation Lieutenant Ma-
ther published in the American Journal of Science a paper
entitled On the Nonconducting Power of Water with Regard
to Heat. While serving as assistant professor ^at the acad-
emy he contributed other papers to the same journal, and
wrote a small text-book, Elements of Geology, which was af-
terward enlarged and passed through several editions. He
wrote also an account of the dilivium for the use of the cadets
in their study of geology.

On being relieved from duty at the academy he was as-
signed to topographical service as an assistant to G. W.
Featherstonhaugh in a geological examination of the country
from Green Bay to Coteaus de Prairies. This work occupied
him during the latter half of 1835. He made a topographical
map of the St. Peter's (Minnesota) River Valley and a report,
which his later associate Whittlesey says he refused to pre-
sent to the " pretentious English geologist in charge of
the expedition," but transmitted direct to the United States
Government. When this survey was completed he was pro-
moted to a first lieutenancy and sent to join his regiment on
frontier duty at Fort Gibson, in Idaho Territory. The follow-
ing summer he marched into the Choctaw country in com-
mand of his company. Feeling that he could now safely
adopt the pursuit of science as a profession, he resigned his
commission in the army at the end of August, 1836.

When he had been one year at West Point as assistant

406 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

professor, Lieutenant Mather married his cousin, Miss Emily
Maria Baker. By this marriage he had three sons and three
daughters. Mrs. Mather died in 1850.

After leaving the army Mr. Mather was for a short time
Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology in the Uni-
versity of Louisiana, but before the close of 1836 Governor
Marcy, of New York, appointed him, together with Ebenezer
Emmons, T. A. Conrad, and Lardner Vanuxem to make a
geological survey of that State. Each of these principal
geologists was assigned to one of four districts into which the
State was divided for the purpose. Mather had the first
district, which comprised Washington, Saratoga, Schenectady,
Schoharie, and Delaware Counties, and all that part of the
State to the southeast of them. What this survey accom-
plished has been told by Dr. James Hall, in the Popular
Science Monthly, for April, 1883. Among other things, he
says that " Their labours had in a great degree quieted the
feverish anxiety regarding the discovery of coal within the
limits of New York, for which frequent explorations had been
made in the black slates of the Hudson River Valley and else-
where, involving the expenditure of much money and loss of
time. . . . Professor Mather has estimated, from what he re-
garded as reliable data, that the fruitless coal-mining enter-
prises which had been undertaken in the Hudson Valley alone,
during the fifty years preceding 1840, had cost more than a
quarter of a million of dollars. The sums thus expended in
other parts of the State, though doubtless much less, must,
nevertheless, have been very large." The work of the survey
lasted about seven years. During this time Prof. Mather made
five periodical reports and a final report. This last forms a
quarto volume of six hundred and fifty-three pages, with forty-
six coloured plates, being one of the set of volumes embodying
the results of the survey and published by the State. This
report has been highly commended.

In 1837 a State Geological Survey of Ohio was projected
and Prof. Mather was made chief geologist. This ill-fated
project was killed after an existence of little more than two
years by a spasm of economy which attacked the Ohio Legis-
lature of 1839. Two annual reports had been presented, and
were printed as State documents, and a report on the collec-
tions was made afterward, but there was no final report, and

WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER. 407

no provision was made for preserving papers, field-notes, and
maps. A geological reconnaissance of Kentucky, authorized
by the Legislature of that State, was made by Prof. Mather
in 1838-39, his report being issued as a State document. Both
his appointment in Ohio and that in Kentucky had been ac-
cepted with the condition that they should not prevent the
completion of his work in New York.

Colonel Charles Whittlesey has stated, in an article on the
Personnel of the First Geological Survey of Ohio, that after
the suspension of the Ohio survey, Mather bought a tract of
several hundred acres, including the Pigeon Roost, north of
the court-house in Jackson County, and became a citizen of
Ohio. He cleared a part of this land for a farm and built
him a comfortable house on it. Afterward he and Prof. James
Hall entered a large tract of Government land in the south-
ern part of the same county, on which they erected an iron
furnace.

When Mr. Mather settled in Jackson County, in 1841, it
was impossible to obtain sperm oil there for domestic lighting.
The only recourse of the family was to mould tallow candles,
which was very unsatisfactory. In the following winter Mr.
Mather began experimenting on the preparation of oil from
lard. He placed the lard in a canvas bag and suspended it in
a warm room, thus obtaining by the slow process of dripping
an oil that the family used in lamps. An account of these ex-
periments was published, and is believed to have been the
starting-point of the production of lard oil, which has since
become so extensive.

About the time the field work of the New York survey was
finished, Prof. Mather became Professor of Natural Science in
the Ohio University at Athens. He held this position from
1842 to 1845 and from 1847 to 1850, being vice-president and
acting president in 1845. The period from 1845 to 1847 was
occupied in examining mineral lands for mining companies,
mainly about Lake Superior, but also in New Jersey, Virginia,
and Massachusetts. During the first quarter of 1846 he was
acting Professor of Chemistry and Geology in Marietta Col-
lege, his other engagements making him unwilling to accept
the professorship. In the winter of 1845 ne began a series of
experiments on the extraction of bromine from the bitter wa-
ters of the salt works near Athens, Ohio. At that time bro-

408 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

mine, which can now be had for sixty cents a pound, was sell-
ing at sixteen dollars an ounce. The results of his investiga-
tions were published in the American Journal of Science. They
showed that bromine could be obtained from these waters for
much less than it was then costing, and resulted in the estab-
lishment of a plant at Pomeroy, Ohio, which produces the
greater part of the world's present supply of this substance.

In similar public and private employments the rest of his
life was passed. He was Agricultural Chemist for the State
of Ohio, and secretary of the State Board of Agriculture from
1850 to 1854. During part of this time he edited the West-
ern Agriculturist, and during the last year was member for
Ohio of the U. S. Board of Agriculture. He also continued to
make examinations of mineral lands. His first wife having
died, he married in 1851 Mrs. Mary (Harries) Curtis, who sur-
vived him. By this marriage he had one son. The person of
Prof. Mather was large and robust, and he had a great ca-
pacity for physical and mental labour, all of which promised
a long life. This expectation, however, was not realized. He
died Feb. 26, 1859, in Columbus, Ohio, at the age of fifty-four.
His death was sudden and was ascribed to a complication of
dropsy and paralysis.

In addition to his writings already mentioned, Prof. Mather
contributed frequent papers to the American Journal of
Science and other scientific periodicals, and he wrote many re-
ports on the explorations made in the course of his profes-
sional work. He received the degree of LL. D. from Brown
University in 1855, was a member of twenty-five scientific and
literary organizations, a life-member of many religious asso-
ciations, and for fifteen years a trustee of Granville College.

In his various expeditions he collected large numbers of
minerals and geological specimens. His collection was much
increased by exchanges with American and foreign geologists,
and at his death contained about twenty-six thousand speci-
mens. At present it is owned by his son, Richard, of Ironton,
Ohio.

Mr. Austin thus describes his character : " Equable in his
disposition and gentle in his manners, considerate of others
and just in his judgment of them, modest, but manly and self-
reliant, thoroughly versed in the branches of science to which
he devoted himself, he had neither dogmatism nor ostentation.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER. 409

As he observed in a letter to a personal friend, who differed
from him in regard to a geological question : * I am not wed-
ded to any theory, but seek the truth — and when found adopt
it.' " He was not inclined to court popularity, neither was his
manner forbidding. Letters preserved by his family and
friends give abundant evidence of the gentleness of his dis-
position, the firmness of his principles, and his high sense of
honour.

The supremacy of his will-power over physical pain is il-
lustrated in the following anecdote : " While making an exam-
ination of coal lands near Pomeroy in Ohio, he was wounded
in the second finger of his right hand. This wound induced
a partial paralysis, and required an amputation of the finger.
The cause of it was supposed to be a snake bite. As soon as
he was convinced by the examination that amputation was in-
evitable, he directed the surgeon to procure a block, a chisel,
and a mallet, and, placing his finger on the block, told him to
sever the finger at one blow. This was attempted, but proved
a sad failure. The chisel was too thin and highly tempered,
and the edge crumbled. Nevertheless he directed the surgeon
to go on, and several blows were required before a complete
severance could be made ; although in this painful operation
the bone was crushed instead of being cut, he bore it without
flinching."

The substantial national reputation as a geologist won by
William W. Mather was the result of the steady and conscien-
tious application of a natural aptitude. " Not possessing the
genius which dazzles," says his friend Austin, " he had the
intellect which, continually improved by exercise, achieved
valuable results by patient and conscientious industry. What
duty demanded, that he performed regardless of consequences,
either to himself or others. Not indifferent to fame, he never
sought it by doubtful or devious courses. His object was
not to enhance his reputation, but faithfully to do the work
before him. Through the whole of his active and laborious
life of thirty years in the cause of science, in all the various
and important public positions which he occupied, no breath of
censure assailed his integrity, which was a law of nature with
him, rather than a choice or a principle."

27

WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS.

1804-1882.

THE second in age of four brothers eminent in science,
William Barton Rogers was born in Philadelphia, Dec. 7,
1804. His ancestry will be found in the sketch of his elder
brother included in the present volume. The middle name
given to him is a loving memorial of his father's respect and
friendship for his medical preceptor, Dr. Benjamin S. Barton.
William was eight years old when his parents removed to
Baltimore and fifteen when they went to Williamsburg. Hence
his early education was mostly obtained in these two places.
Dr. Ruschenberger mentions that William, while a youth,
" was employed in Baltimore by a dealer in crockeryware, and
acquired such facility in wrapping packages that he subse-
quently reckoned it among his accomplishments." *

He graduated in 1822 from the College of William and
Mary, where his father was then Professor of Natural Philos-
ophy and Mathematics, and soon after this he and his brother
Henry started a private school in the suburbs of Baltimore.
How long the enterprise endured or what was its success have
not been ascertained.

When twenty-two years of age William gave his first lec-
tures on science in the Maryland Institute, Baltimore, and the
following year was appointed to the professorship in William
and Mary College, left vacant by the death of his father, where
he remained until 1835. He was then appointed to the chair
of Natural Philosophy in the University of Virginia, and there
extended his instructions by adding the subjects of miner-
alogy and geology to his course. The same year he organized

* A Sketch of the Life of Robert E. Rogers, M. D., LL. D.f with Biograph-
ical Notices of his Father and Brothers. By W. S. W. Ruschenberger, M. D.
Read before the American Philosophical Society, Nov. 6, 1885.

410

WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS.

WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 411

the geological survey of the State, having, while a professor at
William and Mary, begun his geological labours with an ex-
amination of the Tertiary formation of this region, of which he
published, in conjunction with his brother Henry D. Rogers,
two memoirs in the Transactions of the American Philo-
sophical Society. In June, 1834, and May, 1835, he had pub-
lished also, in the Farmers' Register, three papers on the
Green Sand and Marl of Eastern Virginia, pointing out their
value as fertilizers. At this time, besides other chemical re-
searches, he made an analysis of the waters of the Virginia
mineral springs, the results of which have appeared in various
publications.

He remained at the head of the geological survey until it
was discontinued in 1842, having published a series of annual
reports and collected further materials, for the completion and
publication of which, however, no provision was made by the
State. All his brothers were from time to time among his
assistants in field and laboratory work. While at the univer-
sity he published for the use of his students a short treatise
on the Strength of Materials (Charlottesville, 1838), and a
volume on The Elements of Mechanical Philosophy (Bos-
ton, 1852). During this period of his life, besides the cares of
his professorship and of the survey, he occupied himself with
original researches in various departments of science, partly
geological, in connection with his field work, and, after the sur-
vey ended, chiefly in chemistry and physics.

In 1840 the "Association of American Geologists and
Naturalists " was organized. In this society, embracing Hitch-
cock, Hale, Vanuxem, the four brothers Rogers, Conrad, Em-
mons, and others engaged in active scientific research, Prof.
Rogers took a leading part, as will be seen by referring to its
Transactions.

One of the more important of his geological researches
published at this time concerned the solvent power of water,
especially when charged with carbonic acid, on various miner-
als and rocks, and showed the extent of this action in Nature.
In connection with his brother Robert, Prof. Rogers was the
first to investigate this subject.

From his examinations of the Virginia coal deposits he dis-
covered that the condition of any coalbed stands in a close
genetic relation to the amount of disturbance to which the

412

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

enclosing strata have been submitted, the coal becoming harder
and containing less volatile matter as the evidence of disturb-
ance increases.

But the most notable contribution that Prof. Rogers made
to the advance of geologic science was the " wave theory " of
mountain chains. This was the joint work of William B. and
Henry D. Rogers, being founded on their researches in the
Appalachian chain, and was presented by them to the Associa-
tion of Geologists in 1842 in the form of an oral statement,
with the title, The Laws of Structure of the more Disturbed
Zones of the Earth's Crust. The theory represented the ele-
vation of mountain chains as the result of movements of the
earth's surface similar to the movements which raise up waves
upon a body of water. The grandeur of the conception, the
immense amount of evidence piled up in support of it, and the
eloquence with which the whole was presented made a pro-
found impression at the meeting. One who was present, Mr.
John L. Hays, of Cambridge, said forty years afterward : " I
have frequently read it since. To me it is now comparatively
tame in expression. It lacks the inspiration of the scene and
the man, the illustrative diagrams, the emphasis of voice and
finger pointing out the distinguishing phenomena, and the fer-
vour of spontaneous utterance. The impression I have of this
exposition as delivered is that, next to the Phi Beta Kappa
oration of Wendell Phillips at Harvard, it is the most lucid and
elegant effort of oral statement to which I ever listened." It
was the first important contribution to dynamical and struc-
tural geology which had been brought forward in this country.
The novelty and importance of its generalizations were at once
recognised in Europe as well as at home, and gave the authors,
the " Gebriider Rogers," a prominent place among contempo-
rary geologists. This memoir is still regarded as of classical
value.

The " wave theory " was further supported by the discover-
ies of Prof. Rogers in regard to the distribution of those rup-
tures of the strata called faults. He showed in another paper
that they do not occur on gentle waves, but on the sharpest
flexures of mountain chains, which have given way at the
summit where the strain was greatest. Furthermore, the
plane of the fault was usually parallel to, if not coincident
with, the plane of the ridge. The evidence for this statement

WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 4x3

was afforded by the observed positions of more than fifty ther-
mal springs in the Appalachian belt, occurring in an area of
about fifteen thousand square miles, which were shown to
issue from anticlinal axes and faults, or from points very near
such lines.

In connection with his brother Robert E. Rogers, now be-
come his colleague as Professor of Chemistry and Materia
Medica in the university, he published a number of important
chemical contributions, relating chiefly to new or improved
methods in chemical analysis and research, in Silliman's Jour-
nal, between 1840 and 1850. Among these were papers On
a New Process for obtaining Pure Chlorine ; A New Process
for obtaining Formic Acid, Aldehyde, etc. ; On the Oxidation
of the Diamond in the Liquid Way ; On New Instruments and
Processes for the Analysis of the Carbonates ; On the Absorp-
tion of Carbonic Acid by Liquids, an extended investigation ;
and On the Decomposition of Rocks by Carbonated and Mete-
oric Waters, a paper of much interest in its geological bear-
ings.

In the volume of the Transactions of the British Associa-
tion for 1849, Prof. Rogers called attention to the existence
of true coal measures below the horizon of the Carboniferous
limestone in the Appalachian belt as discovered by him in the
Virginia survey, and referred to in his annual reports.

Prof. Rogers married June 20, 1849, Miss Emma, daughter
of Hon. James Savage, of Boston, President of the Massachu-
setts Historical Society, and author of the Genealogical Dic-
tionary, and, with his bride, sailed the same day for a trip
in Europe. He returned in October to resume his duties in
Virginia. Mrs. Rogers became, says William C. Rives,* " the
promoter of his labours, the ornament and solace of his middle
life, and the devoted companion and support of his declining
years." Soon after his death she edited very admirably, with
the assistance of Major Jed. Hotchkiss, a Reprint of the Annual
Reports and other Papers on the Geology of the Virginias.f

In 1853 Prof. Rogers resigned his professorship at Char-
lottesville, after eighteen years of efficient service, and removed

* An address delivered before the Society of the Alumni of the University
of Virginia, on Comrriencement Day, June 27, 1883.
f D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1884.

414 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

to Boston. Here, although he early identified himself with the
educational and public interests of the community, he did not
relax his devotion to scientific labours, which were now, how-
ever, more largely directed to the department of experimental
physics. Among his contributions to physics at this period
may be mentioned a series of papers On Binocular Vision,
giving an Elaborate Analysis of the Phenomena, with some
Important Additions to the Researches on this Subject of
Wheatstone and Brewster ; Experiments on Sonorous Flames,
in which he described an apparatus for making visible the
vibrations by rotating the flame ; and On the Formation of
Rings of Air and Liquids — all of which may be found in
Silliman's Journal (1855-1860).

He also published, in the New Edinburgh Philosophical
Journal, the results of continued observations on atmospheric
ozone, and on the auroras of August and September, 1859
and 1860. As a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, and of the Boston Society of Natural History,
Prof. Rogers took an active part in the discussions of the
various scientific questions then rising into importance, and
made contributions from time to time to their published pro-
ceedings. Among the communications to the American Acad-
emy we may note papers On the Protozoic Age of Certain
Rocks in Eastern Massachusetts; On the Actinism of the
Electric Discharge in Vacuum Tubes, of which he exhibited
numerous photographs, in connection with his paper on the im-
provements, by Mr. E. S. Ritchie, of the Ruhmkorff apparatus;
and Experiments disproving, by the Binocular Combination
of Visual Spectra, Brewster's Theory of Successive Combina-
tion of Corresponding Points.

In the Transactions of the Boston Society of Natural His-
tory appeared, among other articles by Prof. Rogers, commu-
nications On the Growth of Stalactites; Geological Relations
of the New Red Sandstone of the Middle States to the Coal-
Rocks of Eastern Virginia and North Carolina ; On the Origin
and Accumulation of the Protocarbonate of Iron in Coal Meas-
ures ; On the Natural Coke and Associated Igneous Rocks
of Eastern Virginia; and On Pebbles in the Newport Conglom-
erate.

At the annual meetings of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, Prof. Rogers was a frequent con-

WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 415

tributor, as well in the discussions of scientific questions as
in the communication of original papers, which, however, in
most cases, appear only by title in their Transactions, or are
to be found in other publications before mentioned. In 1857
he made another visit to Europe and attended the meeting of
the British Association at Dublin.

At the request of his friend Governor Andrew, in 1861, he
accepted the office of Inspector of Gas and Gas Meters for the
State of Massachusetts, and organized a system of inspection
in which he aimed to apply scientific principles more fully than
had hitherto been attempted in the United States. Some ac-
count of his methods was given by him at the meeting of the
British Association in 1864. During this time Prof. Rogers
was often called upon for public lectures on scientific subjects
in Massachusetts and elsewhere, and gave several courses
before the Lowell Institute in Boston.

Prof. Rogers had long felt the need, in our educational
system, of giving to the physical sciences a higher place and
more practical methods of teaching than had hitherto been
allowed them, and he was therefore eager to avail himself of
an opportunity for carrying out these views. In 1860, in
behalf of a committee of gentlemen who had become interested
in the subject, he drew up a scheme entitled " Object and Plan
of an Institute of Technology," embracing a society of arts, a
museum of arts, and a school of industrial science; and he
subsequently addressed a memorial to the Legislature of
Massachusetts, urging the establishment of such an institution.
Finally, in 1862, a charter for the "Massachusetts Institute of
Technology " was granted, and Prof. Rogers was placed at its
head. A whole square of land on Back Bay was granted for
building purposes — one third to the Boston Society of Natural
History, the other two thirds to the Institute of Technology.
Accompanied by Mrs. Rogers he went to Europe in 1864 to
collect models of machinery and apparatus for the use of the
school. The detailed plan for the departments of the school,
prepared by Prof. Rogers in that year, has been carried out,
with but slight modifications. A marked feature of this plan,
which has since been adopted in many other institutions, was
the introduction of laboratory teaching, not only in the de-
partment of chemistry, but in that of physics, mechanics, and
mining, a feature which has contributed largely to the reputa-

416 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

tion which the school has acquired for thoroughness of scientific
training.

The success of the institute, based upon no sentimental or
traditionary regard for its subjects of instruction, but upon
the service that it has been able to render to the country, is
the best testimonial to the wisdom of its founder. Among the
technical schools in the United States there is none higher.
Students have resorted to it in constantly increasing numbers,
so that department after department has outgrown the ac-
commodations provided for it. Its graduates may be found
throughout the length and breadth of the land doing valuable
work as civil, mechanical, and mining engineers, chemists,
architects, or teachers of these professions, for which the sound
training of the institute has excellently qualified them. The
considerable endowments which this institution has gradually
accumulated testify to the respect which it has won among the
promoters of the scientific arts. The institute embodies the
general attitude of William Rogers toward science. He always
had a strong interest in the economic side of his field of labour.
Those investigations had a doubled attraction for his mind
which promised to place new resources at the disposal of man-
kind. Hence in establishing this noble school of applied
science he erected his only adequate and most appropriate
monument.

After the establishment of the institute the activity of
Prof. Rogers was governed by the fluctuations of his health-
For the first few years, besides being president of the institu-
tion, he filled the chair of Physics and Geology. Ill health
caused him to resign the presidency in 1870, but having partly
regained his strength in 1878 he was induced to accept it again.
Three years later infirmity compelled him to relinquish it
finally.

His death occurred within the walls of the noble institu-
tion that he had created. On Commencement Day, May 30,
1882, the end came while he was delivering an address. " Thus
was closed," says Dr. Ruschenberger, " probably without pain,
his bright career. He had fairly won and received all the
compliments and honours that a votary of science in this
country can win; and he was universally esteemed in private
life on account of his probity, urbanity, and social accomplish-
ments."

WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 417

Prof. Rogers was a member of all the prominent scientific
societies in the United States, and had been an officer in many
of them. He was chairman of the Association of American
Geologists and Naturalists in 1845, and again in 1847, when
it was expanded into the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, at the first meeting of which he pre-
sided until it was fully organized. He was also elected presi-
dent of the American Association for its meeting in ^876, and
was a corresponding member of the British Association. He
was corresponding secretary of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences from 1863 to 1869. After taking up his
residence in Boston he joined the Thursday Evening Scientific
Club, of that city, and was its president for a number of
years. When Joseph Henry died in 1878, Prof. Rogers was
elected to succeed him as President of the National Academy
of Science. He was active in founding the American Social
Science Association, and was its first president.

Among the honours paid to him was the degree of LL. D.
from Harvard College in 1866. In the following year he was
appointed commissioner to represent the State of Massachu-
setts at the Paris Exposition, and spent the summer at the
French capital.

