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THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA.

Channing, "has helped to form me so much as that beach. There I lifted up my voice in praise amidst the tempest. There, softened by beauty, I poured out my thanksgiving and contrite confessions. There, in reverential sympathy with the mighty power around me, I became conscious of power within."

How long before the human soul shall reach so full a development, that faith and works, reason and authority, human ability and divine grace shall be deemed harmonious, and men cease to be divided by an Augustine and Pelagius, or an Edwards and Channing? Although this consummation may not soon, if ever, be, and opinions may still differ, charity has gained somewhat in the lapse of centuries. Those who are usually considered the followers of Pelagius have been first to print a complete work of Augustine in America-his Confessions. The Roman Church, backed by imperial power and not checked by Augustine, drove the intrepid Briton into exile and an unknown grave. He who more than any other man wore his mantle of moral freedom in our age died, honored throughout Christendom, and the bell of a Roman cathedral joined in the requiem as his remains were borne through the thronged streets of the city of his home.

THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA.

THIS association originated in the social gatherings of a few friends of natural science in the city of Philadelphia. Its founders were John Speakman, a member of the Society of Friends, engaged in business as an apothecary, and Jacob Gilliams, a dentist. These gentlemen were in the habit of meeting Thomas Say and William Bartram at the residence of the latter at Kingsessing, near Philadelphia, and the pleasure and profit resulting from these interviews led to the desire of forming a plan by which reunions of these and other friends of science could be secured at stated intervals.

A meeting was called for this purpose by Messrs. Speakman and Gilliams at the residence of the first named on the evening of January 25, 1812, at which the following persons were present by invitation-Dr. Gerard Troost, Dr. Camillus McMahon Man, Messrs. John Shinn, Jr., Nicholas S. Parmentier. Steps were taken to form an organization, which was perfected on the 21st of March following, and the name of Thomas Say was by general consent added to the number of original members. An upper room was rented, and the collection of books and specimens commenced. Thomas Say was appointed the first Curator.

THOMAS SAY was born in the city of Philadelphia, July 27, 1787. He was the son of Dr. Benjamin Say, a druggist, who introduced him into the same business. He subsequently became associated in business with his friend Speakman. By injudicious endorsements the partnership became involved, and the business brought to a close. Mr. Say afterwards became curator of the Academy. His simple habits of life, while thus occupied, are pleasantly described by Dr. Ruschenberger:

"He resided in the Hall of the Academy, where he made his bed beneath a 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 expressed a wish

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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."

In 1818 Mr. Say joined Messrs. Maclure, Ord, and Peale, in a scientific exploration of the islands and coast of Georgia. They visited East Florida for the same purpose; but their progress to the interior was arrested by the hostilities between the people of the United States and the Indians. In 1819-20 he accompanied as chief geologist the expedition headed by Major Long to the Rocky Mountains, and in 1823 to the sources of the St. Peter's river and adjoining country. In 1825 he removed with Maclure and Owen to the New Harmony settlement. He remained after the separation of his two associates as agent of the property, and died of a fever, October 10, 1834.

His chief work is his American Entomology, published at Philadelphia in. three beautifully illustrated octavo volumes, by S. A. Mitchell, in 1824-5. He also commenced a work on American Conchology, six numbers of which were published before his death. He was also a frequent contributor to the journal of the Academy and other similar periodicals. His discoveries in Entomology are said to have probably been greater than those ever made by any single individual.*

GERARD TROOST, the first President of the Academy, was born at Bois le Duc, Holland, March 15, 1776. He was educated in his native country, received the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Leyden, and practised for a short time at Amsterdam and the Hague. He then entered the army, where he served at first as a private soldier and afterwards as an officer of the first rank in the medical department. In 1807 he was sent by Louis Buonaparte, then King of Holland, to Paris to pursue his favorite studies in natural science. He there translated into the Dutch language Humboldt's Aspects of Nature.