But this inventory of the life work of Prof. Rogers, exten-
sive and interesting as it is, leaves out a powerful element of
the influence he has exerted as a teacher over great numbers
of young men who have been brought within the spell of his per-
sonality. Prof. Rogers was an orator of the first class, and was
long regarded as the most impressive and delightful speaker
that appeared before the American Association. It must
be remembered that science puts oratory to its highest test ;
it is a field in which reason is supreme, and where the speaker
is not at liberty to throw logic to the winds, and make a fiery
appeal to the feelings and passions of listeners. The scientific
orator must address intelligent men, habituated to think for
themselves, on the alert against tricks that carry the imagi-
nation, while the speaker himself is kept under the close re-
straints of fact. To be able to captivate and enchain an audi-
ence in the pure work of exposition, to fascinate in teaching,
is a triumph of oratorical ability. Prof. Rogers was marked
by the possession of this rare gift, and before his classes in
college, whether treating of rocks, physical forces, or rigid

4i 8 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

principles of mathematics, he was always able to kindle the
enthusiasm of the students, and make the most vivid and last-
ing impressions upon their minds. We were not surprised,
therefore, to note, in a Virginia newspaper, an exciting descrip-
tion of the way Prof. Rogers was received by his old students
at the semi-centennial of the University of Virginia, where he
" was the central object, on whom were fixed the eyes and
hearts of the great concourse there assembled from all parts
of the country. It was difficult to get near enough to speak
to him, surrounded as he was by such numbers of those who
in years long past had attended his lectures." He made an
address, the reception of which was described by the writer
with a pardonable warmth : " At the dinner of the alumni,
Prof. Rogers addressed them in a speech of half an hour. It
was a wonderful specimen of eloquence. The old students
beheld before them the same William B. Rogers who, thirty-five
years before, had held them spellbound in his class of natural
philosophy ; and as the great orator warmed up, these men for-
got their age ; they were again young, and showed their enthu-
siasm as wildly as in the days of yore, enraptured by his elo-
quence, they made the lecture room of the university ring with
their applause. Such was the effect produced by the off-hand
words of this distinguished man of science and unrivalled
orator ; and those who have heard him in his moments of
inspiration will not wonder at the account we have given."

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD.

1804-1886.

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD was born at Little Compton, a
town in the southeastern corner of Rhode Island, June 29,
1804. His father was the Rev. Mase Shepard, the pastor for
thirty-four years of the Congregational Church of that place.
His mother, Deborah Haskins, came from a highly intelligent
Boston family, from which sprang Ralph Waldo Emerson and
other well-known men. It was in the little country home
that the love of the beautiful, which so marked the later char-
acter of the son, was developed. Of his father he has written :
" His manners were attractive and his entire address dignified.
In particular, his sense of the proprieties of clerical deport-
ment and appearance was extremely nice. It comprehended all
the appointments about his home. My father greatly enjoyed
social intercourse, and in turn made himself very agreeable to
others. There was an unfailing cheerfulness in his conversa-
tion, attended by a remarkable abstention from every approach
even to undue criticism or detraction. This praiseworthy trait
was equally shared by my mother." Thus were implanted in
the boy those traits which endeared him to all and made him
not only an agreeable associate, but an example to others.

He was fitted for college in the Providence Grammar
School and entered Brown University in 1820, but left the
following year to join the sophomore class of the new college
which opened then at Amherst, Mass. He was graduated in
due course in the class of 1824. In a graphic sketch of Am-
herst College as it was during his student days, contributed to
Prof. Tyler's History, Prof. Shepard has said :

" I remember that I was the youngest of my class. Most
of my fellows were mature youths who did not appear to me
youths at all — seniors in character and manlike in purpose,
with an air which seemed to tell of years of yearning for the

419

420

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ministry, and of a brave struggle with the poverty which had
kept them from their goal." After a description of the village
and the mode of life in it, Prof. Shepard continues : " With
such surroundings, what now were our interior advantages ?
Whatever we may have represented them to outsiders, what-
ever we may have persuaded ourselves concerning them, they
were, in my day, extremely meagre. The teachers were few,
and in general were not distinguished in their departments.
Our library did not surpass the scholarly range of a country
clergyman in fair circumstances. Apparatus and collections
were unknown in our first year, and they had made but feeble
beginnings before our graduation. The only lectures which I
remember were the two annual courses of Prof. Amos Eaton,
in his day a distinguished botanist and geologist.

" In Dr. Moore, a gentleman of suave manners, of true
Christian dignity, and of singular judgment in managing
youth, we had an admirable president. I venture to suspect
that he was the only college president in the United States
who, from the beginning, personally subscribed for the some-
what expensive numbers of the Journal of the Royal Institu-
tion of London. From this source, and others similar, he ap-
pears to have gained a prevision of the importance of the
modern sciences in education, and to him mainly are we in-
debted for the early foothold which they gained in the institu-
tion ; to him, at all events, we owed the presence of Prof.
Eaton. Rarely has college lecturer been more faithfully and
enthusiastically listened to than Prof. Eaton in his course on
chemistry and botany, together with his abridged course on
zoology. To supply the place of a text-book on the last-men-
tioned branch, he furnished us a highly useful printed sylla-
bus, drawn mainly from the great work of Cuvier, then wholly
inaccessible to us. ... There were doubtless deficiencies to
be regretted. In the larger and older universities we might
have found better teachers and richer stores of libraries and
collections, but in some unknown way, perhaps in the enthu-
siasm of comparatively solitary effort, compensation was made ;
and on the whole we may doubt whether higher life success
would have attended us had we launched from other ports."

For a year after graduation he studied botany and miner-
alogy with Thomas Nuttall at Cambridge, and during most of
this time taught the same branches in Boston. His study of

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD. 421

mineralogy led to the preparation of papers on that subject
which he sent to the American Journal of Science, and in this
manner he became acquainted with its editor, the elder Silli-
man. He was invited in 1827 to become Prof. Silliman's assist-
ant, and continued as such till 1831. For a year of this time
he was Curator of Franklin Hall, an institution that was
established by James Brewster in New Haven for popular
lectures on scientific subjects to mechanics.

In 1830 he was appointed to a lectureship in natural his-
tory at Yale, which he held till 1847. In the winter of 1832-
1 833 he investigated the culture of sugar cane and the manu-
facture of sugar in the Southern States, his results being in-
corporated in Prof. Silliman's report to the Secretary of the
Treasury.

His investigation in the sugar States led to his appoint-
ment, in 1834, as Professor of Chemistry in the South Carolina
Medical College, at Charleston. This position required his
residence in the South for only part of the year, so that he
was able to continue his lectures at Yale and to accept, in
1835, an appointment as associate to Dr. James G. Percival on
the Geological Survey of Connecticut.

It was in the darkest hours of Amherst College, in Decem-
ber, 1844, that Prof. Edward Hitchcock was raised to the
presidency of that institution, and in order to provide for the
partial vacancy thus created in his department, Charles U.
Shepard, of New Haven, was elected Professor of Chemistry
and Natural History, this election " to take effect provided
Prof. Hitchcock accepts the presidency." Both appointments
were accepted. Prof. Shepard entered upon his new duties in
the following year. Only two years were needed under Presi-
dent Hitchcock's able management to restore prosperity to the
college. Prof. Shepard, being then satisfied that Amherst
would be able to afford him a permanent field of labour,
severed his connection with Yale and offered to bring his
valuable collections to Amherst if the college would house
them in a fireproof building and consider the purchase of
them when it was able. This proposition was gladly ac-
cepted.

As an instructor, he at once communicated to his students
his own zeal, unless, perhaps, the ground was unfertile, in
which case he would plainly but politely suggest the desira-

422

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

bility of their devoting themselves to more congenial studies.
His devotion to his subject rendered him averse to calling the
roll. As a lecturer his manner was easy and self-forgetful ;
his success in imparting knowledge was due to his earnestly en-
deavouring to uplift his listeners' minds, but at the same time
neither to discourage nor weary them. Imitating Faraday,
his manner was that of a gentleman returned from an inter-
esting travel narrating to his friends some of the delights he
had experienced.

His professorship was divided in 1852, when the college
became able to have a separate Professor of Chemistry. Prof.
Shepard continued to deliver the lectures on natural history
till 1877, when he was made professor emeritus. After leaving
Amherst his northern home was at New Haven for the rest of
his life.

The following history of the growth of Prof. Shepard's
collections was written by him for the History of Amherst
College, at the request of Dr. Tyler :

" My mineralogical cabinet was commenced at the age of
fifteen, while a member of the Providence Grammar School,
and was brought with me when I left Brown University to
join the sophomore class of Amherst institution in 1821. An
early visit after my arrival here to the tourmaline and other
localities of Chesterfield and Goshen served to increase my
eagerness as a collector, and at the same time placed me in
possession of abundant materials for exchange. In 1823 my
identification of the previously supposed white augite of
Goshen with the species spodumene, gave me confidence in
the study of minerals, while it increased my stock of speci-
mens desirable tcr mineralogists. The exchange I then carried
on with the Austrian consul-general, Baron von Lederer, in
behalf of his own collection and that of the Imperial Cabinet
of Vienna, rapidly enriched my little museum in foreign min-
erals. Indeed, from the first it was sufficiently an\ple to serve
a useful purpose in the instruction of beginners, and was the
sole resource of Prof. Amos Eaton in the lectures he gave
during two seasons before the students of the institution.

" On leaving college I resided a year partly in Cambridge
and partly in Boston, during which period I profited much in
extending my collections, through visits to new localities in
eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and still more by

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD. 423

exchanges with Prof. Nuttall and other active cultivators of
mineralogy in the region. I soon after made a very successful
tour into Maine, where, at Paris, I was the fortunate discov-
erer of the most remarkable green and red tourmalines then
known. With some of these I made profitable exchanges
with the British Museum and other large collections. My
association in 1828 with Prof. Silliman as his assistant, and
afterward with the college as a lecturer on natural science for
many years, afforded me unusual facilities for the extension
of my cabinet. All the best localities of Connecticut were
frequently visited, specimens of rare interest secured, and the
means of supplying scientific correspondents abundantly ob-
tained. These objects were still further effected by journeys
into adjoining States and the Canadas, until 1835, when I be-
came Professor of Chemistry in the Medical College of the
State of South Carolina, where a new and very ample field
was opened for the extension of my collections. From that
time to the present [1871], with the exception of the period
of the civil war, I have passed nearly the half of each year
in the South, and been engaged to a considerable extent in
scientific and mining explorations, which have resulted in
varied and rich contributions to my cabinet. These travels
have also embraced the Western or Mississippi States, attended
by similar results. But most of all have I gained by frequent
excursions to the Old World, having since 1839 twelve times
visited Europe, where my exchanges and purchases of speci-
mens have been conducted on a scale, I am led to believe, not
surpassed by any of my countrymen. Numbers, however,
have never been my aim in these acquisitions. I have rather
sought what was characteristic and instructive — not, however,
to the neglect of the rare and beautiful."

The foregoing relates to the mineralogical part of Prof.
Shepard's collections ; his geological cabinet was also impor-
tant, being especially remarkable for fossil remains. The
meteoric collection, begun in 1828, he stated to be the fourth
in extent and value known at the time of writing.

As to the transfer of the combined cabinets to Amherst
College, Prof. Shepard continues :

" The removal of these collections from New Haven to
Amherst, in 1847, was the result of an understanding entered
into between President Hitchcock and myself, that if the

424

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

college would cause a fireproof building to be erected for their
reception, I would deposit them therein, at least for a term
of years, and with the hope, through arrangements afterward
to be made, of leaving them with the college as a permanent
possession. Such a building was provided in the Woods Cab-
inet ; and, more recently, the conditions for the purchase of
the collections have been agreed upon." When he wrote the
above he was engaged in the more perfect cataloguing and
arranging of the three collections.

When Walker Hall was built, the mineralogical cabinet
was removed to rooms in that building, and was destroyed
when the building was burned, in March, 1882. Although few
could be classed as combustibles, a diligent search in the de-
bris of the building revealed scarcely a trace of the specimens.
This was a sad loss. Prof. Shepard valued the collection at
seventy-five thousand dollars, and the college had actually
paid forty thousand dollars for it. There was only fifteen
thousand dollars of insurance on the whole contents of the
building.

Dr. Shepard held his professorship at Charleston uninter-
ruptedly until the civil war, and immediately after it closed
he went back, at the urgent invitation of his former col-
leagues, and resumed his lectures. In 1869 he retired from the
full discharge of his duties, but continued to give some lec-
tures until shortly before his death. While in Charleston he
discovered rich deposits of phosphate of lime in the immediate
vicinity of that city. Their great value in agriculture and sub-
sequent use in the manufacture of superphosphate fertilizers
proved an important addition to the chemical industries of
South Carolina.

The collection that was burned in 1882 was the finest in
the United States, and was surpassed abroad only by that in
the British Museum. But Dr. Shepard's collecting had not
stopped with its formation, and he succeeded before his death
in gathering a second cabinet of meteorites and minerals
which ranked among the very largest private collections.
This he kept in a fireproof cabinet at his private residence in
New Haven.

The influence of his early home culture was clearly marked
in Prof. Shepard. To such a degree was he distinguished in
all the characteristics of a gentleman that he was called upon

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD. 425

by both Northern and Southern classes to address them on
the subject of " manners " ; and it may not be amiss to quote
from one of these lectures, as presenting a mirror of his own
life : " As the dress of a gentleman is quiet and unpretentious,
his conversation in public places and among strangers is
equally subdued. Good manners, though often favoured by a
happy constitution, do not proceed from a single root, much
less do they arise spontaneously from any soil. They are com-
plex in their origin, and result to a great degree from the most
sedulous culture. He who aspires to be a gentleman has an in-
tricate problem to solve, an up-hill path to tread. An occa-
sional smile however bland, obeisances and salaams be they
ever so Oriental, flatteries the most Parisian, the wardrobe of
Beau Brummel himself, the nice punctilios and etiquettes of
courts, will not of themselves serve the purpose. Other things
vastly more weighty are demanded, such as strict honour, self-
command, forbearance, and refined feelings; a character in
which all meanness and peevishness are unknown, and where
candour, veracity, moral and physical courage and dignity are
never for a moment in abeyance." After noting several mat-
ters of conduct, he continues : " The most natural beginning
in our work will be an attention to those causes which affect
the health. If there is neglect here grievous must be the fail-
ure elsewhere ; for what superstructure can you erect upon a
shattered constitution ? The gentleman is required first to
know what belongs to complete living in this world. Vigor-
ous health and its accompanying high spirits are larger ele-
ments in gentlemanly character and general happiness than
any other things whatever."

A most striking feature of his after life was the realization
of his boyish dream as portrayed in his thesis entitled The En-
thusiasm of the Naturalist, which he read on graduating. The
material features of extensive travel, of unusual opportunities
for the acquisition of specimens, and the happiness of being
able to increase the world's knowledge — these were the minor
points. Of greater joy to him and to those who loved him
were his youthful enthusiasm and the delights which lingered
to the very last ; when, after expressing devout gratitude for
his joyous life, he yearned to be free from the limitations of
earth and time. Mineralogy was beautiful to him. He loved
her every perfect specimen ; his mind dwelt on its origin and
28

426 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

occurrence. It was an individuality to him. His keen eye
distinguished differences which others could not detect. To
his loved specimens he might always turn with relief when
sorely pressed by affliction or other misfortune.

Prof. Shepard died, after a short illness, at Charles-
ton, May i, 1886. He left two children, a son and a
daughter.

In its obituary the Charleston News said of him : " He
chose his profession well. A mind so analytic as his and so
keen in the perception of relations could not have failed to
see that the field in which he cast his literary fortunes was
one which offered an undying reward for those who made it a
successful arena of untiring and indomitable labour and
energy. . . . Prof. Shepard discovered more new species of
minerals which have attained permanent recognition than
perhaps any other scientist of the present day. He was a
member of many American and foreign societies, among
which are the Imperial Society of Natural Science of St.
Petersburg, the Royal Society of Gottingen, and the Society
of Natural Sciences of Vienna. He published a Treatise on
Mineralogy (1832 and 1835), a report on the Geology of Con-
necticut, and numerous scientific papers." Many reports on
mines made by him have been printed.

He announced in 1835 his discovery of his first new species
of microlite, that of warwickite in 1838, that of danburite in
1839, and he afterward described many other new minerals
until shortly before his death. His knowledge of minerals
was wonderfully extensive, " and he was hence ready," it has
been said, " with quick judgments as to new and old ; some-
times too quick — but in any case imparting progress to Ameri-
can mineralogy." The honorary degree of M. D. was con-
ferred upon him by Dartmouth in 1836, and that of LL. D.
by Amherst in 1857.

Prof. Shepard's son, Charles Upham, was born at New
Haven, October 4, 1842. He was graduated from Yale Col-
lege in 1863, and took the degree of M. D. at Gottingen in
1867. He succeeded to his father's professorship at Charles-
ton, and has been active in developing the phosphate and
other chemical industries of South Carolina. In 1887 he
presented the second cabinet of minerals that was formed
by his father, numbering more than ten thousand specimens,

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD.

427

to Amherst College, and his cabinet of representatives of
more than two hundred different meteorites has been de-
posited in the United States National Museum. During the
past few years he has devoted himself to the experimental cul-
tivation of tea on his plantation near Summerville, S. C., where
he has extensive gardens of the leading varieties.

SEARS COOK WALKER.

1805-1853.

A FEW years before the middle of the present century the
condition of science in America was far from inspiring. Al-
though this country had long since ceased to be a dependency
of Great Britain politically, it still seemed unable to rise out
of such a position intellectually. In science and letters Eng-
lish authority was paramount. To the generality of American
scholars a grudging mention in an English publication out-
weighed domestic honours of a much higher grade. Scientific
treatises emanating from Great Britain were accepted as
gospel, while the science of the rest of Europe was known
only through British translations. There were a few men of
science, however, who were independent in the midst of de-
pendency, and among them one of the most active in promot-
ing this intellectual self-respect, both by his researches and his
writings, was the subject of the present sketch.

Sears Cook Walker was born March 28, 1805, in Wilming-
ton, a small town of Massachusetts, about sixteen miles north-
west of Boston, where four generations of his ancestors had
lived and died. His father's mother was descended in a direct
line from the celebrated Elder Brewster, who came over in
the Mayflower. Sears was a delicate child and so precocious
intellectually that he early became the wonder of the village.
His father had died when he was a mere infant, so that his
whole care and training devolved upon his mother. She for-
tunately realized the importance of providing for his physical
welfare and'checking his too great fondness for books. It was
a constant struggle with the boy's natural inclinations to do
this, but the effort was successful. He joined heartily in many
of the sports of his companions, and gradually gained a good
measure of health and strength.

Young Walker took the studies preparatory for college at

SEARS COOK WALKER.

SEARS COOK WALKER.

429

the academies of Andover, Tyngsborough, and Billerica ; then
went to Harvard, where he was graduated in the class of 1825.
Immediately after his graduation he took up teaching as an oc-
cupation and followed it for ten years — the first two years in
the vicinity of Boston and the rest of the time in Philadelphia.
From 1836 to 1845 ^e was actuary of the Pennsylvania Com-
pany for the Insurance of Lives and Granting Annuities. His
life in Philadelphia was a period of prosperity and comfort ;
he, moreover, early took on a corpulent habit of body, so that
whatever influence his circumstances exerted was adverse to
any strenuous intellectual exertions, and to the obtaining of
adequate physical exercise. Yet his mind was one that could
not be idle. " While engaged with his school," says Benjamin
A. Gould, in his memorial address,* " he studied medicine, and
went through the whole course requisite for the attainment of
a degree. He devoted his leisure for a period to the study of
natural history, and was no mean proficient in geology and
mineralogy, as well as in physics and chemistry. He was an
active member of the Pennsylvania Geological Society, of the
Committee of the Franklin Institute on Science and Art, and
one of the most useful members of the American Philosophical
Society. By frequent articles upon scientific topics in the
various prints, by elaborate reports upon various subjects to
the Franklin Institute, and by monthly announcements in its
Journal of occultations and other celestial phenomena, he kept
awake the interest and sympathy of the community for studies
of this character. Among other labours, he prepared, in 1834,
an ingenious set of parallactic tables, by which the time re-
quired for computing the phases of an occultation was reduced
to less than half an hour. These were calculated for the lati-
tude of Philadelphia, and it was his intention to publish them
in a more general form adapted to different latitudes. But, as
this would have been a work requiring considerable time, he
subsequently abandoned the project, believing that he could
employ his leisure hours more usefully. He continued the
computation of the occultations without interruption for six

* An address in Commemoration of Sears Cook Walker, delivered before
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at its meeting in
Washington, April 29, 1854. From this address many facts concerning
Walker's life and work in addition to the above quotation have been drawn.

430

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

years, and then induced our well-known colleague, Mr. Downes,
to undertake the continuance of the work. It has been prose-
cuted to the present time, with what success we all know, and
has of late years been published by the Smithsonian Institution
and the Astronomical Ephemeris. Astronomy and geography
in America are much indebted to Mr. Walker for these labours,
since many already in possession of the necessary means were
stimulated by the periodical announcements, and by his per-
sonal exertions in still other ways, direct and indirect, to ob-
serve these phenomena. An extensive series of such observa-
tions was collected by Mr. Walker and published in the Proceed-
ings of the American Philosophical Society."

During most of Walker's residence in Philadelphia he must
be regarded as an amateur rather than a scientist. For many
years his interest in Nature was spread over several fields, but
gradually it concentrated upon astronomy. He had procured
an astronomical clock, a twenty-inch transit instrument, and a
small Dollond telescope, and from about the time when he
gave up his school to become actuary of the insurance com-
pany all his leisure was devoted to astronomical observation
and study. "In 1837," Dr. Gould's account continues, "he
was invited to propose a plan for an observatory in connection
with the Philadelphia High School, an invitation which he ac-
cepted with eagerness. In accordance with his suggestion, the
committee in charge of the school imported from Munich the
excellent Fraunhofer equatorial and Ertel meridian circle
which, in his hands and those of his accomplished brother, the
present director of the observatory, have done so much for
astronomy in America — not merely by the number of observa-
tions made with them, but also by the incentive which they
afforded to the lovers of astronomy in other parts of the coun-
try. It is unquestionable that in several instances they in-
duced successful efforts for the procurement of similar and
even superior apparatus elsewhere." The results of Walker's
researches appeared from time to time in the publications of the
American Philosophical Society and various journals. It was
in 1841 that he may be said to have " earned his spurs " by a
paper on the periodical meteors of August and November,
which for many years remained the most important memoir on
the subject that had appeared. From that time on he is to be
ranked among scientific investigators.

SEARS COOK WALKER. 43!

In 1845 Mr. Walker's affairs underwent a revolution. Certain
commercial operations turned out disastrously and entirely be-
reft him of means. The sense of defeat, the loss of luxuries at
a time of life when habits have become fixed, together with
anxiety for the future, made the blow a hard one. But it re-
vealed to him, and to the world, the extent of his own scientific
ability, and opened the way to higher intellectual gratifications,
which he quickly learned to appreciate. The Secretary of the
Navy offered him a position in the observatory at Washington,
which he at once accepted. Here, for the first time, the
facilities which his special gifts required were at his disposal,
and he immediately proceeded to make good use of them.
After a short time he gave up his position at the observatory
to accept the direction of the longitude department of the
Coast Survey — an office which he ably filled until his last
illness.

Early in 1847, while engaged in researches upon the then
newly discovered planet Neptune, he became convinced that a
star observed by Lalande in May, 1795, must have been this
planet. With the telescope of the Naval Observatory Prof.
Hubbard confirmed this conjecture, and astronomers were
thus furnished with an observation of Neptune made fifty-
two years before, which afforded means for a most accurate
determination of the planet's orbit. The American was none
too soon to secure priority, for, quite independently, the same
important fact was laboriously hunted down in Europe by
Petersen only a few weeks later. Walker now attacked the
problem of Neptune's orbit ; Benjamin Peirce was at the same
time calculating the planet's perturbations. The approximate
results of each furthered the computations of the other, so that
within eighteen months from the discovery of the planet these
two Americans had attained a remarkably accurate statement
of its theory.

In conjunction with Prof. A. D. Bache, Superintendent of
the Coast Survey, Walker developed the method of determin-
ing differences of longitude by telegraph. One feature in-
troduced by Walker was the application of the method of coin-
cidence of beats to the comparison of timekeepers — one indi-
cating mean, the other sidereal time — at the two ends of a
telegraphic line. These beats were signalled from one station
to the other by taps of an observer upon the telegraph key.

432 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Such signals are, of course, subject to the errors that always
attend the action of human nerves and muscles, so the next
problem was to make the clock give its own signals. Two
methods had been proposed, but there were fears — groundless
they have since been proved — that either of these would in-
juriously affect the running of the clock. Mr. Walker sought
diligently for some apparatus that would not arouse any such
fears. He propounded the problem to several astronomers,
and two or three contrivances were devised for the pur-
pose.

This mode of observation and the apparatus invented to
meet its requirements proved valuable not alone for determi-
nations of longitude, but also for all other astronomical obser-
vations requiring minute precision in the determination of time.
The mental effort required of the observer being reduced to a
minimum, many more transits could be observed at a single
meridian passage. Walker immediately modified the transit
instrument to suit the new requirements, and, instead of five,
seven, or at most nine threads, he provided it with several
tallies of five threads each. There remained but one requisite
to complete the American method of observation. This was
some mechanical contrivance for securing a uniform rotary mo-
tion of the record sheet. It had not been attained when Walker
died, although some progress toward the solution of the prob-
lem had been made.

It is proper for the biographer to point out the share which
Walker personally had in this series of inventions, although he
was far from making any such claims for himself. With a fine
comradeship he was jealous only for the credit of the organi-
zation of which he was a member — -the United States Coast Sur-
vey. Speaking to the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, Walker said : " With the single exception of the
experiment between Baltimore and Washington, in 1844, 1 know
of no telegraphic operation for longitude, and of no step in
the improvement or perfectionment of the art, in Europe or
America, which has not been the work of the officers proper of
the Coast Survey, or of commissioned officers and civilians
acting temporarily as assistants. ... I will not here allude
to the respective claims of Americans for priority or superior
excellence of inventions and suggestions, believing that it will
be becoming for all of us to look to the great work that has been

SEARS COOK WALKER. 433

accomplished by our united efforts, rather than to the single
share of each."

The transmission of observations by telegraph between
Cambridge, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington furnished
Walker an opportunity for another important discovery. He
found that an appreciable time was required for the passage of
these signals, and that this time was less than one tenth of that
required for the passage of light over an equal distance in
space. This result was so greatly at variance with the ideas
of electricity current at the time that it was not accepted in
America until the celebrated velocity experiments between St.
Louis and Washington put it beyond question, and even after
that some European physicists still refused to be convinced.
While the matter was in dispute Walker was generous with aid
and encouragement to those who sought to test his discovery,
whether their results seemed likely to conflict with or to con-
firm his own.

The English Nautical Almanac for 1856 (issued in 1853)
contained a profound discussion, by the astronomer Adams, of
the amount of the lunar parallax. In this paper Adams showed
that the tables of Burckhardt, which had been the standard
ones, contained errors sometimes amounting to 6", and pointed
out the effect that such errors- must have upon determinations
of longitude from occultations. In the greater part of this dis-
covery Walker had anticipated the renowned Adams by more
than four years. In April, 1848, he had presented to his chief
in the Coast Survey a report on longitudes in the course of
which he pointed out the chief errors of Burckhardt's tables,
giving four out of the five principal terms with remarkable
precision.

Mr. Walker's intellectual labour was intense and unremit-
ting ; it was scarcely interrupted even in summer, when he was
accustomed to betake himself to Cambridge, to escape the heat
of Washington. During one of these summer sojourns, in Au-
gust, 1851, he suffered a slight attack of paralysis, which for a
few days deprived him of the use of one hand. This warning
and the entreaties of his friends were not enough to induce
him to relax his exertions. In the following autumn he took
charge of the expedition for determining telegraphically the
differences of longitude between Halifax, Bangor, and Cam-
bridge. Immediately after his return to Washington, at about

434

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the end of December, symptoms of mental alienation appeared,
and he was taken to the hospital at Mount Hope, near Balti-
more. Thence he was removed in the following April to Tren-
ton, N. J., where under the skilful care of Dr. Buttolph, the
superintendent of the institution, his disordered brain gradually
regained its normal tone. Visits of friends, correspondence on
the subjects of his researches, and finally his books and papers
were allowed him. While still at Trenton he computed the
ephemeris of Neptune for the American Astronomical Ephem-
eris of 1855. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Walker left the asylum
apparently cured, although much debilitated by his illness, and
went to Cincinnati for a visit to his brother, Hon. Timothy
Walker, intending to remain until the following spring. He
took in hand certain labours for the Coast Survey and pre-
pared to resume in full his former sphere of activity. He had
fixed a time for returning to Washington and re-engaged his
apartments in the city, but he was not destined to make the
journey. An attack of fever was followed by other maladies,
and Walker soon found himself engaged in a second severe
struggle with disease. In this condition Hamlet's problem —
" To be, or not to be " — forced itself upon his thought with
all its puzzling considerations. The sound mind in a sound
body can give but one reply to this problem, but coming as it
did to Walker at a moment when Reason was not firm in her
seat, it elicited the opposite response, and on Jan. 30, 1853,
he launched himself into the mysterious after-life. His re-
mains were placed in Spring Grove Cemetery, near Cin-
cinnati.

The character of Sears Walker was marked by a childlike
simplicity which many persons could hardly realize was not
assumed to cover shrewd designs. He was impulsive, but his
impulses were always noble and generous. Highly magnani-
mous, he was always prompt to acknowledge an error, and to
overlook not only mistakes but even lapses from honour and
justice in others. Intellectually he had the ability of genius.
He was unadapted and disinclined for participation in the
world's affairs, and could not refrain sufficiently for his physical
welfare from intellectual labour.

Although his fame was won in the abstruse field of mathe-
matics, his linguistic attainments were of a high order. In col-
lege he was as conspicuous for his classical as for his mathe-

SEARS COOK WALKER.

435

matical ability. During his years of teaching his knowledge of
the languages was in daily use, and throughout life the litera-
tures of Greece, of^Rome, and of Italy were a source of enjoy-
ment to him. His powerfully retentive memory was stored
with long passages from the poets of the past, Tasso being his
especial favourite.

ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE.

1806-1867.

THE life of Alexander Dallas Bache lends support to the
belief that what a man is to be, or, rather, what he is capable
of being, is mainly determined by what his parents and an-
cestors have been. According to the doctrine of heredity, it
is not surprising that Bache, descended from illustrious pro-
genitors on both sides of his family, should himself achieve
intellectual eminence. But as he received an education ad-
mirably suited to the work he was to perform, his career gives
little help in answering the question whether heredity is or is
not stronger than training.

His most important work is instructive in another way. It
shows how effective efforts for the advancement of knowledge
can be made by the power and resources of a great govern-
ment when the right man is secured to direct them, just as
other instances have made plain how wasteful and demoraliz-
ing such efforts may become when unwisely directed.

Alexander Dallas Bache was born in Philadelphia, July 19,
1806. His father, Richard Bache, was a grandson of Benjamin
Franklin, being one of the eight children of Richard Bache,
Postmaster General from 1776 to 1782, and Franklin's only
daughter, Sarah. His mother, Sophia Burret (Dallas), was a
daughter of Alexander J. Dallas, who was Madison's Secretary
of the Treasury, and sister of George M. Dallas, Vice-President
of the United States in Folk's administration.

Dallas Bache, as he was usually called by his intimates, was
placed in a classical school at an early age, and proved to be a
remarkably bright pupil. When fifteen years old he was ap-
pointed a cadet in the Military Academy at West Point. He
maintained a high stand in scholarship from the beginning to
the end of his course, and graduated in 1825 at the head of
his class, although its youngest member. This was no small

436

ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE.

ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. 437

achievement in a class from which four cadets were assigned
to the Engineer Corps, when only one or two members attained
this honour in most classes. Moreover, he went through the
whole four years without receiving a demerit mark — equally
remarkable in view of the rigid discipline of the academy, and
the only instance on record. Students are generally none too
prone to admire one of their fellows who is noted only for stu-
dious habits and correct deportment, but young Bache had the
personal qualities that win esteem. Prof. Joseph Henry, in his
memoir read before the National Academy of Sciences, relates
of cadet Bache that " his superiority in scholarship was freely
acknowledged by every member of his class, while his unassum-
ing manner, friendly demeanour, and fidelity to duty secured
him the affection as well as the respect not only of his fellow-
pupils, but also of the officers of the institution. It is also
remembered that his classmates, with instinctive deference to
his scrupulous sense of propriety, forbore to solicit his partici-
pation in any amusement which in the slightest degree con-
flicted with the rules of the academy. So far from this, they
commended his course, and took pride to themselves, as mem-
bers of his class, in his reputation for high standing and ex-
emplary conduct. His roommate — older by several years than
he was, and by no means noted for regularity or studious habits
— constituted himself, as it were, his guardian, and sedulously
excluded all visitors or other interruptions to study during the
prescribed hours. For this self-imposed service, gravely ren-
dered as essential to the honour of the class, he was accus-
tomed jocularly to claim immunity for his own delinquencies
or shortcomings.

" But whatever protection others might require on account
of youth and inexperience, young Bache needed no guardian
to keep him in the line of duty. Impressed beyond his years
with a sense of the responsibility which would devolve upon
him as the eldest of his mother's family, entertaining a grave
appreciation of the obligations involved in his education at the
national academy, he resolved from the first to devote his ener-
gies to the utmost in qualifying himself for the duties which he
might be called upon to discharge, whether in professional or
private life. Nor was he uninfluenced in this determination
by a consciousness that, as a descendant of Franklin, he was
in a certain degree an object of popular interest, and that on

438

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

this account something more than an ordinary responsibility
rested upon him."

All of young Bache's predispositions for good were stimu-
lated and sustained by the judicious care of his mother, not
only while he was a child at home, but also by means of a
ready pen during the whole of his residence at West Point. It
should not be inferred that the young man attained perfection
in his conduct. " When a child he is said to have been quick-
tempered, and at later periods of his life, when suddenly pro-
voked beyond his habitual power of endurance, he sometimes
gave way to manifestations of temper which might have sur-
prised those who only knew him in his usual state of calm
deportment. These ebullitions were, however, of rare occur-
rence, and always of short duration."

On graduating, Lieutenant Bache was assigned to duty at
the academy as assistant professor. A year later he was trans-
ferred at his own request to engineering service on the forti-
fications at Newport, R. I., under Major (afterward General)
J. G. Totten. Here he remained two years. One of his recre-
ations during this period was making a collection of shells of
molluscs.

In 1828, being then twenty-two years of age, Lieutenant
Bache resigned his commission in the army to accept a call to
the chair of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry at the University
of Pennsylvania. This change was welcome in more ways
than one. He was engaged to Miss Nancy Clarke Fowler, the
daughter of an old and highly respected citizen of Newport,
but marriage was apparently a remote prospect, for he had
only the stinted pay of a lieutenant of engineers, out of which
he must contribute to the support of his mother and her younger
children. The salary of his new position, however, justified
him in hastening the happy event.

His year's experience in teaching at West Point assisted
Mr. Bache in taking up his duties at the university. He was a
very successful instructor, and popular with his students. But
he did not rest content with imparting knowledge obtained by
the labours of others. He joined the Franklin Institute, then
newly established, and took a prominent part in its investiga-
tions for the promotion of the mechanical arts. For a full
account of his labours in connection with this society we must
here be content with referring to the volumes of its Journal

ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE.

439

from 1828 to 1835 inclusive. One of the most important and
fruitful of these was the investigation of the bursting of steam
boilers, of which he was the principal director. From inquiries
and experiments, the latter not unattended with danger, " the
most frequent cause of explosion was found to be the gradual
heating of the boiler beyond its power of resistance ; and, next
to this, the sudden generation of steam by allowing the water
to become too low, and its subsequent contact with the over-
heated metal of the sides and other portions of the boiler. The
generation of gas from the decomposition of water as a cause
of explosion was disproved, as was also the dispersion of water
in the form of spray through superheated steam."

Early in 1829 Mr. Bache was elected to membership in the
American Philosophical Society, and at once entered upon va-
rious researches in pure science in co-operation with his fellow-
members. With the aid of his wife and of his former pupil,
John F. Frazer, he determined with accuracy,, for the first time
in this country, the periods of the daily variations of the mag-
netic needle, and by another series of observations established
the connection between certain perturbations of the terrestrial
magnetism and the aurora borealis. With Prof. Courtenay he
investigated the magnetic dip at various places in the United
States, and with Mr. Espy made a minute survey of part of the
track of a tornado which visited New Jersey, June 19, 1835.

After Stephen Girard died, in 1832, Prof. Bache was elected
one of the trustees of the College for Orphans, founded by the
will of the childless merchant. Three years later the trustees
decided to select a president for the institution, in order that
he might go abroad and study European methods of education
while other preparations were being made. Prof. Bache, then
only thirty years of age, was selected for the position. Al-
though regretting the consequent interruption of his scientific
researches, in which he had become much absorbed, he ac-
cepted the appointment, and departed on his mission, Sept. 30,
1836. His own previously published researches combined with
the memory of his distinguished ancestor to secure him a cordial
welcome by the intellectual class in each country that he visited.
Two years were spent agreeably and profitably in Europe, and
on his return Prof. Bache made a report to the trustees em-
bodying his observations on the schools of England, France,
Prussia, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy, with the many helpful

440

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

conclusions and suggestions that he had derived from these
data. The document was printed, making a large octavo
volume.

As the preparations for opening the college were not yet
complete, Prof. Bache offered his services gratuitously to reor-
ganize the public schools of Philadelphia, and his offer was
gladly accepted by the municipal authorities. A year later,
finding that the trustees of the college were still unprepared to
open the institution, he relinquished the salary of his office and
accepted from the city a much smaller compensation for his
time. His work on the public schools was completed in 1842,
and resulted in a system that has been taken as a model by
other cities in various parts of the United States. So highly
were his labours appreciated that the Central High School was
frequently called Bache Institute.

Girard College having made very little progress, he now
resigned all connection with it, and accepted his former chair
at the University of Pennsylvania, with its welcome opportuni-
ties for scientific research. The preceding six years had by no
means been a blank with respect to his favourite investigations.
When he went to Europe he took care to provide himself with
a set of portable instruments, with which, as a relief from the
labours imposed by the special object of his mission, he made a
connected series of observations on the dip and intensity of
terrestrial magnetism at important places on the Continent and
in Great Britain.

After his return to Philadelphia he co-operated in the under-
taking of the British Association to determine by contemporane-
ous observations at widely separated points the fluctuations of
the magnetic and meteorological elements of the globe. He
also made in his summer vacations a magnetic survey of Penn-
sylvania. Mr. Cramp, afterward the famous shipbuilder, was
then a boy 'in the high school, and assisted Prof. Bache in his
observations.

Valuable instruments and methods for performing scientific
observations were devised by Bache during this period. He
invented an ingenious instrument for determining the dew
point, which is especially valuable where readings must be
made by persons without special scientific training. Only
much later did he learn that the principle of the device had
already been used by Belli, of Milan. He also introduced a

ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE.

441

modification of Osier's anemometer and invented a thermo-
scope of contact, both of which avoided difficulties involved in
the use of previous instruments.

The way in which a man conducts a controversy is always
a severe test of his character. Bache had one with Denison
Olmsted on the periodical recurrence of meteors. Prof. Gould,
in his American Association memoir, thus describes the occur-
rence : "^Mr. Bache maintained that there was no recurrence in
1834; Prof. Olmsted, on the other hand, maintained the re-
verse. Prof. Bache instituted special inquiries at the military
posts (where, of course, sentinels were on duty) along all the
frontiers of the United States, also among the night police of
various cities, and at the universities, and he found but one
exception to the statement that no unusual number of meteors
was seen. Of this controversy Bache wrote, in 1846 :

" ' There is something yet to be found out on this subject
which may reconcile our opinions. Neither I nor any of those
watching with me, or for me, have seen an unusual number of
meteors on the night of the i2th of November in any year
since the great night at Philadelphia, and we have taken great
pains to be sure. Yet I can not doubt the testimony as given
for some other places. ... I had a complimentary letter from
the professor in regard to my manner of conducting the con-
troversy, which I valued more highly than if I had gained the
victory.' "

The year after Prof. Bache resumed his old position at the
university he was called to the superintendency of the United
States Coast Survey, left vacant by the death of Mr. Hassler.
His appointment to this position was first suggested by mem-
bers of the American Philosophical Society, and the nomina-
tion was fully concurred in by the other principal scientific and
literary institutions of the country. For the successful prose-
cution of the work of the survey Dallas Bache was abundantly
well qualified by his training at West Point and subsequent
experience as an army engineer, by his attainments in pure
and applied science, by his knowledge of the world, by his
skill in research, his rare executive ability and consummate
tact.

Although the Coast Survey had been founded a quarter of
a century, -the policy of Congress toward it had been change-
able and its appropriations limited. It had been suspended
29

442 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

fifteen years of that time, so that its work was but just begun.
The Atlantic coast line had been surveyed only from Point
Judith, on the coast of Rhode Island, to Cape Henlopen, at the
entrance of Delaware Bay. " The new superintendent," says
Prof. Henry in his memoir, " saw the necessity of greatly en-
larging the plan, so as to embrace a much broader field of
simultaneous labour than it had previously included. He di-
vided the whole coast line into sections, and organized, under
separate parties, the essential operations of the survey simul-
taneously in each. He commenced the exploration of the Gulf
Stream, and at the same time projected a series of observations
on the tides, on the magnetism of the earth, and the direction
of the winds at different seasons of the year. He also insti-
tuted a succession of researches in regard to the bottom of the
ocean within soundings, and the forms of animal life which are
found there, thus offering new and unexpected indications to
the navigator. He pressed into service, for the determination
of longitude, the electric telegraph ; for the ready reproduction
of charts, photography; and for multiplying copperplate en-
gravings, the new art of electrotyping. In planning and direct-
ing the execution of these varied improvements, which exacted
so much comprehensiveness in design and minuteness in detail,
Prof. Bache was entirely successful. He was equally fortunate,
principally through the moral influence of its character, in im-
pressing upon the Government, and especially upon Congress,
a more just estimate of what such a survey required for its
maintenance and creditable prosecution. Not only was a
largely increased appropriation needed to carry out this more
comprehensive plan, but also to meet the expenses consequent
upon the extension of the shore line itself. Our seacoast, when
the survey commenced, already exceeded in length that of any
other civilized nation, but in 1845 it was still more extended by
the annexation of Texas, and again, in 1848, by our acquisi-
tions on the Pacific. Prof. Bache was in the habit of answer-
ing the question often propounded to him by members of Con-
gress, * When will this survey be completed ? ' by asking, ' When
will you cease annexing territory ? ' '

Prof. Bache's policy of dividing the Atlantic and Gulf coast
(we had no Pacific coast in 1843) into sections, and carrying on
work in all the sections at the same time greatly allayed sec-
tional jealousies in States which the previous operations of the

ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. 443

survey had not reached and had great influence in winning
public favour for the survey. He had a wonderful faculty for
enlisting the efforts and talents of others in carrying out his
plans. " As rapidly as means allowed, the services of American
scientists throughout the land were enlisted in aid of the survey,
and the whole intellectual resources of the country thus made
tributary to its usefulness and success. Thus Walker, Peirce,
Bailey, Agassiz, Barnard, Kendall, Mitchell, Bond, Alexander,
and many others, were called on to assist in the advancement
of the undertaking ; and this large and wise policy prevailed
during the whole period of his superintendence." * Many of
the ablest officers of the navy and the army were brought into
the Coast Survey service, and gained experience of great value
in the duties many of them were afterward called upon to per-
form in the civil war.

The efficiency of the survey was greatly increased by im-
proved instrumental equipment. Antiquated instruments were
replaced by those of the most improved type ; an apparatus for
the measurement of base lines, invented by Prof. Bache, was
introduced, and secured a degree of accuracy before unknown.
The method of determining longitude by the exchange of star
signals were developed through the agency of Sears C. Walker.
Prof. Gould has stated that he had received accounts of this
important advance in geodetic practice from the lips of both
Bache and Walker, and that " their descriptions varied but in
one salient point, namely, that each ascribed the chief merit to
the other." The determination of latitudes with the zenith
telescope, by Talcott's method, first tested in 1845, was early
adopted by the survey. " Thus by the use of the zenith tele-
scope, combined with the determination of longitudes from the
adopted meridian by the exchange of star signals, the geo-
graphical position of the primary astronomical stations of the
survey could claim, ten or fifteen years ago, to be determined
with more accuracy than that of any European observatory."

Stations for tidal observation were established all along the
Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. The character of the Gulf
Stream and other currents along our coast were determined.

* Address in commemoration of Alexander Dallas Bache, by Benjamin
Apthorp Gould, delivered before the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, Aug. 6, 1868.

444

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Twice was Agassiz sent to study the formation of the coral
reefs of Florida, and the causes that promote and restrict
their growth. The magnetic constants were determined for
every important point possible within reach of the survey.
The scientific progress of the nation was promoted by Bache
through the agency of the Coast Survey more than by any
other man. His work for commerce, for the safety of passen-
gers and seamen, and for national defence was thorough and
important — all the more so because he called to his aid the re-
sources of the highest science.

Other duties were assigned to Prof. Bache by the Govern-
ment from time to time. He was made Superintendent of
Weights and Measures, and in the exercise of this function
directed a series of investigations relative to the collection of
excise duties on distilled spirits, and superintended the con-
struction of a large number of sets of standard weights and
measures for distribution to the several States of the Union.
He was appointed on a commission created to examine the
lighthouse system of the United States, and was a member of
the Lighthouse Board, into which this commission was merged,
from its organization till his death. In this work he took a
lively interest and rendered important service.

As to the connection of Prof. Bache with the Smithsonian
Institution we can not have better testimony than that of him
who was identified with the institution for more than thirty
years, its first secretary. Prof. Henry says: "In 1846 he had
been named in the act of incorporation as one of the regents
of the Smithsonian Institution, and by successive re-election
was continued by Congress in this office until his death, a
period of nearly twenty years. To say that he assisted in
shaping the policy of the establishment would not be enough.
It was almost exclusively through his predominating influence
that the policy which has given the institution its present
celebrity was, after much opposition, finally adopted." * Not
the least of Bache's services to the institution was securing Henry
for its secretary. The latter states, in the place just quoted,
that " it was entirely due to the persuasive influence of the
professor " that he was induced to take the position.

Although not fond of physical exertion, Prof. Bache had

* Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, i, 197, 198.

ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. 445

been accustomed to spend part of each summer in a tent at
some station of the survey on the top of a mountain, where he
took part in the measurement of angles and directed the move-
ments of field parties at other stations. The civil war brought
added labours upon him so that his constant presence in Wash-
ington was required, and his health no longer obtained the
yearly recuperation of this season of outdoor life. During the
alarm in Philadelphia which immediately preceded and followed
the battle of Gettysburg, the services of Mr. Bache, with a
corps of his assistants on the Coast Survey, were accepted by
the city and utilized under the direction of General N. J. T.
Dana, in reconnaissances and the throwing up of such earth-
works near the city as might frustrate a raid of cavalry. Suc-
cessful defence against a victorious army of the enemy would
have been impossible, both from the nature of the ground
about the city and the lack of troops to make a stand against
such a force. Although overburdened with other public duties,
Prof. Bache personally superintended the construction of some
of the works. Unaccustomed for many years to direct expo-
sure to the sun, this undertaking brought on the first indica-
tions of the malady that ended his life. He had been subject
to attacks of " sick headache " — a tendency which he seems to
have inherited — and now various symptoms of softening of the
brain came upon him in succession. For several months he
was very anxious about the business of the Coast Survey, and
with difficulty could be restrained from attempting to perform
the duties of his office. As the malady increased, however, his
attention was gradually withdrawn from the exterior world,
with which he almost ceased to hold active communication. A
trip to Europe, covering a period of eighteen months, produced
no permanent benefit. He died a short time after his return,
at Newport, R. I., February 17, 1867.

The ability and worth of Dallas Bache brought him many
and high honours. There were few of our leading learned so-
cieties that did not number him among their associates. He
was President of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science in 1850 and 1851, of the American Philosoph-
ical Society in 1855 and 1856, and of the National Academy of
Sciences from its establishment in 1863 until his death. He
was a member also of the Royal Society of London, the Im-
perial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, the Institute of

446 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

France, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal and Im-
perial Geographical Society of Vienna, the Royal Academy of
Turin, the Mathematical Society of Hamburg, the Academy of
Sciences in the Institute of Bologna, the Royal Astronomical
Society of London, and the Royal Irish Academy of Dublin.

The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by the prin-
cipal American universities, and he received several medals from
foreign governments for his distinguished services to science in
the course of his labours on the Coast Survey and in other
researches.

Mr. Bache was gifted with quick apprehension, and at the
same time with deep intelligence, which is not always allied to
the former quality. He had also great power of application.
When at the head of a body of workers those under him were
always nerved to do their best, because they saw that the
master did not spare himself. He was always ready to learn
from others. He would listen carefully to younger men if he
saw that they had ideas which might be developed to good pur-
pose. After arguing vehemently in opposition to the views of
his brother on a matter under consideration, he would often
come out on the same side of the question, and explain that
his contention was designed to draw out arguments.

In his home he dropped science, and was a genial compan-
ion of old and young. Although not prepossessing in face, he
was charming in manner and disposition. He was a very lov-
able man, and there was always plenty of company at his
house in Washington. His favourite relaxation was reading
light novels. He had a great appreciation of humour, but
failed in trying to contribute humorously to the entertainment
of others.

As an evidence of his high appreciation of abstract science
derived from original investigation, he left his property 4n trust
to the National Academy of Sciences, the income to be devoted
to the prosecution of researches in physical and natural sci-
ence, by assisting experimenters and observers, and the publi-
cation of the results of their investigations.

Appended to the memorial address by Dr. Benjamin A.
Gould already cited is a list of the published scientific papers of
Prof. Bache, embracing one hundred and twenty-three titles,
besides thirty-five annual reports, and twenty-one reports on
harbours made jointly with Messrs. Totten and Davis.

.-JAMES HENRY COFFIN.

JAMES HENRY COFFIN.

1806-1873.

FROM Sir Richard Coffin, Knight, who accompanied Wil-
liam the Conqueror to England in 1066, springs the genealog-
ical tree that bears the name of Tristram Coffin, who came to
America from Devonshire in 1642. Six years later he erected
" the Coffin house," still standing, at Newbury, Mass., and in
1660 he, with nine others, bought the island of Nantucket from
the Indians. His American descendants have been engaged,
to a large extent, in navigation. Of these, and fifth in the line
of descent from Tristram, is the subject of this sketch.

James Henry Coffin was born in Williamsburg, Mass., on
the 6th day of September, 1806. He was therefore sixty-six
years old at the time of his decease, which occurred February 6,
1873, at Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., where he had for over
twenty-six years -filled the professorship of Mathematics and
Astronomy. From the full and faithful Life of Prof. Coffin,
by his son-in-law, Rev. John C. Clyde, D. D., we learn that he
was the third among the six children of Matthew Coffin and
Betsey Allen, both natives of Martha's Vineyard. His father's
occupation being that of a country broker, led him to travel
in New England, buying the bills of banks and presenting them
for redemption in coin at the place of issue. He frequently
had occasion to handle large sums of money, but being reputed
a superior marksman and well armed, was never molested on
his long journeys. He carried his specie in nail kegs. Among
the many commercial reverses that marked the close of the
second war with England were numerous bank failures. Four
banks in western Massachusetts closed in one week, and Mr.
Coffin was left with fourteen thousand dollars in the bills of
these institutions on his hands, which proved a total loss. He
died in 1820 without having repaired his lost fortunes.

At the death of their father the older children were scat-

447

448

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

tered among kind relatives. Henry (he was always called by
his middle name) was then fourteen years old. He had been
a feeble child and his schooling — at various public and private
schools — had consequently been much interrupted. It was
only in the preceding spring that he had become strong enough
to work on his father's farm. The next winter and summer he
worked for an uncle. From the age of ten years, he notes in
his journal, he had spent most of his leisure " in exercises of
mechanical ingenuity, for which I was then more noted than
for anything useful." . It was this bent which determined his
intention, after his father died, to go to the trade of musical in-
strument and cabinet maker. This plan was not carried out,
for in September, 1821, he went to live with another uncle, the
Rev. Moses Hallock, of Plainfield, who added to his pastoral
duties the preparation of boys for college and the tilling of a
farm. The poet William Cullen Bryant was one of his many
pupils. For two years Henry worked on the farm in sum-
mer and studied at odd times and in winter, going through in
this period all the studies required for admission to college.
He had no thought of entering for several years at least, hav-
ing no means of meeting the necessary expenses. But Amherst
College was then new and was bidding eagerly for students.
His case was made known to its authorities without his knowl-
edge, and such promises of aid were extended to him that he
entered in the fall of 1823.

He took with him to Amherst seventy-five cents in money
and a small chest containing his few belongings. The chest
was made by his own hands and was a good specimen of his
expertness in the use of tools. It is still in the possession of
his family, and as substantial as when it was new. Only part
of the promised aid was ever realized, but, mainly with the
money earned in teaching during vacations and part of term-
time, he was enabled to meet the expenses of his course, ex-
cept about two hundred dollars that he owed when he gradu-
ated. In the first term he had the measles, which affected his
eyes so as to cause several interruptions of his studies and
teaching in the course of the next six years. Having lost con-
siderable time from his first three years in college he decided
to go back a year, and graduated in the class of 1828.

During part of the year after graduating he was engaged
in teaching and a part in an agency in eastern Massachusetts.

JAMES HENRY COFFIN. 449

In August, 1829, he opened a private school for boys at Green-
field. Three months later he added a boarding house to the
school, and the next spring he annexed a manual labour depart-
ment. For the latter purpose he hired about two hundred
acres of land and a farmer to superintend its cultivation. The
students had each a share in whatever profits the business of
the year might afford, and in this way were able to pay half
their expenses. The enterprise had a rapid growth, and in its
third year Mr. Coffin converted it into a joint-stock company,
having obtained for it by subscription a capital of eight thou-
sand dollars. It was chartered under the name of the Fellen-
berg Manual Labour Institution, and the spring term of 1832
began under the charter. The number of pupils reached one
hundred and nine, and frequently applicants for admission had
to wait their turn for a vacancy. An ample corps of assistants
was provided, and at the close of 1833 the trustees lightened
the labours of the principal by appointing a superintendent of
the farm and boarding house. An unwise choice of superin-
tendent proved the ruin of the enterprise. The man selected
kept no proper accounts, and two years later it was discovered
that two or three thousand dollars had been sunk in his depart-
ment. The institution was reduced to the scope of an ordinary
school, and Mr. Coffin left it, carrying away with him perhaps
two hundred dollars' worth of household effects as the out-
come of eight years of unceasing labour.

While at Greenfield he had taken up the practice of survey-
ing, and part of his time in 1836 was devoted to this employ-
ment. The ownership of a plot of land in Deerfield, formed
by a river having changed its course, was in litigation, and Mr.
Coffin was occupied for about a month, on an order of the Su-
preme Judicial Court, in surveying, dividing, and computing
this formation. He presented a thorough and exhaustive re-
port on riparian ownership that has been frequently referred
to in Massachusetts legal practice. The following winter he
was induced by certain townspeople of Greenfield to reopen
the school there. He soon received a call to take charge of
an academy at Ogdensburg, N. Y., on a salary of eight hun-
dred dollars a year, whither he removed in the following spring.
He remained at Ogdensburg about two years and a half. The
next winter was spent in astronomical and meteorological in-
vestigations at Williamstown, Mass., and in the fall of 1840 he

450

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

entered upon an appointment as tutor in Williams College.
During his stay at Williamstown he became interested in trac-
ing the early land allotments of the settlement, which were
somewhat complicated. He prepared a wall map of the town,
which was engraved and published in Boston. It became a
saying among the farmers of the vicinity that there was a
young man at the college who could tell them more about the
boundaries of their lands than their fathers had ever made
known to them. He retained his tutorship for three years, but
the salary of four hundred dollars, which was all that the col-
lege could afford to pay, was too small for the needs of a
growing family. Consequently, in October, 1843, Mr. Coffin
removed to South Norwalk, Conn., to become the principal of
the academy in that flourishing village. Here he prospered ;
his circle of meteorological correspondence widened, and abun-
dant facts for his researches were gathered from the logbooks
of New York sea captains and the library of Yale College. In
1846 he was called to the chair of Mathematics and Astronomy
in Lafayette College, which he rilled to the time of his death.

Twenty-seven years of untiring labour, carried on in a truly
self-sacrificing spirit, amidst circumstances which might have
discouraged a less noble nature, his great success as a teacher,
his quiet but never-flagging enthusiasm, and the beneficent in-
fluence he exerted on his pupils, made him one of the main
pillars of that institution during a long period of great depres-
sion. He lived, however, to see Lafayette College rise to the
honourable position she now occupies among the American
seminaries of learning.

Mr. Coffin married, December 5, 1833, Aurelia Medici, eldest
daughter of the «Rev. Ebenezer Jennings, of Dalton, Mass.
She had been one of his pupils, when, as a college student,
young Coffin taught the winter school in her native town.
She proved to him a most devoted helpmate, and years after
her death Prof. Coffin said, " If I have accomplished anything
worth speaking of, I owe it all to her aid, consideration, and
thoughtful carefulness." Three children were the fruit of this
happy union. The first, a daughter, died at the age of twenty
years. The second is his son, Selden Jennings, who succeeded
to his father's professorship at Lafayette. The youngest, an-
other daughter, became the wife of the Rev. John C. Clyde,
D. D. Prof. Coffin was a second time married, March 12, 1851,

JAMES HENRY COFFIN. 451

to Mrs. Abby Elizabeth Young, who survived him seven years.
The only child of this marriage was a son who died in infancy.

In national affairs Prof. Coffin ever took a deep interest,
and his political duties were always performed as matters of
conscience. His course was strictly independent, hence he
could not become a " party man."

He was quick to seize an opportunity to do a kindness;
was fond of little children, and would take much pains to
amuse them. He enjoyed music, and having learned to play
the flute in his early years, continued the practice into middle
life.

In the eulogy pronounced upon him before the National
Academy of Sciences, by his intimate friend, Prof. Arnold
Guyot, of Princeton, Prof. Coffin was described as " naturally
modest, unobtrusive, and absolutely unselfish ; he never sought
to impose himself or his opinions on others. His kindness of
heart, his gentleness, coupled with great firmness, energy, and
perseverance, exerted a strong and beneficent influence on his
surroundings. His profound love of truth made him the cau-
tious, candid, and persevering observer whom we know, while
his inquiring mind kept his eye open to every ray of light, from
whatever quarter it might come. He joined the Church while
at Amherst, and to the end of his life was a devoted Christian.

His health suffered several severe strains in 1872, so that
when in the following winter he was attacked by erysipelas,
from which his wife was suffering at the time, he was unable
to withstand the onslaught of the disease.

As a teacher, Prof. Coffin was laborious and enthusiastic,
and his success was remarkable. He secured the respect and
love of his pupils to a degree seldom equalled ; but he was also
a zealous student in science, and published several valuable
works as the results of his researches. Among these are his
Analytical Geometry, and his Conic Sections, which, at one
time, were extensively used as text-books in our colleges.
While connected with the Fellenberg Institution he published
two works on book-keeping, that were adopted by the State
schools of Massachusetts. He read many valuable papers be-
fore the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
of which he was, from its organization, a member; and also be-
fore the National Academy of Science, for the meeting of
which in 1873 he had in preparation an article on the Storm-

452

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

curve, the object being to show that it was an hyperboloid, the
equation of which he had computed. In 1859 he received the
degree of LL. D. from Rutgers College.

His chief reputation, in science, was achieved by his re-
searches in the department of meteorology. These were com-
menced in 1839, while principal of the Ogdensburg (N. Y.)
Academy. He took simultaneous and constant observations
of the barometric changes connected with the variations of the
wind-vane and with the fall of rain. His instruments were
self-registering. Each motion of the vane directed a minute
but constant stream of dry sand into some one of thirty-two
stationary hoppers, corresponding in position to as many points
of compass. The weight of sand found in the several re-
ceptacles below each hopper showed the length of time that
the vane had pointed in that direction. The rain-gauge was an
inverted cone, having an horizontal surface of 172.8 square
inches : the rain falling into it passed down, through an orifice
so small that no appreciable evaporation could occur, into a
close-fitting can. One inch of rain in depth would, therefore,
make *fm of a cubic foot when collected, the weight of which
is one hundred ounces. Each ounce that the can contained
after a storm, consequently, represented '/I00 of an inch in per-
pendicular fall. The amount necessary to merely moisten the
funnel without precipitation into the can is easily determined
as a constant. The results of these observations for the year

1838 were published by Prof. Coffin in the Meteorological
Register, a monthly journal, of which he issued the first num-
ber in January, 1839. It was devoted to the discussion of va-
rious phenomena connected with physical science. Though the
demand for a periodical of this nature was insufficient to sus-
tain it, it brought into correspondence many who were in-
terested in such subjects. The investigation of rainfall and
evaporation had present practical value in being made the basis
of the report of the committee of the New York Senate, in

1839 to 1840, appointed to consider the enlargement of the canal
system of the State by the construction of the Genesee Valley
Canal. These studies were afterward extended to form the
chapter on the climate of the State, published in the Natural
History of New York, in 1845, in which the inquiries took a
wider range ; and questions of vegetation, agricultural epochs,
the migration of birds, etc., were introduced. A determination

JAMES HENRY COFFIN. 453

was also made of the amount of rise in the thermometer per
hour, during the prevalence of winds from the northeast by
east to south-southwest, and the unequal corresponding de-
crease of temperature when the winds were from the north-
westerly points of compass.

While at Williams College, Prof. Coffin erected, upon the
Greylock peak of Saddle Mountain, at a height of nearly four
thousand feet above the ocean, an observatory, where continu-
ous observations were taken, even through the winter season,
when for three months it was impracticable to ascend the peak.
In this interval the clockwork faithfully did its entire duty. The
anemometer had been changed by substituting for the stream
of sand a series of cards half an inch square, laid consecutively
on a moving band that deposited one of them every fifteen
minutes. Each card being inscribed with the day and hour it
represented, when the receptacle marked " North," for exam-
ple, was examined, all the cards found in it indicated the exact
quarter-hour in the past three months when the wind was from
that direction. In 1872 he constructed, for the observatory of
the Argentine Confederation, at Cordova, a duplicate of this
instrument with improvements similar to the one in use at La-
fayette College.

The Results of Meteorological Observations for 1854 to 1859,
in two volumes, quarto, 1,757 pages, prepared under his super-
vision, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, con-
stitute a vast fund of condensed material from which to study
the climate of North America.

But the great work of Prof. Coffin's life was the development
of his theory of the winds, under the auspices of the Smithso-
nian Institution, the following account of which has been given
by Prof. Henry, secretary of the institution :

" The results of the scientific labours of Prof. Coffin include
contributions to astronomy, mathematics, and especially to
meteorology. His labours in regard to the latter branch of
science commenced immediately after his graduation, and were
continued, almost uninterruptedly, until the time of his death.
He was early recognised as one of the meteorologists of the
country, and, on the establishment of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, he was invited to become one of its collaborators in that
line. All the materials which were collected from the observ-
ers of the institution, and from those of the army from 1854 to

454 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

1859 inclusive, were placed in his hands for reduction and dis-
cussion. This work was conscientiously and thoroughly per-
formed, and the results published in a quarto volume of up-
ward of twelve hundred pages. In conducting this work, Prof.
Coffin engaged the services of some of the students of Lafay-
ette College, and a large number of women. The wages of
these computers were paid by an appropriation from Congress,
while the services of Prof. Coffin himself, in directing and su-
perintending the whole, were entirely gratuitous."

His treatise on The Winds of the Northern Hemisphere,
issued in the Transactions of the Smithsonian Institution, vol.
vi, in 1853, was his most important publication, and the one
which made him known wherever science is cultivated. This
work had been commenced at least ten years before the date
of its publication, a communication having been made in rela-
tion to it to the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, in 1848.

The materials on which it was based were derived from all
accessible sources, including six hundred different stations on
land, and numerous positions at sea, extending from the equa-
tor to the 83d degree of north latitude, the most northerly
point then reached by man, and embracing an aggregate period
of over twenty-eigh't hundred years.

The design of the work was to ascertain, as far as possible,
the mean direction in which the lower stratum of the air moves
in different portions of the Northern Hemisphere, its rate of
progress, the modification it undergoes in different months of
the year, the amount of deflecting forces, and its relative ve-
locity from different points of the compass. The collection of
this material involved an amount of correspondence and biblio-
graphical research which but few would undertake, even with
the hope of pecuniary reward, and still fewer for the love of
truth, and the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake. But
the labour of computation, and discussion of the materials, was
an almost Herculean task, to which years of silent and unob-
trusive labour were devoted. The work consisted mainly of
about one hundred and forty quarto page tables of figures, with
descriptive deductions, and illustrated by maps. Each of these
figures is the result of laborious calculations, since the method
of determining the velocity and direction of the wind is the
same as that employed by the mariner in determining the dis-

JAMES HENRY COFFIN. 455

tance in a straight line, and direction at the end of a given
time, from the place of his departure. In this work Prof.
Coffin was the first clearly to establish the fact, by accurate
comparison of observations, that there are three great zones of
winds in the Northern Hemisphere. At a later date he demon-
strated the same truth in the case of the Southern Hemisphere.
The first belt is that of the region of the easterly trade winds,
extending northward in the Western Hemisphere to about the
32d degree north latitude, and in Europe to the 426. degree.
The second is the great belt around the world of the return
trades, in which the predominant direction is from the west.
This extends northward in America to 56°, and in Europe and
Asia to about 66° north latitude. Beyond this, principally
within the Arctic Circle, is a belt of easterly or northeasterly
winds. The common pole of these belts or zones has not the
same position as that of the geometrical pole of the earth. It
appears to be in latitude 84° and longitude 105° west of Green-
wich, and has been denominated by Prof. Coffin the meteoro-
logical pole.

These results are in general accordance with the mathemat-
ical deductions from the theory of the winds of the globe, which
considers them as due to the combined action of the movement
produced in the air by the greater heat of the equator, and the
rotation of the earth on its axis.

The researches of Prof. Coffin also strikingly exhibit the
fact of the influence of the seasons in modifying the direction
of the wind, or in producing the results denominated monsoons.
Thus, along the eastern coast of North America, as is shown
on the maps, the tendency during the summer months of the
opposing forces is to lessen the dominant westerly wind, and
this effect is noticed even beyond the Mississippi, as well as in
the Atlantic Ocean along our coast. The effect is, undoubtedly,
due to the change of temperature in the land — the temperature
of the ocean remaining nearly the same during the year, while
that of the land is greatly increased in summer above the
mean, and depressed in winter. From this cause the air will
tend to flow toward the centre of the continent from the
ocean in summer, and from the same centre toward the ocean
in winter.

At the meeting of the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, held in Cleveland in 1853, he discussed

456

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

the relation of the prevalent winds to the rise and fall of the
barometer, particularly showing that " the line of the wind's
approach makes an angle of about sixty-five degrees with the
line drawn to the point of maximum pressure." It is this prin-
ciple that was afterward so emphasized by the director of the
Royal Observatory of Holland, that it has since been desig-
nated by his name — rather than that of Prof. Coffin — and
is referred to in Europe as "Buys-Ballot's law of the winds."
The results of the investigations of Prof. Coffin have been
referred to in all the treatises on meteorology which have ap-
peared since their publication, and they have been employed
with other materials as the basis of the wind-charts of the At-
lantic and Pacific Oceans, prepared and published by the Eng-
lish Board of Trade.

In attentively studying the result of Prof. Coffin's labours,
we can not but be struck with his conscientious regard for ac-
curacy, and his devotion to truth. In all cases in which the
results do not conform to the theory which explains the general
phenomena, the discrepancies are fully pointed out; and, where
he is unable to suggest an hypothetical cause of the anomaly,
he candidly acknowledges his ignorance. In this respect he is
an admirable model for an investigator, since errors in science
as frequently occur from defects of the heart as from those of
the head.

After the publication of the work on the winds, he continued
to collect materials, at first with a view to an appendix, and
finally extended his investigations to the winds of the entire
globe. To aid in this enterprise, the Smithsonian Institution
placed in his hands all the observations on the winds, which it
had obtained from its numerous observers during the twenty
years since the system was commenced, together with the ob-
servations made by the officers of the army, as well as the ex-
tensive series of materials in the various series of transactions
of scientific societies of the Old World, obtained through the
exchanges of the institution. Unfortunately, however, he was
not spared to complete this work, although he left it in such a
condition that it was readily pushed to completion within three
years after his decease. The tables of The Winds of the
Globe, were completed and the charts for it were drawn by
his son. A discussion and analysis of the tables and charts was
supplied by Prof. Coffin's long-time correspondent, Dr. Alex-

JAMES HENRY COFFIN. 457

ander Woeikof, former secretary of the meteorological commit-
tee of the Imperial Geographical Society of Russia, and the
work was issued in 1876 as the twentieth volume of the Smith-
sonian Contributions to Knowledge.

In reviewing what may be called the extra labours of Prof.
Coffin, we can not refrain from endeavouring to impress upon
the mind of the general public that men of his character, who
do honour to humanity, ought not to be suffered to expend
their energies in the drilling of youth in the mere elements of
knowledge, and with a compensation not more than sufficient
to secure the necessaries of life ; that they should be conse-
crated as officiating priests in the temple of knowledge, be fur-
nished with all the appliances and assistance necessary to the
accomplishment of their objects, namely, the extension of the
bounds of human thought and of human power.

LEO LESQUEREUX.

1806-1889.

AMERICAN science owes an incalculable debt to the Geneva
Revolutionary Council of 1848, that suppressed the Academy
of Neuchatel and sent to our shores Agassiz, Guyot, and Les-
quereux. In the heart of Switzerland's mountain grandeur this
illustrious trio first saw the light and drank of that love of
Nature which, deepening with the years, peculiarly linked their
lives. Agassiz had been in America two years, when he was
joined by Guyot and Lesquereux, whose friendship had been
formed while they were collaborators in the quaint Swiss
town.

Leo Lesquereux was born at Fleurier, canton of Neuchatel,
Switzerland, November 18, 1806. His ancestors were French
Huguenots. His father was a manufacturer of watch springs,
and wished his only son to follow the same trade, as was the
custom of the country. The future botanist's health being
delicate, however, his mother desired him to study for the
ministry. But the grandeur of his mountain home had already
sunk deep into the impressible soul of the youth, and circum-
stances sealed his preference for another pursuit. He has de-
scribed himself as a boy fond of rocks and flowers and eager
for books — "a kind of natural, as they call people of that kind
in the South." In order to prepare for the university he was
sent to an academy in Neuchatel, and at the age of nineteen
had completed his preparations. Among his fellow-pupils at
this school were Arnold Guyot and August, a younger brother
of Louis Agassiz. To Guyot he became especially attached.
Leo's father was in only moderate circumstances, and unable
to defray his son's expenses at a university ; he had paid only
for the youth's board at Neuchatel, young Leo having met his
tuition fees by teaching. Accordingly, the young man took a

LEO LESQUEREUX.

LEO LESQUEREUX. 459

position as Professor of French in a young ladies academy at
Eisenach, in Saxe-Weimar, hoping to obtain money enough to
go later to the university. " They were the happiest days of
my life," he has said of this period. " My pupils were from
the noble families of Weimar. They were well educated, and
came to me for conversation. I remained at Weimar for some
time. Then love came and I went back to Switzerland, and I
never regretted it." He had been at Eisenach four years
when he became engaged to one of his pupils. The young
lady was of small fortune, but of noble family, being the
daughter of a distinguished soldier, General Von Wolffskel,
an attacht! of the court of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. In her
earlier years she had received especial notice from Goethe,
and the letters of the poet to his child friend were long proud-
ly preserved by her family. When the daughter of the duke
was united with Prince William of Prussia, the future Kaiser,
Fraulein Von Wolffskel was one of the bridesmaids. Her
father was a man of learning, with a strong propensity for
science. When young Lesquereux was about to return to his
home, the father, who was setting out in the same direction
invited him to share his carriage. The marriage was agreed
upon during this journey.

After a short period of teaching at Locle, Lesquereux ob-
tained the principalship of an academy at La Chaux de Fonds,
which he held for three years. A year after his return to
Switzerland he was married, and brought home his bride. At
the wedding the groom's best man was a certain Lieutenant
Von Moltke. The name has become known in a higher rank
since. Lesquereux had been married but a couple of years
when a serious misfortune overtook him. A fall down the
mountain side overlooking Fleurier when he was about ten
years old had injured the hearing of one ear, and now he rap-
idly became so deaf that he had to give up teaching and resort
to a mechanical trade to support his family. He was at this
time twenty-six years of age.

At first he took up the engraving of watch cases, but find-
ing this work injurious to his health he accepted a partner-
ship in his father's business, and returned to his old home.
" But I could not stick to that work," he wrote many years
after to Prof. Lester F. Ward, " and was constantly busy in my
hours of rest, that is mostly in the night, with a poor small

460 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

microscope, studying mosses, and on Sundays running in the
mountains to gather them."

Lesquereux published some memoirs of his investigations
which attracted the attention of Agassiz, then occupying the
chair of Natural History in the newly formed Academy of
Neuchatel. Agassiz invited the author to visit him for a
consultation upon the theories he had set forth, and this visit
was the beginning of a friendship that ceased only with
Agassiz's life.

On account of the rapid cutting away of the forests, the
subject of fuel for the poor was then becoming a matter of
concern in Neuchatel, and the government of the canton
offered a gold medal for the best treatise on the formation
of and the possibility of replenishing the peat bogs. Les-
quereux competed for this prize and won it ; his memoir on
the subject gained wide reputation, and is still quoted as one
of the best authorities. A committee of eight savants was ap-
pointed to explore the peat deposits of the canton, in order to
be fully informed as to the value of Lesquereux's researches.
Prof. Agassiz, who was a member of this committee, did not at
first agree with his theory, but after being out a few days —
the committee was two weeks in the field — he accepted it and
became its ardent supporter. Lesquereux was now employed
by the canton to write a text-book on peat for the schools, and
was made director of operations in the peat bogs bought by
the Government. Under the patronage of the King of Prussia
he also explored the peat bogs of the countries of northern
Europe, and in this way became acquainted with the botany
and geology of these districts.

To the New World his labours were now transferred, when,
in addition to the misfortune of becoming totally deaf in the
prime of life, he also found himself deprived of scientific em-
ployment at home by the political changes that followed the
revolution of 1847. He embarked with his wife and five chil-
dren as steerage passengers, reaching Boston in September,
1848. At the earnest solicitation of that naturalist he became
a member of the household of Agassiz. Here he worked upon
the botanical part of Agassiz's Journey to Lake Superior,
until the eve of Christmas, 1848, when, at the invitation of the
eminent bryologist, W. S. Sullivant, he went to Columbus, Ohio,
and, entering his laboratory, continued there the study of

LEO LESQUEREUX. 46l

mosses. At the close of the year 1849, under the advice and
with the co-operation of Mr. Sullivant, he made a tour of ex-
ploration among the mountains of the Southern States, for the
collection of plant specimens, and secured a great variety of
plants, which found a ready sale among students of botany.
He was particularly successful in the collection of mosses.
The preparation of the specimens, their determination and
distribution, gave him employment for two years, and resulted
in one of the most valuable contributions to American bry-
ology— the Musci Americani Exsiccati, by W. S. Sullivant and
L. Lesquereux. The expense of preparation and publication
of this work was defrayed by Mr. Sullivant, who, taking only
a few copies for presentation, allowed his colleague the benefit
of the sales of the rest. Using that author's library and her-
barium Lesquereux lent most valuable assistance to the prepa-
ration of Mr. Sullivant's works on the mosses of the Wilkes
South Pacific Exploring Expedition, Whipple's Pacific Rail-
road Exploration, and the Icones Muscorum.

Sullivant had collected materials for a complete account
of the North American moss flora, which he hoped to publish.
After his death, at the urgent request of Dr. Asa Gray, Les-
quereux undertook to complete the task. A large part of the
work was done when, in 1869, his sight became impaired, and
Prof. Thomas P. James, of Cambridge, was enlisted in this
labour. He made the microscopical examinations that were
still to be done, but his death caused another delay, and it was
not till 1884 that the Manual of North American Mosses was
finally issued.

The publication of Brongniart's Prodrome, and the com-
mencement of the Histoire des Vdgtfaux Fossils, in 1828, laid
the solid basis upon which the science of paleobotany has been
erected. Lesquereux began to write on this subject in 1845,
and his studies in America have been directed especially in
the line of fossil botany. His most valuable researches, be-
ginning in 1850, lay in the study of the coal formations of
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, and Arkansas, and his
reports appear in the geological surveys of all these States.
He had conceived that his theory of the formation of peat
could be extended to the coal, and this proved to be the case.
Particularly important are his studies of the coal flora of Penn-
sylvania, published in the report of H. D. Rogers in 1858,

462

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

together with a Catalogue of the Fossil Plants which have
been named or described from the coal measures of North
America. Lesquereux also worked up the coal flora in the
second geological survey of Pennsylvania. The fruit of this
labour was two volumes of text and an atlas, published in 1880
— the most important work on carboniferous plants that has
been produced in America. Geological work, especially re-
searches on fossil botany, in connection with the United States
Geological Surveys of the Territories, began in 1868 to absorb
his attention. He was employed to work up the collections of
Dr. F. V. Hayden's surveys of the Territories, and important
papers on the subject appeared in the annual reports of the
surveys from 1870 to 1874 inclusive. Lesquereux was fre-
quently called to Cambridge to determine the specimens of
fossil plants in Prof. Agassiz's museum, where he was a guest
in the naturalist's household for weeks and months at a time,
and their mutual attachment grew very strong.

Lesquereux, during his long and industrious life, contrib-
uted twelve important works to the natural history of North
America, besides a large number of memoirs on divers sub-
jects, amounting in all to about fifty publications. He was a
member or correspondent of more than twenty scientific so-
cieties of Europe and America, and was the first elected mem-
ber of the National Academy of Sciences. The degree of
LL. D. was given him in 1875 by Marietta College. He was
in close correspondence with all the leading paleontologists of
Europe, Oswald Heer being one of his particular friends.

The characteristic works of the most eminent scientific
writers of the age comprised his library. Brongniart, who
laid the foundation of paleobotany; Goppert, who built its
superstructure ; Schimper, Heer, Dawson, Ettingshausen, New-
berry, the Marquis Gaston de Saporta, together with Grande
Eury and Renault, who thoroughly studied the carboniferous
flora of France ; Williamson, who mastered that of England ;
Nathorst, who opened up the subterranean floral treasures of
Sweden ; Engelhardt, Hosius, Under Marck and Schenk, who
investigated without exhausting the rich plant beds of Ger-
many— all were numbered among Lesquereux's friends and
correspondents.

The fraternal bond that binds the scientific world is almost
indissoluble. When once asked if his long and intimate associ-

LEO LESQUEREUX. 463

ations with so many illustrious minds had not stored his mem-
ory with anecdote and reminiscence, Lesquereux responded :
" The science students' life is absorbed with grave and serious
truths ; they are naturally serious men. My associations have
been almost entirely of a scientific nature. My deafness cut
me off from everything that lay outside of science. I have
lived with Nature, the rocks, the trees, the flowers. They know
me, I know them. All outside are dead to me."

Dr. Lesquereux's death occurred at his modest home in Colum-
bus, Ohio, on October 25, 1889. His wife had shortly gone be-
fore. He lived and died in the communion of the Lutheran
Church, and never felt the essentials of his religious belief dis-
turbed by the advances of science. A visitor described him at
the age of eighty as " a middle-sized man with dark eyes that
flashed with mirthfulness when tie spoke, and a step so brisk,
and hair and beard so free from time strokes, that the long-
cherished patriarchal vision of the botanist's appearance van-
ished."

Four sons and one daughter lived to adult age. The sons
followed in their father's footsteps, not in the pursuit of sci-
ence, but by becoming watchmakers.

The last work upon which Prof. Lesquereux was engaged
was an important treatise on The Flora of the Dakota Group,
which was published posthumously under the editorship of Mr.
F. H. Knowlton as Monograph 17 of the United States Geo-
logical Survey, in 1891.

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.

1806-1873.

MRS. CORBIN, Lieutenant Maury's daughter and biographer,
claims for her father the recognition of the whole civilized
world ; for, she says, " the best part of his life was devoted
to the performance of services which conferred benefits on the
seafaring class of all countries, while the ideas to which he
first gave birth have since borne fruit, and are likely to be
useful to the whole human race." She adds that " in Maury we
have two characteristics, each valuable in itself, but which
almost invariably produce great results when they are combined.
He was endowed with extraordinary powers of application and
unflagging industry in working out the driest details. But he
also possessed a vivid imagination, so that the dry bones of
his new science were endowed with life and interest by the
magic touch of his descriptive pen. It was Maury who created
the science of the physical geography of the sea, and gave that
impetus to its study which, in other hands, continues to pro-
duce results alike of practical and speculative importance."

Matthew Fontaine Maury was born in Spottsylvania County,
Virginia, January 24, 1806, and died in Lexington, Va., Febru-
ary i, 1873. He was descended on his father's side from two
families of Huguenot exiles, connected by marriage before
they left France, who settled in Virginia in 1714. His father,
Richard Maury, was the sixth son of the Rev. James Maury,
an Episcopal clergyman and teacher of Albemarle County,
Virginia, who numbered among his pupils three boys who after-
ward became Presidents of the United States, and five signers
of the Declaration of Independence. This scholar appears
to have been already interested in the great Northwest, and
his speculations respecting the Missouri River, the Western
mountains, and the rivers beyond them, then hardly known,
greatly impressed his pupil Jefferson, who, when he became

464

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY. 465

President, secured the despatch of the expedition of Lewis and
Clark. In 1790 Richard Maury married Diana, daughter of
Major John Minor, of Topping Castle, in Caroline County, and
settled in Spottsylvania County, about ten miles west of Fred-
ericksburg. Nine children were the fruit of this marriage,
Matthew being the seventh, and the fourth of the five sons.

When young Matthew was in his fifth year the family re-
moved to Tennessee, near Franklin, where they lived the life of
early settlers in a new country. The father was very exact in
the religious training of his children, assembling them morning
and evening to read the Psalter for the day, verse and verse
about. Matthew's first ambition to become a mathematician
was excited by an old cobbler "who used to send the shoes
home to his customers with the soles all scratched over with
little .r's and jy's." A fall from a tree in his twelfth year, by
which his back was injured, seems to have marked the turning
point of his life. His father, thinking him permanently dis-
abled, yielded to his wish and sent him to Harpeth Academy,
of which the Rev. J. H. Otey, afterward Protestant Episcopal
Bishop of Tennessee, and William C. Hasbrouck, were the
teachers.

In 1825 he obtained, through the Hon. Sam Houston, a
midshipman's warrant in the United States Navy. His father
did not approve the career to which this pointed, for his eldest
son, John Minor, had died of yellow fever in the service the
year before. Still he did not positively forbid Matthew to ac-
cept the appointment, so, having thirty dollars which he had
earned by doing tutor's work in the academy, young Maury
bought a gray mare, to be paid for when he should sell her
at the end of his journey, and started on his own account for the
East. After travelling two weeks he came among his Virgin-
ian kinsfolk in Albemarle County, where he sold the mare and
despatched the money she brought to her former owner. Here
he saw little Nannie Herndon, then a girl of twelve or thirteen
years, who was afterward to become his wife. She was the
eldest child of Elizabeth Hull and Dabney Herndon, of Fred-
ericksburg. There was no naval academy then, and young
Maury went on shipboard at once. He soon showed that his
mind was set upon mastering the theory and practice of his
profession. " It is related by some of his companions of that
period," says Mrs. Corbin, "how he would chalk diagrams in

466 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

spherical trigonometry on the round shot in the quarterdeck
racks, to enable himself to master problems, while pacing to
and fro, passing and repassing the shot racks on his watch."
With an old Spanish work on navigation, he pursued the double
object of studying the Spanish language and adding to his
stock of nautical information. His first voyage was to Eng-
land, in the Brandywine, which conveyed General Lafayette
home to France; his next was in the Vincennes, round the
world. On this voyage he constructed a set of lunar tables
and prepared himself for examination.

During his next cruise of four years on the Falmouth, Dol-
phin, and Potomac, beginning in 1831, Maury conceived the
idea of his current and wind charts ; observed and began to
study the curious phenomenon of the low barometer off Cape
Horn, concerning which he wrote his first scientific paper — for
the American Journal of Science ; and began to prepare for the
press a work on navigation, for which he had been several
years collecting the material. It was published in 1835, was
favourably noticed in England, and was used as a text-book in
the United States Navy. Immediately after his return home
on the Potomac, in 1834, he married Miss Ann Herndon, to
whom he had been engaged since he was last on shore.

Maury next received an appointment as astronomer and
hydrographer on the South Sea Exploring Expedition, which
was to go out under Commodore Catesby Jones, and, prepara-
tory to it, practised in the use of the telescope, transit instru-
ment, and theodolite; but, Captain Wilkes succeeding to the
command, he resigned, in order to permit the new commander
to select his own associates. He was then assigned the duty of
making surveys of Southern harbours. While travelling on
leave of absence from this work, his leg was broken by the
overturning of a stagecoach, whereby he was disabled from ac-
tive service for several years. The misfortune is regarded by
his biographer as having been a " blessing in disguise " ; for it
caused his mind to turn more intently to the scientific side of
his work, and thus contributed indirectly to the fruitfulness of
thought by which his after-life was distinguished.

A series of articles on naval reform and kindred subjects,
entitled Scraps from the Lucky-Bag, published by Maury under
the pen-name of Harry Bluff, attracted attention and approval.
Among the points discussed in them — most of which were

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY. 467

brought up for the first time — were the adoption of steam as a
motive power; great-circle sailing; the establishment of navy
yards and forts at Memphis and Pensacola ; the use of blank
charts on board public cruisers; the Gulf Stream and its
causes ; the connection of terrestrial magnetism with the circu-
lation of the atmosphere ; and a ship canal from the Illinois
River to Lake Michigan. The papers gave their author fame,
and secured respect for his opinions on naval questions. Cer-
tain journals even urged his appointment as Secretary of the
Navy. He was placed in charge of the Depot of Charts and
Instruments at Washington, an office which was developed into
the Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Department. " No
man," said Senator John Bell, " could have been found in the
country better fitted than Maury for this difficult duty ; and he
worked with the zeal and energy that were expected of him."

One of Maury's first enterprises in this office was the com-
pilation of his wind and current charts and sailing directions.
He had already, as sailing master of the Falmouth, in 1831,
observed the want of trustworthy information concerning the
winds and currents encountered by mariners. He then re-
solved, if he ever had opportunity, to compile such information
from the store of old log books in the Hydrographical Bureau
of the Naval Department. This he now did, and his charts
and sailing directions were furnished to the masters of vessels
bound for foreign ports, who in turn supplied the results of
their own observations. The most favourable reports came in
of the value of the work, and it was illustrated by some then
really wonderful incidents.

The fact was demonstrated in American and English jour-
nals that, by the mere shortening of voyages they made possi-
ble, these charts effected a very great saving in the expense of
commerce between distant ports. Testimony was repeatedly
borne to their value in the annual reports of the Navy Depart-
ment and of congressional committees. Secretary Dobbin re-
ported, in 1855, that other maritime nations, appreciating the
value of this plan of investigation, had united in a common
system of observations for its further prosecution ; and that it
was suggested by Lieutenant Maury that the same system of
meteorological research, " if extended to the land, would afford
for the agricultural interests of the country, and for science
too, results quite as important as those which commerce and

468 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

navigation have already received from it." While analyzing
and tabulating these " millions of observations," Maury wrote
his Physical Geography of the Sea, which took rank at once as
a masterly as well as a charming work. In the preface to it
the author attributed such success as he had achieved to the
observance of the rule " to keep the mind unbiased by theories
and speculations ; never to have any wish that an investigation
should result in favour of this view in preference to that; and
never to attempt by premature speculation to anticipate the re-
sults of investigations, but always to trust to the investigations
themselves." The book met a large demand at home and
abroad, more than twenty editions having been sold in Eng-
land alone ; and it was translated into the French, Dutch, Ital-
ian, Swedish, and Spanish languages. Following this came the
assembling of the Meteorological Congress at Brussels, in 1853,
of the chief nations interested in commerce, at which a uniform
system of observations on land and at sea was resolved upon.
Among the incidents of the conference was a letter in 1857 from
Humboldt, " at the age of ninety years," relating to its results,
and offering " to my illustrious friend and associate . . . the
tribute of my respectful admiration. ... It belongs to me,
more than to any traveller of the age, to congratulate my
illustrious friend upon the course which he has so gloriously
opened."

Lieutenant Maury, after returning from the Brussels Con-
ference, pressed the scheme of co-operation in the meteorolog-
ical observations on land. In addresses delivered at agricul-
tural societies in 1855 he urged farmers to make daily observa-
tions of weather conditions and the state and yield of the
crops, to be sent to him, as sailors were sending their observa-
tions at sea ; and he advised them to seek from Congress
measures for the establishment of a central office where these
reports could be digested and the results sent monthly, weekly,
or even daily, to all parts of the country, so that farmers could
be "warned of the approach of storms, severe frosts, etc., that
might prove injurious to the crops." He defined this proposi-
tion in an address before the United States Agricultural So-
ciety in January, 1856, as a concerted plan, the idea of which
was to spread the network of instruments and observers in this
country and over other parts of the world also, to which he
was assured the co-operation of men of science abroad would

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.

469

be given. About three years afterward, in an address at De-
catur, Ala., as if foreseeing that his services might become for-
gotten, he said : " Take notice, now, that this plan of crop and
weather reports is my thunder; and if you see some one in
Washington running away with it, then recollect, if you please,
where the lightning came from." The whole record of Maury's
meteorological work, and his part in advocating this plan, were
reviewed by Senator Harlan, in a committee report to the
United States Senate, made in 1857. His scheme also em-
braced a system of meteorological observations on the Great
Lakes. Records had already been kept for many years by the
army, to which, Maury acknowledged, " alone we are indebted
for almost all we know concerning the climatology of the coun-
try " ; but he explained that their value was retrospective ;
while the observations he proposed were to be used for predic-
tions and warnings of what the weather was to be.

As early as 1848 Maury had concluded, from his investiga-
tions of the winds and currents, that a broad and level plateau
— the " telegraphic plateau " — existed at the bottom of the
ocean between Newfoundland and Ireland. His view was con-
firmed by the deep-sea soundings that were taken at his in-
stance between 1849 and 1853; and early in 1854 he reported
to the Secretary of the Navy that, so far as the bottom of the
deep sea was concerned, a submarine telegraph between New-
foundland and Ireland was practicable. A plateau seemed to
have been placed there especially for holding the wires and
keeping them out of harm's way. His views respecting the
manner of constructing cables were confirmed, both in the be-
haviour of the first cable, constructed differently from them,
which failed, and the others, made more in harmony with them,
which were successful. At the dinner given in celebration of
the arrival of the first message across the Atlantic, Mr. Cyrus
W. Field said, referring to the enterprise, " Maury furnished
the brains, England gave the money, and I did the work."

A painful surprise came to Lieutenant Maury when the
Naval Retiring Board, under the act of Congress of February
28, 1855, placed him on the retired list on leave-of-absence pay,
but without detaching him from the Naval Observatory. He
regarded the act as an indignity. He wrote to three of the
Secretaries of the Navy under whom he had served for expres-
sions concerning his efficiency, particularly inquiring why he

470

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

had been kept at the observatory instead of being sent to sea.
Ex-Secretary Graham answered : " I considered your services
at the National Observatory of far more importance and value
to the country and the navy than any that could be rendered
by an officer of your grade at sea in the time of peace. Indeed,
I doubt whether the triumphs of navigation and of the knowl-
edge of the sea achieved under your superintendence of the
observatory will not contribute as much to an effective naval
service and to the national fame as the brilliant trophies of our
arms." Mr. John P. Kennedy wrote, " From my knowledge of
the nature of your scientific pursuits, their usefulness to the
country, and your devotion to them, I can say that nothing but
such an emergency as left me no alternative would have in-
duced me to withdraw you from your labours at the observa-
tory by an order to go to sea." Mr. William Ballard Preston
wrote to similar effect. In the following winter Maury was,
by special act of Congress, reinstated and promoted to the
rank of commander, with back pay from the date of his retire-
ment.

Other schemes discussed by Lieutenant Maury in general or
special papers included the location of lighthouses on the
Florida and Gulf coasts; systematic observations of the rise
and fall of the water in the Mississippi River and its tributaries,
with gauges at all the principal towns ; the redemption of the
" drowned lands " of the Mississippi ; navigation by great-circle
routes ; a ship canal and railroad across the Isthmus, which he
insisted should be by way of Panama or Nicaragua rather
than Tehuantepec; the establishment of a great port at Nor-
folk, Va. ; and the colonization of the surplus black and other
population of the South in the valley of the Amazon. The
Darien expedition of Lieutenant Strain and Lieutenant Hern-
don's exploration of the Amazon were connected with two of
these schemes. The " lane route," followed by some of the
transatlantic steamship lines, originated in the publication by
Maury, in 1855, of a chart on which two lanes were laid down,
each twenty-five miles broad, by following which the danger of
collisions might be reduced. In acknowledgment of the value
of the service rendered by this plan, and by the wind and cur-
rent charts and sailing directions, the merchants and under-
writers of New York presented him with five thousand dollars
in gold and a handsome service of silver.

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY. 471

When the Ordinance of Secession was passed by the Legis-
lature of Virginia, Commander Maury believed that his para-
mount obligation was to his native State. He accordingly left
the service of the United States and identified his fortunes with
those of Virginia and the Confederacy. There can be no
doubt of his disinterestedness in taking this course. His mer-
its and the value of his services were generally recognised
throughout the North, and he had but recently given courses
of lectures in the principal towns and cities, which were a series
of popular ovations to him. In going into the service of the
Confederacy he put himself under the direction, as his imme-
diate superiors, of two men who, as United States Senators,
had been prominent in opposition to his reinstatement after he
had been put upon the retired list, and who are said to have been
hostile to him before the war and through it. Of the manner of
his leaving the service of the United States, he said, May 12,
1861, in a letter to a friend in Newburg, N. Y. : "I only saw
last night the remarks of the Boston Traveller about Lieuten-
ant Maury's treachery, his desertion, removal of buoys. It's
all a lie ! I resigned and left the observatory on Saturday the
1 2th ult. I worked as hard and as faithfully for * Uncle Sam'
up to three o'clock of that day as I ever did, and at three
o'clock I turned everything — all the public property and rec-
ords of the office — regularly over to Lieutenant Whiting, the
proper officer in charge. I left in press Nautical Monograph,
No. 3, one of the most valuable contributions I ever made to
navigation ; and, just as I left it, it is now in course of publi-
cation there, though I shall probably not have the privilege of
reading the proof. ... As for the buoys, I touched them not ! "
The Grand Duke Constantine and Napoleon III offered him
positions in Russia and France, respectively, which he declined.
He became a member of a Council of Three to assist the Gov-
ernor of Virginia, and in June, 1861, was appointed Chief of
the Seacoast, Harbour, and River Defences of the South. He
assisted in fitting out the Merrimac; invented a torpedo to be
used for harbour and land defence ; and was engaged, in the
summer of 1862, in mining the James River below all the de-
fences, when he was ordered to go to Europe to purchase tor-
pedo material. During the first and second years of the war
he published a series of papers urging the building of a navy,
and of protecting the bays and rivers with small floating bat-

472

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

teries. He stayed in England, on Confederate business, till
the surrender of Lee, when he despatched a letter to the United
States officer commanding the squadron of the Gulf, declaring
that he regarded himself in the relation to the United States
substantially of a prisoner of war. He then offered his services
to Maximilian in Mexico, and accepted the position of Director
of the Imperial Observatory. A plan he had conceived for the
formation of a colony of Virginians in Mexico was accepted by
Maximilian, and he was appointed Imperial Commissioner for
Colonization. The scheme was, however, abandoned as soon as
Maury left Mexico to return to England. His course in this
matter was not approved by his friends, either in Europe or in
America. It is claimed that he performed one great service
for Mexico during his short career there, in introducing the
cultivation of the cinchona tree.

Returning to England in March, 1866, whither most of his
family had preceded him, Maury was given a testimonial, by
naval and scientific men, in recognition of his scientific worth
and service. He was employed in Paris, by Napoleon III, to
instruct a board of French officers in his system of defensive
sea mining. Returning to London, he opened a school of in-
struction in electric torpedoes, which was attended — at the ex-
pense of their governments — by naval officers of Sweden, Hol-
land, and other nations. At the instance of Mr. C. B. Richard-
son, a New York publisher, he undertook a series of geographical
text-books, saying as he went to his task, " I could not wind up
my career more usefully (and usefulness is both honour and
glory) than by helping to shape the character and mould the
destinies of the rising generation." He also wrote a popular
book on astronomy, which has never been published.

In 1868 Maury received the degree of LL. D. from the Uni-
versity of Cambridge, along with Alfred Tennyson, Max Miil-
ler, and Mr. Wright, the Egyptologist. In the same year he
declined an invitation from Napoleon III to the directorship of
the Imperial Observatory of France. Taking advantage of the
general amnesty act to return to the United States, he de-
clined the superintendency of the University of the South at
Suwanee, Tenn., to accept the professorship of Meteorology at
the Virginia Military Institute. Pending his entrance upon the
duties of this position, he considered a scheme for establishing
a line of steamers between Norfolk and Flushing in Holland.

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.

473

During the last four years of his life he worked at a meteoro-
logical survey of Virginia. He engaged actively again in the
advocacy of his old scheme for a Telegraphic Meteorological
Bureau, in furtherance of which he repeated an address in
Boston and Missouri and several places in the South. A paper
on this subject, presented to the International Congress, at St.
Petersburg, for the Advancement of Geographic Knowledge,
etc., was unanimously approved by that body. The exposure
incident to travel in fulfilling his lecturing appointments
brought on the illness which ended with his death ; but he con-
tinued, to within a few days of that event, dictating and revis-
ing the last edition of his Physical Geography.

Commander Maury is described by his daughter as having
been a stout man, about five feet six inches in height, with
fresh, ruddy complexion, curling brown hair, and with every
feature of his bright countenance bespeaking intellect, kindli-
ness, and force of character. " His fine blue eyes beamed from
under his broad forehead with thought and emotion, while his
flexible mouth smiled with the pleasure of imparting to others
the ideas which were ever welling up in his active brain. . . . His
conversation was enjoyed by all who ever met him ; he listened
and learned while he conversed, and adapted himself to every
capacity. He especially delighted in the company of young
people, to whom his playful humour and gentle consideration
made him very winning." N. P. Willis, speaking of him to a
friend, said that he made him subject to his personal magnet-
ism, and, during a trip while they were together, " unconsciously
furnished an exquisitely interesting study of character." He
was a firm believer in the Christian religion, but did not join
the Church till 1867, when he was confirmed with his-children
in the Episcopal Church.

Maury had eight children, five daughters and three sons.
His biographer was his second child, Diana Fontaine, who mar-
ried Mr. S. W. Corbin, of Farleyvale, Va. He had pet nick-
names for all except the eldest, and the children knew that
something was wrong if he called them by anything else. He
never found it necessary to shut himself up away from their
noise to work, and as they grew old enough they gave him in
turn much valuable aid as amanuenses.

Maury's published works, books, pamphlets, and official
papers were numerous, and bore reference to the researches

474

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

which have been described in this sketch, concerning which
they stand as original authorities. Orders were conferred upon
him by the sovereigns of Russia, Denmark, Portugal, Belgium,
and France ; gold medals by those of Prussia, Austria, Sweden,
Holland, Sardinia, France, and the free city of Bremen ; and
other honours by the Pope and Maximilian. He was a member
of ten foreign and four American scientific and historical socie-
ties that are named, and of many other learned bodies of which
the records were lost during the war.

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ.

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ.

1807-1873.

JEAN Louis RODOLPHE AGASSIZ was born in the Swiss vil-
lage of Metier, on the shore of Lake Morat, May 28, 1807.
His father, Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, was a clergyman ; his
mother, Rose Mayor, was the daughter of a physician of Cud-
refin, a village on the shore of Lake Neuchatel, about four
miles away. Having lost her first four children in infancy his
mother watched anxiously over his early years.

Louis's interest in the animal kingdom appeared at an early
age. A great stone basin behind the parsonage house, through
which a pure spring of water always flowed, was his first aquari-
um. He had also a variety of other pets — birds, field-mice,
hares, rabbits, guinea-pigs, etc. Although fish are commonly
looked upon as among the most intractable of animals, young
Louis early gained such a knowledge of their haunts and habits
as to have a surprising power over them. He and his brother
Auguste, two years younger than Louis, had little need of
hook or net for capturing the finny denizens of the lake.
"They acquired such dexterity that when bathing they could
seize the fish even in the open water, attracting them by little
arts to which the fish submitted as to a kind of fascination."
Almost every country-bred boy learns more or less of such
field and water craft, but in Agassiz it was the foundation of a
career. Like many another bright and nimble-fingered lad,
too, he imitated the arts of the mechanics who came to his
father's house from time to time, " and when a very little fel-
low, he could cut and put together a well-fitting pair of shoes
for his sisters' dolls, was no bad tailor, and could make a min-
iature barrel that was perfectly water-tight. He remembered
these trivial facts as a valuable part of his incidental educa-
tion. He said he owed much of his dexterity in manipulation

475

476

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

to the training of eye and hand gained in these childish
plays."

When Louis was ten years old he was sent to a school for
boys at Bienne. Up to this time his parents had been his only
teachers ; and he could not have had better. Wherever his
father was settled as pastor his influence was felt hardly less in
the schools than in the pulpit. At Bienne nine hours of school
work a day were required — an amount that would not be borne
in American schools, and that doubtless goes far to explain the
superior attainments that Americans recognise in men educated
in Europe. Yet whether or not from some difference in method,
or climate, or mode of life, or temperament, the boys were
healthy and happy under these exactions. After four years at
this school the time came when it was intended that Louis
should enter the business house of an uncle at Neuchatel, as
his parents did not feel able to give him further educational
advantages. But the boy had formed the desire to become a
man of letters and begged for at least two years in the academy
at Lausanne. His request, which was supported by his former
teachers, was granted. At Lausanne his taste for everything
bearing upon the study of Nature became more pronounced.
His mother's brother, Dr. Mathias Mayor, who was a promi-
nent physician in Lausanne, soon perceived the bent of the
youth's mind, and advised that his nephew be allowed to study
medicine as the calling probably most congenial to him. His
parents were persuaded to this view, and Louis at seventeen
years of age entered the medical school of Zurich. His brother
Auguste, who had entered the school at Bienne a year later
than Louis, was still his constant companion. Many an hour
did the young students spend in copying books which their
scanty means would not permit them to buy. This was largely
a labour of love on the part of the younger brother, for the
books were more needed in Louis's studies than in his.

After two years at Zurich Louis went, early in 1826, to the
University of Heidelberg, while Auguste entered upon com-
mercial life in Neuchatel. At the university the letters that
Louis brought from former instructors, together with his dili-
gence and winning disposition, quickly gained the interest of
his professors. At the suggestion of one of them he made the
acquaintance of a fellow-student, Alexander Braun, who was
as enthusiastic a botanist as Agassiz was a zoologist. They

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 477

became fast friends for life. Karl Schimper was another
friend whom he found at Heidelberg. As the distance made
it too expensive for Agassiz to spend his vacations with
his parents, he soon became accustomed to pass them at the
home of Braun at Carlsruhe. Braun's father was much devoted
to science, having a rich collection of minerals, and his house
afforded abundant facilities for the studies of his sons and
their young friends. Here young Braun brought Agassiz in
the spring of 1827 to recover from an attack of typhus fever.
And when the patient was advised to recruit in his native air,
Braun accompanied him all the way to his own home. Braun
having become convinced that there were especially good facili-
ties for scientific study at Munich proposed that Agassiz accom-
pany him there in the fall of the same year. To this the latter
readily assented, and Schimper soon followed them. Here,
under Martius, Oken, Dollinger, and Schelling, he devoted
himself eagerly to the pursuit of natural history, though still
as at Heidelberg keeping up his medical studies out of defer-
ence to the wishes of his parents. At that time Martius was
publishing his great work on the Natural History of Brazil,
and Spix, who was editing the zoological portion, having re-
cently died, Martius intrusted to Agassiz the description of the
fishes. In this work, which was admirably well done, Agassiz
characterized nine genera, embracing forty-two species new to
science.

For some time Agassiz had contemplated a monograph on
the Fresh-water Fishes of Central Europe, but pecuniary em-
barrassment rendered this impossible, till a bookseller by the
name of Cotta, to whom Agassiz showed the material he had
collected, furnished him the means necessary for its completion.
Meanwhile he studied and obtained the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, and soon after obtained that of Doctor of Medicine.
After his examination, Agassiz went to Vienna, and applied
himself closely to the study of actual and fossil ichthyology. He
then spent a year at home continuing his studies and practising
medicine, after which, in the fall of 1831, he went to Paris, where
he made the acquaintance of Cu vier and Humboldt, both of whom
warmly welcomed this expert young naturalist. Here he lived
on the most intimate terms with Cuvier for some months, till
the death of that naturalist, when he returned to Switzerland
and established himself at Neuchatel, where he was appointed

478 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Professor of Natural History. This position he held till his
departure for America, although in the meantime invited to
Geneva and Lausanne.

Through the aid and influence of Humboldt, between whom
and Agassiz there existed the warmest friendship, he was en-
abled to begin the publication of his Poissons Fossiles, a work
evincing such careful and profound research, and such a won-
derful power of generalization, as to obtain for him a place
among the very first naturalists of the day. Cuvier, who had
intended to prepare such a work, generously abandoned his
plan after perceiving his young friend's capability, and gave
Agassiz the use of his material. This work, which appeared in
parts, between the years 1833 and 1845, comprises five volumes,
of about 1,700 quarto pages, with an atlas of 400 folio plates,
and contains descriptions of nearly a thousand species of fossil
fishes. Aside from the great number of species, genera, and
families established, Agassiz adopted an entirely new system of
classification. In the classification proposed by Cuvier, fishes
were divided into two orders, according to the nature of the
skeleton, viz., cartilaginous and osseous. Agassiz — looking
upon the external covering of the animal as a reflex of the
connection existing between the being and its surroundings,
bearing the imprint of all the peculiarities of its existence, and
consequently of its organization— deemed that the true princi-
ple of the classification of fishes was to be found in the scales.
In view of this he proposed a division of the families of fishes
into four orders, viz., Placoids, in which the scales are rep-
resented by plates of enamel, as in the sharks; Ganoids, in
which the scales consist of angular bony plates covered with a
thick layer of ^enamel, as in the garpikes ; Ctenoids, or fishes
with true scales, in which the posterior edges of the laminae
are toothed ; and Cycloids, in which the scales are composed of
simple laminae with smooth posterior edges. Agassiz found
that the study of fossil fishes exhibits a remarkable parallelism
between the development of the individual and that of the class
in geologic time. During part of the embryonic life of fishes,
and even in some adult forms, the dorsal cord exists as a simple
gelatinous cylinder, surrounded by a fibrous sheath, in which,
after a time, there is found a cartilaginous and then an osseous
deposit, which goes to form the vertebrae, the ossification tak-
ing place first in the apophyses. This embyronic character

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 479

Agassiz found to be peculiar to the fossil fishes of the earlier
geologic ages. There is no trace of a vetebra, but the apophy-
ses, usually ossified, rest directly on the spinal cord.

In October, 1833, Agassiz married Cecile, the sister of. his
life-long friend Alexander Braun. With rare artistic talent she
had greatly aided her brother by making drawings of botanic-
al objects, and she now performed a similar service for her
husband.

The appearance of the first part of his Fossil Fishes had
won for Agassiz the Wollaston prize of the Geological Society
of London. In 1834, and again in 1835, Agassiz visited Eng-
land and received the kindest attentions from Buckland, Sedg-
wick, Murchison, Lyell, and others, and much aid in his re-
searches.

Agassiz next turned his attention to the study of Mollusca
and Echinoderms, and in 1836 published a prodromus of the
Echinoderms, and in 1837 a treatise on the fossil Echinoderms
of Switzerland. In 1839 he began a more elaborate work, en-
titled Monographic* £ Echinodermes vivants et fossiles, a most
important contribution to modern zoology. This work com-
prises five parts : the first and second, on the Salenies and
Scutella, by Agassiz ; the third and fourth, on the Galerites
and Dysaster, by Desor ; and the fifth, Anatomic du genre Echi-
nus, by Valentin. While he was publishing his work on the
Echinoderms, this indefatigable naturalist also described and
figured a large collection of fossil shells from the Oolite and
Cretaceous formations, in a work entitled Etudes critiques sur
les Mollusques du Jura et de la Craie, besides issuing an anno-
tated German translation of Bucklarid's Geology, and French
and German translations of Sowerby's Mineral Conchology.

Notwithstanding the immense amount of work on his hands,
Agassiz found time to prosecute his investigation upon the
fresh-water fishes of Europe. The first part of his work upon
them, issued in 1839, is devoted to the genera Salmo and Thy-
mallus. The second part, which did not appear till 1842, con-
sists of a folio of plates and a volume of text on the Embry-
ology of the Salmons, by Carl Vogt, whom Agassiz had associ-
ated with him in his work. This excellent treatise was never
completed; Agassiz's departure for the United States shortly
after, and his increasing responsibilities, prevented the perfect-
ing of his original plan.

480 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

In 1842 Agassiz began the publication of his Nomenclator Zo-
ologicus, an alphabetical list of every genus, with the name of
the author, the work in which it originally appeared, the deriva-
tion of the name, and the family to which the genus belongs ;
the list embracing upward of seventeen thousand names. In
the introduction the author discusses at length the rules pro-
posed by the British Association and those of the British Com-
mittee, in regard to assigning and changing the names of genera
and species, the settlement of priority, the proper terminations
of zoological names, and other like matters.

The Fossil Fishes was now approaching completion, but, in
consequence of additional material, Agassiz determined to pub-
lish a supplement; and accordingly there appeared, in 1844,
the Fossil Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone. It was accom-
panied by an atlas of thirty-nine folio plates illustrative of the
seventy-six species described.

Of all Agassiz's investigations, perhaps none made his name
more popularly known than his studies on glaciers — studies
which were pursued through a long course of years, and con-
ducted with the same painstaking care that had heretofore
characterized all his labours.

About the year 1834, M. Charpentier advanced the theory
that the erratic blocks, and certain dikes of peculiar shape
found in the Alpine regions, were the result of the action of
former glaciers descending from the Alps and reaching even
the upper portions of the Jura. This theory Agassiz deemed
improbable, till, having visited Charpentier and investigated
the phenomena, he not only became convinced of the correct-
ness of Charpentier's views, but deduced from these and other
phenomena a theory which, at the time (1837), was startlingly
novel. It was that, previous to the elevation of the Alps, the
globe experienced a very great reduction of temperature, and
that the appearance of those mountains found the surface of
the globe, from the north pole to the Mediterranean Sea, cov-
ered with an immense sheet of ice. An elevation of tempera-
ture, consequent upon the upheaval of the Alps, caused this ice
slowly to disappear, remaining longest in the valleys, where it
gradually retreated to its present limits, leaving behind it, as a
record, the peculiar phenomena which have attracted the atten-
tion of so many observers.

Of course a theory so novel at once raised a storm of oppo-

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 481

sition, and it became necessary for Agassiz, if he would prove
the correctness of his views, to make the most careful and
thorough investigations on living glaciers. For this purpose
Agassiz, in company with Desor and several others, made visits
in 1838 and 1839 to the glaciers of Mont Blanc and the Bernese
Oberland, and in 1840 established himself for the summer on
the glacier of the Aar. That year he published his Etudes sur
les Glaciers, giving the results of his investigations up to that
time. He also visited England, Scotland, and Ireland, and
studied the evidences of ice action in those countries. He per-
suaded Arnold Guyot, who had been his friend from boyhood,
to join him in this work, and after their first season, 1838, divided
the work with him and Desor.

But his labours were not finished. Doubting the sufficiency
of the theory of De Saussure — that the cause of the motion of
the glacier depends upon gravity — and inclined to accept the
dilatation theory of Scheuchzer, it became necessary for him to
examine with care the structure, form, distribution, and rate of
motion of the glacier. Thus it was that, in 1841, he began a
second series of observations for the purpose of determining
these points. He chose, for the theatre of his investigations,
the glacier of the Aar, which, by its extent and accessibility,
promised the most favourable results. In 1845 he had com-
pleted his work, and in 1847 appeared his Systeme Gladaire,
which embodied the final results of his researches upon the
structure of glaciers, and their effects upon the soil. The re-
sults at which he arrived constitute the chief part of the theory
of glaciers as accepted to-day, accounting for their formation,
their stratification, their blue bands, their movement, their
moraines, the grooved or polished surfaces of the rocks over
which they pass, and the erratic blocks left where old glaciers
have been. Some important additions have been made by
Tyndall, and there are a few points on which these two investi-
gators disagreed.

Charles Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, had for several years
been planning a scientific journey in the United States, and
had invited Agassiz to accompany him. The latter had agreed
to the proposal, and, in order to prolong his stay, obtained,
through the influence of Humboldt, a grant of 15,000 francs
from the King of Prussia. The Prince' was obliged to give up
the journey and Agassiz went without him. For the last few

482 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

months before his departure Agassiz was busily engaged in
completing several scientific undertakings that he had in hand.
Then, leaving his son Alexander at school at Neuchatel and his
wife, with their daughters, in the care of her brother, at Carls-
ruhe, he sailed for the United States in September, 1846.

Agassiz was thirty-nine years of age when he came to the
land that was to be his home for the rest of his life. His repu-
tation had preceded him, and he was most cordially received
by American scientists. Before leaving Europe he had made
through Lyell an engagement to deliver at the Lowell Insti-
tute, Boston, a course of lectures on The Plan of Creation,
especially in the Animal Kingdom. His audiences were so well
pleased that after the completion of this course he undertook
one on glaciers, also in Boston, which was highly successful. The
next summer he took a small house at East Boston and gath-
ered around him a corps of naturalists and illustrators, among
them being Count Frangois de Pourtales, who had accompanied
him to this country, E. Desor, and Jaques Burkhardt. He also
made journeys to visit men of science or to explore interest-
ing localities, and the following winter lectured in Boston and
other cities. Before this winter was over, in February, 1848,
came the proclamation of the French republic, and then all
Europe was in turmoil. The canton of Neuchatel had been a
dependency of Prussia, which explains why Agassiz was in the
pay of the Prussian king. The republican party at once rose
up in Neuchatel and carried the canton into the Swiss confed-
eracy. As a consequence, Agassiz was honourably discharged
from his commission. The Lawrence Scientific School was
being organized about this time in connection with Harvard
College. Mr. Abbott Lawrence, its founder, offered the chair
of Natural History in this school to Agassiz, who accepted it,
and held the position till his death.

The Swiss naturalist now took up his abode in Cambridge,
and became a leading factor in the scientific development of
the Western republic. He soon had the pleasure of welcoming
to the shores of America Guyot and others of his old friends,
who were dislodged by the overturn in Europe. The death of
his wife soon broke another of his own ties to the Old World.

Delightful facilities for research were afforded to Agassiz in
the course of his first summer in America by excursions on the
United States Coast Survey steamer Bibb, then employed in

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 483

the survey of Massachusetts Bay. From this time to the end
of his life, under Superintendents Bache and Pierce, courtesies
were frequently extended to him by the Survey, to the specific
benefit of the latter's work as well as of science in general.

Agassiz had not been two years in this country before he
began publishing in English. The first part of Principles of
Zoology, by L. Agassiz and A. A. Gould, appeared in 1848.
Several editions were disposed of, mainly for school use, but
its sale was checked by the lack of a concluding part, which
was never issued. The same year, in connection with H. E.
Strickland, he began the publication of a Bibliographia Zoolo-
gies, et Geologic. This work, which comprises a list of all the
periodicals devoted to zoology and geology, and an alphabet-
ical list of authors and their works in the same departments,
was completed in four volumes, the fourth being published
in 1854.

Agassiz's studies on the glaciers of Switzerland led him to
expect to find in the United States many traces of former ice
action. Nor was he disappointed. He explored the country
from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, from the Great Lakes
to the Gulf of Mexico, and everywhere, north of the thirty-fifth
parallel of latitude, found evidences of glacial action, in erratic
blocks, polished and striated rock surfaces, and terminal mo-
raines. Naturally this served to confirm his belief in the uni-
versality of the ice period ; and, upon his departure for Brazil,
in 1865, he announced his confident expectation of finding
records of the former existence of glaciers in that country;
for he believed that not only most of the Northern, but also
most of the Southern Hemisphere was, during the glacial
epoch, encased in ice. The evidences of glacial action in the
United States are fully discussed by Agassiz in his Lake Su-
perior, a work on the physical character, vegetation, and ani-
mals, of Lake Superior, compared with those of other and simi-
lar regions.

Agassiz was a firm believer in the diversity of origin of the
human race, and his views on this point are ably presented in
the Christian Examiner for July, 1850, and in an introduction
to Nott and Gliddon's Types of Mankind. The geographical
distribution of animals shows, he maintained, that distinct zoo-
logical provinces are each characterized by peculiar fauna, and
that therefore animals did not originate from a common centre

484 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

nor from a single pair. The races of men, in their natural dis-
tribution, cover the same ground as the zoological provinces,
and he believes there is every reason to suppose that these
races originally appeared as nations in the regions they now
occupy.

In the spring of 1850 Agassiz married Elizabeth Cabot Gary,
daughter of Thomas Graves Gary, of Boston. This marriage
bound him still more closely to America, and enabled him to
give his children a home here. He accordingly sent for his
daughters, his son, then thirteen years old, having joined him
the summer before.

Being commissioned by Mr. Bache, the Superintendent of
the Coast Survey, to investigate the nature of the Florida
keys and reefs, and the channels dividing them, as also their
relation to the hummocks and everglades of the mainland, he
spent about two months in the winter of i85o-*5i in this work.
From his report the Coast Survey derived much valuable infor-
mation concerning the maintenance of channels, and the plac-
ing of signals, and of foundations for lighthouses. In the fol-
lowing winter he entered upon an appointment as professor at
the Medical College in Charleston, S. C. His course of lectures
there occupied the winter months — between his autumn and
spring courses in Cambridge — and relieved him from the neces-
sity of travelling about to lecture in different cities, which had
already somewhat taxed his health. It was at the end of his
first winter in Charleston that news came of the award of the
Cuvierian prize to him for his Fossil Fishes. During part of
his second winter in Charleston he was dangerously sick with
a fever, and in the following spring he resigned his professor-
ship. In the winter of i854-*55 he resumed his public lectures,
but it became evident in the spring that he must give up this
practice.

Some other means of supplementing his scanty salary must
be found, and at this juncture his wife and daughters proposed
to open a girls' school. Agassiz not only approved the plan,
but entered into it himself, and was an important factor in the
splendid success that it enjoyed for its eight years of existence.
The adverse influence of the civil war, added to the fact that
the income from it was no longer needed, brought it to a close
in 1863.

Ever since his arrival in America, Agassiz had been collect-

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 485

ing material for a series of Contributions to the Natural His-
tory of the United States. In 1857 appeared two volumes of
these contributions ; the first containing an Essay on Classifi-
cation and the history of the North American Testudinata ;
the second on the Embryology of the Turtle, and was illustrated
with thirty-four plates.

In the essay on Classification, Agassiz affirms that Nature is
but the expression of the thought of the Creator, and that a
true classification will be found to be but an unfolding of the
plan of creation, as expressed in living realities ; that these re-
alities do not exist in consequence of the continued agency of
physical causes, but appear successively by the immediate in-
tervention of the Creator. We find in Nature a progressive
series, from lower to higher forms ; but it is not a uniform
progress for the animal kingdom as a whole; neither is it
a linear progress for the branches or classes, but a progress
in which each type has usually been introduced by the crea-
tion of species belonging to one of its higher groups, for the
earliest representatives of a class do not always seem to be
the lowest. Yet, notwithstanding these downward steps, the
progress has continually tended toward the production of
higher and higher types, culminating at last in Man.

The third volume of the Contributions appeared in 1860,
and was devoted to the class of Acalephce, the author treating
specially of the order Ctenophorcz. The fourth volume, issued
in 1862, concluded the Acalepha. The plan of the work had
contemplated ten volumes, but only these four were com-
pleted in his lifetime. A fifth volume on North American star-
fishes appeared after his death.

From his early student days Agassiz's collections were a
source of care and solicitude to him. In a letter written from
Munich, he values his accumulations at two hundred louis, near
one thousand dollars, and calls this a low estimate. His grand-
father gave them houseroom for a while, and they, with later
additions, were finally disposed of to the Lyceum of Neuchatel
when Agassiz entered upon his professorship there. Starting
anew after he came to America, he gathered specimens more
rapidly than before. During his first years at Cambridge an
old boathouse on the bank of the Charles River served as a
storehouse for them. By 1850 they had acquired such volume
as to make a severe drain upon his income merely to preserve

486 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

them from destruction. In that year a wooden building on
the college grounds was provided for their storage, and four
hundred dollars was allowed him as an annual grant toward
the expense of keeping them. Soon after this certain friends
subscribed twelve thousand dollars to purchase his collections,
thus relieving him and securing the precious material for Cam-
bridge permanently — provided fire did not seize upon their
frail shelter and the jars of alcohol in which many of the speci-
mens were preserved, involving all in ruin.

The creation of a great and systematically arranged zoo-
logical museum had been the dream of Agassiz's life. He
would have its collections so arranged as to show the relation
of each part of the animal kingdom to all others, so that it
might be a powerful means for training teachers of science in
the common schools, for illuminating the text-books of their
pupils, and for educating the general public. He would have,
also, in connection with it, laboratories for special students,
with abundance of duplicate specimens, and all the appliances
needed for their studies and researches. Fortunately, he was
able, in great measure, to attain his ideal. In 1858 Mr. Francis
C. Gray, to whom he had explained his purpose, died, leaving
by his will fifty thousand dollars for the establishment of a
Museum of Comparative Zoology. A grant of lands worth one
hundred thousand dollars was obtained from the Legislature of
Massachusetts, a private subscription of over seventy thousand
dollars was raised, and Harvard College gave an ample site
for a building. By these events Agassiz's vacation trip to
Europe in the summer that followed them was made doubly
happy.

The plan of the museum building provided for a main struc-
ture three hundred and sixty-four feet long, with wings two hun-
dred and five feet long, the whole forming three sides of a
square. A section of the north wing, about eighty feet in
length, was built in i859-'6o, being sufficient for the time being.
One addition was made before Agassiz's death, and since then
the original plan has been filled out by successive additions.
As soon as the first portion was ready he set about installing
the collections in it. Its laboratories were soon open to stu-
dents, and from this time on his lectures, were given there.
These pursuits, with writing, now occupied him during the col-
lege year at Cambridge. Summers he spent at Nahant, a favour-

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 487

ite resort on a rocky peninsula north of Boston Harbour, where
his father-in-law, Mr. Gary, had given him a cottage and labor-
atory. Here he could study the fauna of the seashore to ex-
cellent advantage.

When the civil war broke out he worked on in full confi-
dence that the country would weather the storm, and testified
to his faith by becoming naturalized in the darkest hour of the
struggle. He deeply felt the misrepresentations of the North
that appeared in British newspapers, and in his letters to Brit-
ish men of science took pains to convey correct ideas of Ameri-
can affairs. Early in this period he was enabled to begin issu-
ing the illustrated bulletin of the museum, by a grant of ten
thousand dollars from the Massachusetts Legislature. While
exerting himself to the utmost to advance his own department,
Agassiz was deeply interested in the welfare of Harvard as a
whole, and faithfully performed his duty as a member of the
academic council of the university.

In the spring of 1865, feeling the need of complete change
of scene, and a release from indoor occupations, Prof. Agassiz
planned a trip with his wife to Brazil. Meeting Mr. Nathaniel
Thayer, of Boston, one day, the latter engaged him in a con-
versation about the proposed trip, and in the course of it
offered to pay the expenses of half a dozen scientific assistants.
The expedition was accordingly organized and was gone sixteen
months. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company gave his party
free transport to Rio de Janeiro, the Secretary of the Navy
equipped him with a letter requesting commanders of United
States vessels of war in southern waters to give him aid and
support, while the Emperor of Brazil, with whom Agassiz had
long been in friendly relations, showered aid and attentions
upon him. The first three months in Brazil were spent in Rio
de Janeiro and vicinity, the next ten on the network of Amazo-
nian waters, and finally two months were devoted to excur-
sions along the coast and in the mountains near Ceara and Rio.
It will be remembered that his first scientific work was on Bra-
zilian Fishes, and he now made the fresh-water fauna of Brazil
one of his two subjects of inquiry. The other was the glacial
history of the southern America, which he found as plainly
written as he had expected. He brought home many hundreds
of species of new fishes where less than two hundred had been
known before. An account of the trip was written by him

488 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

and Mrs. Agassiz and published under the title A Journey
in Brazil.

In the autumn of 1869 Agassiz's overtasked brain made an
unmistakable demand for rest. He was withdrawn entirely
from mental occupation for the whole of the following winter,
and spent a period of convalescence at Deerfield, Mass., in the
next spring. Agassiz was then sixty-two years old. He had had
his periods of sickness before, but no such peremptory check
as this. Late in 1870 he returned to his work, and his recovery
of health seemed to be so complete that Prof. Benjamin Pierce,
then Superintendent of the Coast Survey, ventured to write
him, in the February following, " I am going to send a new iron
surveying steamer round to California in the course of the
summer. She will probably start at the end of June. Would
you go in her and do deep-sea dredging all the way round ?
If so, what companions will you take?" Agassiz went, taking
as companions Count de Pourtales, who had been associated
with him in many such researches, Dr. Franz Steidachner, of
the museum staff, and Mr. Blake, a student at the museum.
Mrs. Agassiz was also of the party. The steamer was the
Hassler. Owing to various delays it did not sail until Decem-
ber 4, 1871. The season and defects in the vessel's machinery
and equipments compelled a reduction of the contemplated
operations, yet the trip was profitable and extremely pleasant.
Reaching San Francisco in August, 1872, Agassiz was back in
Cambridge two months later.

During his absence some of his younger scientific associates
had formed an educational plan which they felt sure needed
only Agassiz to be a success. This was for a school of natural
history at the seashore during the summer months, in which
teachers from our schools and colleges could make their vaca-
tions serve both for recreation and for study from the open
book of Nature. Although no facilities or means for the un-
dertaking were in sight, Agassiz entered heartily into the
scheme. An appeal which he made to the Legislature of Mas-
sachusetts in its behalf the following spring was read in a news-
paper by Mr. John Anderson, of New York, who had acquired
wealth in the tobacco business. Mr. Anderson at once offered
as a site for the school the island of Penikese, off the southern
shore of Massachusetts, at the entrance of Buzzard's Bay, to-
gether with the furnished dwelling and barn upon it. Scarcely

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 489

was this gift accepted when he added an endowment of fifty
thousand dollars for the equipment of the school. Early in
July the school was opened, and a most profitable summer was
spent on the island by the fifty or sixty persons there assem-
bled. The resident professors besides Agassiz were Burt G.
Wilder and Alpheus S. Packard. Count de Pourtales was
there in charge of the dredging, for which purpose Mr. Charles
G. Galloupe had given the school a yacht. Agassiz's friend
from youth, Prof. Guyot, came to deliver a course of lectures
and remained some time.

In the fall Agassiz returned to his usual occupations. The
care of the summer school had imposed an added strain upon
his long over-burdened nervous system, and his health was
now a subject of anxiety to his friends. One day in December
he went home early from the museum, complaining of great
weariness, and, after an illness of eight days, he peacefully
passed away December 14, 1873. He was buried at Mount
Auburn. A boulder from the glacier of the Aar is his monu-
ment, and around it grow pine trees also sent from Switz-
erland.

As a naturalist, Prof. Agassiz was unwearied in his devotion
to his favourite pursuits. He worked early and late, often
denying to himself the most necessary rest and recreation ; and
his remarkably strong constitution sustained him under a strain
that would quickly have proved fatal to a man of less vigour.
His mind was pre-eminently great ; gifted with a wonderfully
retentive memory, he combined with it a power of generaliza-
tion and quick perception that places him next to Cuvier,
whose disciple he was, and whom he seemed to imitate. In
his methods of investigation he was perfectly honest, and,
though many might differ from him in his conclusions, none
could deny the absolute integrity of his convictions. His in-
tercourse with his fellow-men was pervaded by his goodness
of heart and childlike simplicity With inexperience he was
most patient and painstaking, never wearying in his efforts to
aid. Tolerant of ignorance where associated with modesty, he
had but little patience with arrogance and ignorance combined.
His students will all bear witness to the unvarying cheerfulness
and ready sympathy^in him they had learned to look up to as
their master.

Agassiz was a great naturalist, but he was a greater teacher.
32

490

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

From his student days, when he and Braun and Schimper used
to expound to each other what they had learned, down to
the summer at Penikese — his last on earth — he took no less
pleasure in imparting than in acquiring knowledge. And
his teaching was singularly impressive. He made his pupils
not only know, but understand. Laboratory work and origi-
nal research were his chief educational appliances years be-
fore other instructors had escaped from the bondage of text-
books. " If you study Nature in books," he said, " when you
go out of doors you can not find her." This mode of instruc-
tion, then so novel, often induced in his students at first a com-
ical feeling of despair. " Observation and comparison," writes
Mrs. Agassiz,* "being in his'opinion the intellectual tools most
indispensable to the naturalist, his first lesson was one in
looking. He gave no assistance; he simply left his student
with the specimen, telling him to use his eyes diligently and
report upon what he saw. He returned from time to time to
inquire after the beginner's progress, but he never asked him a
leading question, never pointed out a single feature of the
structure, never prompted an inference or a conclusion. This
process lasted sometimes for days, the professor requiring the
pupil not only to distinguish the various parts of the animal,
but to detect also the relation of these details to more general
typical features." Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, in his essay In the
Laboratory with Agassiz, gives an amusing account of such a
first lesson, entirely devoted to a single fish.

Agassiz never accepted the theory of evolution in the ani-
mal kingdom, although Darwin's Origin of Species was before
the world during the last fourteen years of his life. On this
account he is sometimes spoken of as a naturalist who fell be-
hind the progress of his age. Yet, excepting Darwin, no man of
his time did so much to carry the science of zoology forward
as he. Agassiz was to Darwin as he who lays the firm, level
track is to the builder of the locomotive. Without him evolu-
tion might still he butting against the ledges of prejudice or
floundering in the sloughs of vague knowledge. Prof. Joseph
Le Conte says, " I think it can be shown that to Agassiz, more
than to any other man, is due the credit of having established
the laws of succession of living forms in the geological history

* Louis Agassiz : his Life and Correspondence, p. 566.

JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 491

of the earth — laws upon which must rest any true theory of
evolution. Also, that to him, more than to any other man,
is due the credit of having perfected the method (method of com-
parison) by the use of which alone biological science has ad-
vanced so rapidly in modern times."* He saw clearly that
the embryonic development of the higher animals consisted of
a series of stages corresponding to an ascending scale of lower
animals, and he was the first to show that both corresponded
to the succession of forms in geologic time. He also an-
nounced the laws by which the geological succession of animal
forms proceeds — he refused only to recognise the result that
must come from the operation of these principles and laws.
To his simply but tenaciously devout mind the derivative ori-
gin of species could not be true, for it seemed to eliminate the
Creator.

* Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought, p. 38.

ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT.

1807-1884.

THE political disturbances of 1848, injurious as they were to
Switzerland, were a great and direct gain to America, for they
gave to this country Agassiz, Guyot, and Lesquereux, for a long
time eminent labourers for the advancement of American science
and the diffusion of sound learning among the people. The
refuge which this country has afforded to the politically, so-
cially, or religiously oppressed of the Old World has been abun-
dantly recompensed by the labours of those who have taken
advantage of it, but never more conspicuously than in the
above instances.

Much light is thrown upon the character of Prof. Guyot by
certain facts of his descent. The Guyot family became Prot-
estants through the preaching of the French reformer Farel, a
contemporary of Luther, and, at the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, was one of sixty families that betook themselves from
Dauphiny into the principality of Neuchatel and Valangin.
From such conscientious and high-minded stock have the
makers of the American republic been largely drawn.

Arnold Henry Guyot was born at Boudevilliers, near Neu-
chatel, September 28, 1807, being one of twelve children, and was
named after the Swiss patriot Arnold von Winkelreid. He died
at Princeton, N. J., February 8, 1884. Young Guyot's father,
David Pierre, has been described as a man of "prompt intelli-
gence and perfect integrity," and his mother as " a lady of
great personal beauty and rare nobility of character." They
were married in 1796, Madame Guyot having been Mademoi-
selle Constance Favarger, of Neuchatel. About 1818 the
family moved to Hauterive, where M. Guyot died the follow-
ing year.

In his memoir read before the National Academy of Sci-
ences, Prof. James D. Dana gives this account of Guyot's edu-

ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT.

ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT. 493

cation, based upon information obtained from Switzerland :
" Previous to the year 1818, and for a while after, Guyot was
at school at La Chaux-de-Fonds, a noted village ' at the foot
of a narrow and savage gorge of the Jura,' three thousand and
seventy feet above the sea. In 1821, being then fourteen
years of age, he entered the College of Neuchatel, where he
was a classmate of Leo Lesquereux, the botanist: * Guyot and
I,' says Lesquereux, ' were for some years brothers in study,
working in common and often spending our vacations to-
gether, either at Guyot's home at Hauterive, or with my par-
ents at Fleurier; and I owe much in life to the good influ-
ences of this friendship.' His studies were classical — Latin,
Greek, and philosophy — arranged for preparing a boy for the
profession of the law, medicine, or theology, with almost noth-
ing to foster his love of Nature." It is interesting to note that
during his school life he was president of the gymnastic club,
and one of the best of the school athletes. His slight, wiry
frame thus received a training in strength and endurance
which afterward stood him in good stead when he undertook
the immense labours of glacier study in Switzerland and of
mountain surveying in America.

In 1825 he went to complete his studies in Germany,
attending successively the gymnasia of Carlsruhe and Stutt-
gart. At Carlsruhe he resided with a family named Braun,
with which several of his relatives had long been intimate.
There he met his countryman Agassiz, who, with Imhoff and
Carl Schimper, was making a vacation visit to his friend, young
Alexander Braun, the discoverer of phyllotaxy. This period
was one of the critical points in Guyot's career. There was
formed that close and tender friendship with Agassiz which
lasted until the latter's death, and found its final expression in
the beautiful memoir of Agassiz which Guyot read before the
National Academy of Sciences in 1878. But of still greater
importance was the impulse toward the study of science
which he received from the enthusiastic group of young natu-
ralists with whom he was thus brought into daily and hourly
contact. He says of this period : " My remembrances of these
few months of alternate work and play, attended by so much
real progress, are among the most delightful of my early days.
... It would be idle to attempt to determine the measure of
mutual benefit derived by these young students of Nature

494 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

from their meeting under such favourable circumstances. It
certainly was very great, and we need no other proof of the
strong impulse they all received from it than the new ardour
with which each pursued and subsequently performed his life-
work."

From Carlsruhe young Guyot went to Stuttgart, and in
1827 returned to his home in Switzerland. Becoming im-
pressed with a sense of duty to study for the ministry, he be-
gan at Neuchatel a course leading in that direction. In 1829
he repaired to Berlin in order to complete his theological
studies; but an obstacle was thrown in his path by an injury
to his voice, produced by the severe climate of Berlin, from
which he never fully recovered. The love of science was
strong within him, and the new field which the lectures of
Steffens, Hegel, and Ritter opened up to his view decided him
to enter upon the study of Nature as his life-work. Having
thus decided, he determined to lay his foundations broad and
deep, and with this end in view he attended lectures on nearly
all departments of natural science — chemistry, physics, meteor-
ology, zoology, geology, and physical geography, alike re-
ceived attention, and his subsequent career showed the great
wisdom of this thorough preparation. In 1835 he received
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and went to Paris to take
charge of the education of the sons of Count de Pourtales-Gor-
gier. Here he resided more than four years, occupying his leis-
ure with scientific studies and extending them in vacation tours
taken with his pupils through various European countries. He
also took up the subject of history under Michelet, and, like
everything else which he touched, made it valuable in the
great pursuit of his life, the study of earth and man.

In the spring of 1838 Agassiz came to Paris, enthusiastic
upon the subject of glaciers, and induced Guyot to turn his
attention in the same direction. When the summer came on
the latter went to Switzerland and began a study on the gla-
ciers of that country. The rich results of his summer's work
were told to Agassiz, and were presented in a paper before
the Geological Society of France during the session of 1838,
at Porrentuy. This paper is mentioned in the Proceedings
of the society (Bulletin, vol. ix, p. 407), but, owing to a long
illness of the author during the following winter, it could not
be printed.

ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT. 495

To quote his own statement as to what he had then learned : *
" The glacier of the Aar, on which Agassiz began two years
later (1840) his regular system of observations, taught me the
law of the moraines. The glacier of the Rhone gave me the
law of the more rapid advance of the center of the glacier and
that of the formation of the crevasses, both transversal and
longitudinal. The glacier of Gries showed me the laminated
or ribboned (blue bands) structure of the ice deep down in the
mass of the glacier, and the law of the more rapid advance of
the top over the bottom. On the southern slope of Mont
Blanc, the great glacier of La Brenva, with its twin rocks, rising
like two dark eyes from the middle of the ice (they are indeed
called by the mountaineers the ' eyes of the glacier '), made
me understand that the motion of the glacier takes place by a
gradual displacement of its molecules under the influence of
gravity, giving it a sort of plasticity, and not by simultaneous
gliding of its whole mass, as believed by De Saussure. All
these laws, deducted from a first but attentive study of the
phenomena of the glaciers, were at that time, excepting that
of the moraines, new for science."

Agassiz was intensely interested by Guyot's discoveries,
and appears to have gone the next year and discovered the
same things. Then, with his customary enthusiasm and genius
for organizing great enterprises, he proposed a joint research in
which Guyot was to have the distribution of erratic rocks in
Switzerland as his exclusive province, resigning to Agassiz all
that concerned the structure and movement of glaciers, in
which the former had made such a brilliant beginning. As
part of this plan, in which Guyot modestly accepted the place
assigned him, the Porrentuy paper was to remain unpub-
lished. Two years later arose the fierce controversy between
Agassiz and Forbes as to priority in certain glacial discoveries.
Faithful to the spirit of the above agreement, Guyot took no
part in this wordy war, allowing Agassiz to use the work of
both as his own. The latter repulsed Forbes's claim as to the
blue bands, and secured the credit for Guyot by publishing
that part of Guyot's paper describing them, and, in order to
have the rest of the paper as ammunition for future use, de-
posited the manuscript in the archives of the Society of Natural

* Memoir of Louis Agassiz.

496

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

Sciences at Neuchatel. It was withdrawn by Guyot when he
came to America, and was not printed in full until 1883, when
he acceded to the request of the society for permission to do
this. Throughout all these years Guyot never claimed the
honour due him, contenting himself with a simple statement of
the facts after the death of Agassiz.

In 1839 Guyot accepted a call to the Academy of Neucha-
tel, where Agassiz was already settled, and there he remained
till his removal to America in 1848. His chair was that of
History and Physical Geography, and he regarded the years of
his work there as the period of his greatest intellectual ac-
tivity. During this time he gave much attention to his glacial
work, taking up the geological side of the question, the erratic
blocks and ancient extension of the glaciers, and devoting to
this work ''absolutely single-handed, seven laborious sum-
mers, from 1840 to 1847." This gigantic undertaking was
brought to a successful conclusion, though the results were but
partially published, inasmuch as the Systeme Glaciaire, by
Agassiz, Guyot, and Desor, never went further than the first
volume (Paris, 1847). Guyot's collection of five thousand speci-
mens chipped from erratic rocks, illustrating eleven erratic
basins, now fills a room in the Princeton Museum, a monument
of painstaking labour. A duplicate set was deposited in the
Museum of the Academy of Neuchatel.

The political disturbances of 1848 upset the plan for the
glacial publication as it did many others. Guyot now followed
his friend Agassiz to America, and lived for some time at Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts. After he had got settled in this coun-
try he brought over his mother, two sisters, a nephew, and
two nieces. During his first winter he delivered in Boston, in
the Lowell Institute course, the remarkable series of lectures
afterward published in the well-known book Earth and Man.
They were delivered in French and translated for publication
by Prof. Felton. These lectures were the starting-point of a
great reform in the historical and geographical teaching of
this country. For six years he was engaged by the Board of
Education of Massachusetts as a lecturer to the normal schools
on geography and the methods of teaching it, and after leav-
ing the service of that State he followed up the work there
commenced by preparing a series of geographical text-books
and large maps. To use the words of a writer in Science with

ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT. 497

regard to these books : " It is not too much to say that they
revolutionized the methods of teaching geography. Every
series of geographies which has since appeared shows the influ-
ence of Guyot." He threw aside the old routine methods, and
brought his pupil face to face with Nature, showing the bear-
ing of the earth's physical features upon every department of
human interest. His geographical works received the medal
of progress at the Vienna Exposition of 1873, and a gold medal,
the highest award, at that of Paris, in 1878.

Another pre-eminent service which Guyot rendered to Ameri-
ca was the work he did in meteorology, a science which had
received very little attention when he arrived in this country.
From 1851 to 1859 he worked at the preparation of the Meteor-
ological and Physical Tables, published by the Smithsonian In-
stitution, and also superintended the construction of accurate
meteorological instruments. In connection with Prof. Henry
he did much to establish the system of weather observations
and reports which has resulted in the Government Weather
Bureau.

In 1854 Guyot was elected to the chair of Geology and
Physical Geography at Princeton, a post which he filled for the
thirty remaining years of his life. Until compelled to cease by
the increasing infirmities of age, he devoted all his vacations
and spare time to his favourite investigations, making elaborate
and careful examinations of the mountains from New England
to South Carolina. This work involved an immense amount of
hardship and fatigue, and he was fond of describing with quaint
picturesqueness and humour his experiences in roughing it in
the mountains of Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. In 1861 he
published in the American Journal of Science and Arts the re-
sults of his work up to that time, " a memoir which remains to
this day the best existing description." Again, in 1880, he
brought out another memoir on the same subject, devoted
chiefly to the Catskills, some of the rough work for which was
done after he was seventy years old. Many shorter papers on
meteorological, physical, and geographical subjects were writ-
ten at intervals. His work during this period is a noble ex-
ample of what may be done without appropriations or endow-
ments, for in those days Princeton was very poor, and he had
to do as best he could without assistance.

As a friend and teacher Guyot will ever be held in loving

498 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

remembrance till the last of his hundreds of students shall have
followed him to the grave. His lectures were wonderfully fas-
cinating, leading his hearers step by step to heights whence
they could survey the whole field of his subject. His broad
culture, gained by the combination of the humanitarian and
scientific studies, had given him an extraordinary power of gen-
eralization, stimulating his students by showing them the rela-
tions of any subject which he handled to the whole realm of
knowledge. He was able to depict these sciences in their true
perspective without distortion or exaggeration, a power which
unhappily is not very common. Those who had the rare privi-
lege of pursuing advanced courses of study under his supervi-
sion will long remember the great stimulus to earnest work which
they received from him, and the clear, philosophical views of
Nature which he expounded.

For many years Guyot laboured under great disadvantages
from the lack of proper appliances, but he never allowed these
drawbacks to lower the character of his work. When Prince-
ton's day of prosperity came, he showed that he knew how to
apply money wisely, as before he had been able to accomplish
a great deal without it. The system of scientific expeditions
to the West, which has so greatly stimulated the study of natu-
ral science at Princeton, and added so much to the treasures
of her museums, was organized under his direction ; and the
wonderful growth of all the departments of natural science in
the college must be in very large measure attributed to the wis-
dom and foresight of Guyot.

The visible monument of Guyot's work in Princeton will
always be the Museum of Geology and Archaeology. He ex-
pended with consummate skill the sums placed at his disposal
by generous friends, and organized an enthusiastic corps of
workers, so that a superb series of collections has been gath-
ered. Thus in every department of activity his influence has
been of the utmost service to Princeton in particular, and to
American science in general.

In addition to the work of his professorship, Guyot gave
courses of lectures at the New Jersey State Normal School, in
Trenton, at the Princeton Theological Seminary, at Columbia
College and the Union Theological Seminary in New York,
and at the Smithsonian Institution. He wrote a treatise on
physical geography for Johnson's Atlas, and was one of the two

ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT.

499

principal editors of Johnson's Cyclopaedia (1874 to 1877), the
other being President Barnard, of Columbia College. Prof.
Guyot was much impressed by the correspondences to be found
between the account of creation in Genesis and the progress of
evolution contained in the geological record, and his latest
publication was devoted to this subject, being entitled Creation,
or the Biblical Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science.

Prof. Guyot received the honorary degree of LL. D. from
Union College ; he was one of the original members of the
National Academy of Sciences, an associate member of the Royal
Academy of Turin, honorary correspondent of the Royal Geo-
graphical Society of London and of the Geographical Society
of Paris, a member of the American Academy of Science, the
American Philosophical Society, and other learned bodies.

In 1867 Prof. Guyot married a daughter of the late Gov-
ernor Haines, of New Jersey, a lady of intelligence and refine-
ment, who made for him the happiest of homes. He left no
children.

Prof. Henry C. Cameron, of Princeton, who was intimately
associated with him for more than twenty-five years, has de-
scribed him " as a man of the most cultivated taste in every
respect — in music, in painting, in short, in all the fine arts. I
have known no man who could generalize as he could. His
knowledge of history and philosophy, his acquaintance with
theology, and his scientific attainments were wonderful.
Everything was assimilated and systematized so that all he had
learned seemed always to be at perfect command. A perfect
gentleman, a model Christian, a man whose equal I have never

DAVID DALE OWEN.

1807-1860.

DAVID DALE OWEN was born at Braxfield House, near
New Lanark, Scotland, June 24, 1807. He was the fourth son
and sixth child in a family of eight children. All but the
first born, a son, lived to adult age. His father, Robert
Owen, the celebrated philanthropist, was a native of North
Wales.

Robert Owen, after working in the drapery business in
London and elsewhere, entered into partnership with a me-
chanic, at eighteen years of age, in the manufacture of cotton-
spinning machines. A year later he took a position as super-
intendent of a mill employing five hundred hands, and at
twenty-two years of age he became a partner in an old-estab-
lished spinning concern of Manchester. Having become at-
tached to Miss Anne Caroline, the eldest daughter of David
Dale, proprietor of large mills at New Lanark, near Glasgow,
he arranged with his partners to buy the works of the father,
and soon after obtained for himself the hand of the daughter.
They were married in 1797. Undertaking the management
of the works (" government " he called it), he steadily im-
proved the condition of the factory hands, which had been
there as elsewhere bad to a degree now almost incredible.
Some of his measures were opposed by his partners, and led
to several dissolutions of partnership through which he re-
tained the management, but he was forced to retire in 1829,
when fifty-eight years of age. In spite of what he spent for
the workers, Owen always made the business pay well. For
several years, beginning with 1815, he worked for the passage
of acts of Parliament beneficial to factory operatives. Be-
coming convinced that social reform could be best secured
through communism, he bought from an agent of the Har-
mony Society in 1824 a tract of thirty thousand acres, and the

500

DAVID DALE OWEN.

DAVID DALE OWEN.

501

buildings of their settlement at New Harmony, Ind. The
Harmony Society was prosperous but wished to change its
location. Coming to America in the spring of 1825, he or-
ganized a community of about nine hundred persons on
a provisional plan, and then returned to Scotland to look
after his business, leaving his two oldest sons at New
Harmony.

William Maclure, of Philadelphia, a man of means and de-
voted to philanthropy and the advancement of science, took
part in founding the community. He heard of Owen's scheme
on returning to the United States after an attempt to found
an agricultural labour school in Spain, and believed that it
would afford favourable conditions for carrying out his cher-
ished idea of an educational institute founded on rational
principles. He accordingly bought a large tract of land in
New Harmony and vicinity, and removed thither his library
and collection of minerals, which were extensive, and his valu-
able scientific apparatus. He induced Gerard Troost, C. A.
Lesueur, and Thomas Say, also Joseph Neef, the pioneer of
Pestallozzian education in America, to come into the commu-
nity with him, and to act as instructors in the institution pro-
posed. When the society was divided into a manufacturing
and educational, and an agricultural branch, Maclure became
the leading spirit in the educational division.

Owen visited New Harmony a second time in the winter of
i825-*26. His third visit was made in the spring of 1828, and
by that time so many troubles had arisen that the community
was disbanded. The failure of the undertaking was due to
the one great cause that makes all communistic enterprises
impracticable in the present age — the imperfections of human
nature. In the same year Mr. Owen went to Mexico, on the
invitation of the Mexican Government, to put his ideas into
practice there, but effected nothing because the Government
insisted that the state religion of the proposed community
should be Roman Catholic. Some experiments were afterward
tried by him in Great Britain, and he continued to advocate his
views with voice and pen until his death in 1858. His followers
received the name of " Owenites." He published a consider-
able number of writings, including an autobiography.

When David Dale Owen was about four or five years of
age, Nicholas (afterward Czar of all the Russias) visited Rob-

502 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

ert Owen to make inquiries into the practical workings of Mr.
Owen's proposed new social system, as it was then being tried
at New Lanark. He was entertained several days in Braxfield
House, and took a great fancy to little " Dale," played with
him, and begged to be allowed to adopt the child, and take him
to Russia for life, but Mr. Owen refused. Years afterward,
when Nicholas had ascended the Romanoff throne, and the
little white-haired boy had emigrated to the wilds of Posey
County, Indiana, and had made a national reputation in geol-
ogy, he sent to the autocratic Czar a set of his voluminous
reports of our Northwest territories. The Czar in his own
hand acknowledged the receipt of the volumes, and heartily
congratulated his former little favourite whom he had fondled
on the hills of Scotland.

David Dale Owen's early education, which was received
from a private tutor, included the English branches, the rudi-
ments of Latin, and a course in architectural drawing. He
was also trained in the use of carpenter's tools in the me-
chanical department connected with his father's mills. He
was for a time a pupil in the grammar school, or academy, at
New Lanark. His father, while travelling on the continent
of Europe, had visited the celebrated educational institution
of Emanuel von Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, Switzerland, and was
so much pleased with the system pursued in it — neither moral,
physical, nor intellectual development being neglected — that
he sent there first his two oldest sons — Robert Dale and Wil-
liam— for a three years' course, and after their return sent
David Dale and his younger brother Richard in 1824, also for
three years. The studies of the more advanced classes were
partly elective, and David Dale and his brother chose chem-
istry, drawing, and modern languages in addition to the pre-
scribed mathematical and literary course. Dale Owen's first
interest in science was aroused during his school-boy excur^
sions over the mountains of Switzerland, while a pupil at Hof-
wyl. Robert Dale Owen, the eldest brother of the subject of
this sketch, describes in his autobiography, Threading my Way,
those excursions down into sunny Italy, over into the Tyrol,
France, and Germany, which Fellenberg's pupils most heartily
enjoyed.

David Dale and Richard returned to Scotland in September,
1826, the former being then nineteen years old. They entered

DAVID DALE OWEN. 503

the classes in physics and chemistry conducted by Dr. Andrew
Ure, author of the Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and
Mines, at Glasgow, where their mother then resided. Their
father was absent at New Harmony. For that place the two
younger sons set out in November, 1827, going by a ship
from Liverpool to New Orleans, thence up the Mississippi by
steamer, reaching the settlement on the Wabash early in Janu-
ary, 1828.

During the next three years they kept up and increased
their knowledge of chemistry by repeating the experiments
of Dr. Ure's course. Desiring to extend his knowledge of
chemistry and geology, Dale Owen in 1831 returned to Great
Britain. He had as a companion Henry D. Rogers, and they
both lived at the house of Owen's father in London while
attending the lectures of Dr. Turner at the London Uni-
versity.

After about a year abroad Owen came back to the United
States. Soon after his return he was stricken with Asiatic
cholera, which was epidemic in this country in the summer
and fall of 1832, but was fortunate enough to survive the
attack. Wishing to increase his knowledge of anatomy and
physiology as an aid in the study of paleontology, he entered
the Ohio Medical College, in Cincinnati, and was graduated
in the spring of 1836. He devoted the summer following his
graduation to gaining practical experience in field geology.
To this end he accompanied at his own expense Dr. Gerard
Troost, who was then engaged on the State Survey of Ten-
nessee.

Dr. Owen married, March 23, 1837, Caroline C. Neef, the
third daughter of Joseph Neef.

Having been appointed State Geologist of Indiana, Dr.
Owen, immediately after his marriage, entered upon the duties
of this position. He made a preliminary reconnaissance in
1837 and 1838, his report upon which was published immedi-
ately after its completion and reissued in 1859. Geological
science being little understood in the West when this document
first appeared, a brief introductory exposition of the leading
formations was given in it, after which the rich deposits of
coal, iron, and building stones within the limits of the State
were described.

The Hon. James Whitcomb, then Governor of Indiana, was

504

PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

soon afterward made Commissioner of the General Land Office,
and Congress having ordered a survey of the Dubuque and
Mineral Point districts under the direction of his bureau, he
selected Dr. Owen, with whose ability he was well acquainted,
to conduct this examination. These districts comprised eleven
thousand square miles of the Northwest Territory, now in-
cluded in the States of Wisconsin and Iowa, and the object of
the examination was to enable the commissioner to reserve
from sale those sections found to contain mineral wealth. But
a short time was allowed for the work, hence it became neces-
sary to organize a large force. The difficulties involved in
such a rapid prosecution of the survey are indicated in the
report presented by Dr. Owen to the commissioner, April 2,
1840. " In one month from the day I received my commission
and instructions," he says, "(to wit, on September xyth) I had
reached the mouth of Rock River ; engaged one hundred and
thirty-nine subagents and assistants ; instructed them in such
elementary principles of geology as were necessary to the per-
formance of the duties required of them; supplied them with
simple mineralogical tests, with the application of which they
were made acquainted ; organized twenty-four working corps,
furnished each with skeleton maps of the townships assigned
to them for examination, and placed the whole at the points
where their labours commenced, all along the line of the west-
ern half of the territory to be examined. Thence the expedi-
tion proceeded northward ; each corps required, on the average,
to overrun and examine thirty quarter sections daily, and to
report to myself on fixed days at regularly appointed stations :
to receive which reports and to examine the country in person,
I crossed the district under examination, in an oblique direc-
tion, eleven times in the course of the survey."

It was in the spring of 1840 that William Maclure died.
As administrator of his estate, his brother Alexander engaged
Dr. Owen to assort the very extensive collection of minerals
and fossils which Mr. Maclure had made in the course of his
geological exploration of the United States and his travels in
this country, Europe, and the West Indies. Specific suites were
to be distributed to certain schools and colleges, and the re-
mainder was to be retained by Dr. Owen as the nucleus of a
museum. These directions were duly carried out. With re-
gard to the portion remaining in Dr. Owen's hands The Ameri-

DAVID DALE OWEN. 505

can Geologist* states: "To this latter Dr. Owen subse-
quently added largely, by purchase from Dr. Krantz, of Ger-
many, illustrative fossils of every period; among others an
ichthyosaurus, from the Lias of Wiirtemberg, larger than the
one in the British Museum. Another interesting and valuable
specimen was a nearly complete skeleton of a gigantic mega-
theroid animal (the Megalonyx) which he exhumed near Hen-
derson, Ky. The entire collection some years after Dr. Owen's
death was purchased by the Indiana University, and unfortu-
nately nearly all consumed by fire, when the new university
building, including the museum, laboratory, and library, was
destroyed."

Dr. Owen was again called into the service of the Govern-
ment in 1847, being appointed United States Geologist and
directed to make a survey of the Chippeway land district. His
Preliminary Report, made in the following year to the Hon.
R. M. Young, then Commissioner of the Land Office, was a
document of one hundred and thirty-four octavo pages, and
was accompanied by three hundred and twenty-three litho-
graphs from his own sketches, and numerous maps, diagrams,
etc.

The scope of his examination was then enlarged so as to
embrace a fuller survey of portions of the Northwest Terri-
tory, lying mainly within the present States of Wisconsin,
Iowa, and Minnesota. This task required five years of field
work and a final year of laboratory and office work, ending
with the year 1852. A large appropriation was made by Con-
gress for illustrating and printing Owen's report, all the details
of publication being committed to him. The result was a finely
illustrated quarto volume of six hundred and thirty-eight
pages, many of the illustrations being from the original draw-
ings of Dr. Owen, who had great facility in sketching. In this
volume he applied for the first time the medal-ruling style of
engraving to cuts of fossils.

In an article on Geological Surveys in Missouri Mr. Arthur
Winslow says of Owen's reports up to this time: "These
reports supplied the guiding lines along which later strati-

* Sketch of the Life of David Dale Owen, M. D., August, 1889, to which
source acknowledgment is due for a large portion of the material entering into
the present account.
33

506 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

graphic work in the Mississippi Valley was done. Without at-
tempting here to present the history of this work, its bearing
upon future operations in Missouri calls for brief mention. In
the Indiana reports Owen makes a separation of the rocks, in
harmony with the English classification, into — i. Bituminous
coal formations. 2. Mountain limestone. 3. Grauwacke. 4.
Crystalline and inferior stratified rocks. In the succeeding
reports, as the results of wider observation and more thorough
study, the classification was changed and differentiated until,
in the final report, we find a classification which, not only in
its general features, but in many of its details, is still adhered
to in Missouri."

From 1854 to 1859 Dr. Owen was occupied wifh the geolog-
ical survey of Kentucky, having been appointed State Geolo-
gist by Governor Powell. The results of his explorations were
published as the work progressed, and compose four large oc-
tavo volumes. Dr. Robert Peter, of Lexington, Ky., performed
the chemical work of the survey and made a special report
upon it. Toward the close of his labours in Kentucky, in Octo-
ber, 1857, Dr. Owen was commissioned to conduct a geological
survey of the State of Arkansas. His principal assistant in the
Kentucky survey, Mr. E. T. Cox, filled the same position in
the new work. The chemical assistant on the latter survey
was Dr. Elderhorst, author of a work on the blowpipe.

Various incidents in his surveys prove Dr. Owen to have
been a man of indomitable perseverance. Once, while on the
Red River of the North with a Canadian voyageur, the fowling-
piece used by the latter for procuring game was discharged in
such a way as to lodge a number of shot in Dr. Owen's shoul-
der. He did not permit the accident to delay him an hour.
Again, the summer occupied with the field work of the Arkansas
survey, a considerable part of which was necessarily spent in
the rich and malarious bottom lands, proved very detrimental
to his health, bringing him homejn the autumn with a hue de-
noting serious derangement of the liver. Yet he not only per-
severed in his explorations, but occupied himself in winter with
laboratory work, usually until midnight. He did not desist
even when suffering acutely from his last illness, but dictated
the closing portions of his report until within forty-eight hours
of his death. Between Dr. Owen and Governor Conway, who
had given him the Arkansas appointment, there always ex-

DAVID DALE OWEN. 507

isted the most cordial good feeling, and the latter provided
every facility for the prosecution of the survey. Toward the
end of 1860 postal communication between the North and
South was considerably interrupted, for the breach which cul-
minated in civil war was already opening. Yet the Governor,
at considerable pains, succeeded in sending safely to New
Harmony several thousand dollars due from the appropria-
tion, and required for the publication of the second volume
of the report. Dr. Owen had died, and the issuing of this
volume, for which he had left full instructions, fell to his broth-
er and administrator, Prof. Richard Owen. The latter also
executed a second survey of Indiana, for which his brother
had been appointed in 1859, with the understanding that
Richard should do as much of the work as might be neces-
sary.

The labours above outlined resulted in undermining the
originally good constitution with which Dale Owen had been
endowed. Malarial fever, complicated with rheumatic attacks
which threatened the heart, terminated his career of usefulness
November 13, 1860. He left a widow, two sons, and two
daughters. Mrs. Owen survived her husband for more than
thirty years. His sons, Colonel Alfred Dale and William H.
Owen, adopted mercantile pursuits. The latter has also taken
much interest in astronomy, being considered one of the best
authorities in his State on his favourite science. All the chil-
dren and grandchildren of Dr. Owen show evidence of inherit-
ing a goodly share of the Owen intellect and character.

Like Robert Owen, David Dale was kind, unassuming, in-
dustrious, and easily imposed upon, because he thought all as
honest as himself. He often allowed wandering geologists to
visit his cabinets, and many valuable specimens were lost in this
way. His kindness and liberality were well known, and his
scientific work was always conscientiously performed. He is
not known to have given much attention to religious matters,
and one relative has stated that he inclined to materialism.
His fondness for chemistry and mineralogy led him to build at
a cost of ten thousand dollars a laboratory fully equipped,
which served as a material evidence of his good taste in archi-
tecture. His architectural taste was further evinced in the
artistic design which he submitted for the Smithsonian Insti-
tution building. He also tested many varieties of building

5o8 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

stone before the selection of material for that structure was
determined.

His artistic skill enabled him, besides richly illustrating his
reports, as above noted, to leave good portraits in oil of mem-
bers of his family. He transmitted to London views of the
fossil Sigillaria found erect in situ twelve miles from New Har-
mony, with a description, which were presented to the British
Association for the Advancement of Science by Sir Roderick
Murchison. He subsequently conducted Sir Charles Lyell to
the locality while the latter was his guest at New Harmony in
his second visit to the United States.

In later years Dr. Owen became completely absorbed in his
scientific labours, so much so that he frequently failed to eat or
sleep. Many stories are told of his complete " marriage to his
laboratory," as he was wont to express it. A relative was
visiting him once, and at the close of dinner he arose from the
table and asked to be excused, by saying that he had told Car-
rie before marriage that he had married his laboratory first.
Yet a better husband or a kinder father was never known. Of
the many excellent traits noticeable in common among all the
male descendants of Robert Owen, no other is so apparent
as their devotion to wife and children.

An added value was given to Dr. Owen's scientific labours
by the interest they aroused among the untutored settlers of
the West in geology and chemistry. Had it not been for him,
much that William Maclure attempted for early science in the
West would have been lost. He was the first State Geologist
of Indiana, and he also trained the second and third incum-
bents of that office, namely, Dr. Richard Owen and Prof. E.
T. Cox. Indiana owes a great debt to Dr. Owen for his early
work in science ; Kentucky and Arkansas owe fully as much.
Dr. Owen also largely prepared A. H. Worthen for his work
later as State Geologist of Illinois. In fact, the whole Missis-
sippi Valley is indebted to this mild-mannered and hard-work-
ing scientist for blazing the way for the hosts who have fol-
lowed.

THE END.

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