In 1809 he was sent by the King of Holland to Java, on a tour of scientific observation. He took passage from a northern port in an American vessel to escape the British cruisers, proposing to sail to New York and thence to his destination. The vessel was, however, captured by a French privateer, and carried into Dunkirk, where the naturalist was imprisoned until the French government was informed of his position. On his release, he proceeded to Paris, where he obtained a passport for America. embarked at Rochelle, and arrived at Philadelphia in 1810.

He

After the abdication of Louis Buonaparte, he determined to make the United States his permanent residence, and turned his chemical knowledge to good account by establishing a manufactory of alum in Maryland.

Dr. Troost resigned the presidency of the Academy in 1817, and was succeeded by Mr. Maclure. He was afterwards, about 1821, appointed the first Professor of Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy at Philadelphia, but resigned in the following year.

• Encyclopædia Americana, xiv. 583.

W176 1764. He studied medicine, and served as a vo

In 1825 he joined Owen's community at New Harmony, where he remained until 1827, when he removed to Nashville. In the following year he became professor of Chemistry, Geology, and Mineralogy in the University of that city, and in 1831 Geologist of the state of Tennessee, an office he retained until its abolition in 1849.

Dr. Troost died at Nashville on the 14th of August, 1850. During his presidency the Academy removed, in 1815, to a hall built for its accommodation by Mr. Gilliams, in Gilliams court, Arch street, and placed at its disposal at an annual rent of two hundred dollars.

WILLIAM MACLURE, the successor of Dr. Troost, was born in Scotland in 1763. After acquiring a large fortune by his commercial exertions in London, he established himself about the close of the century in the United States. In 1803 he returned to England as one of a commission appointed to settle claims of American merchants for spoliations committed by France during her revolution.

On his return, he made a geological survey of the United States. "He went forth," says a writer in the Encyclopædia Americana,* "with his hammer in his hand, and his wallet on his shoulder, pursuing his researches in every direction, often amid pathless tracts and dreary solitudes, until he had crossed and recrossed the Alleghany mountains no less than fifty times. He encountered all the privations of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and exposure, month after month, and year after year, until his indomitable spirit had conquered every difficulty and crowned his enterprise with success."

Mr. Maclure published an account of his researches, with a map and other illustrations, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, in 1817. It bears date January 20, 1809, and was the first work of the kind undertaken in the United States. Mr. Maclure became a member of the Academy on the sixth of June, 1812, and its president on the thirtieth of December, 1817. He was a munificent benefactor as well as valuable member of the association, his gifts amounting in the aggregate to $25,000.

One of his favorite plans of public usefulness was the establishment of an University for the study of the natural sciences. Selecting Owen's settlement at New Harmony as the field of his operations, he persuaded Dr. Troost and Messrs. Say and Lesueur to accompany him in 1825 to that place. After the failure of the scheme Mr. Maclure visited Mexico, in the hope of restoring his impaired health, and died at the capital of that country during a second visit, on the 23d of March, 1840.

Mr. Maclure presented over five thousand volumes to the library of the academy, and purchased in Paris the copperplates of several important and costly works on botany and ornithology, with a view to their reproduction in a cheap form in the United States. It is to his liberality thus exerted, that we owe the American edition of Michaud's Sylva by Thomas Nuttall.

On the death of Mr. Maclure, Mr. William Hembel became president of the Academy. Mr. Hembel was born at Philadelphia, September 24,

* xiv. 407.

lunteer in the medical department of the army in Virginia during a portion of the Revolution, but owing to a deafness which he believed would incapacitate him for duty as a practitioner, refused to apply for the diploma which he was fully qualified to receive. He, however, practised for many years gratuitously among the poor of the city, and was in other respects conspicuous for benevolence. His favorite branch of study was chemistry.

Mr. Hembel resigned his presidency in consequence of advancing infirmity, in December, 1849, and died on the 12th of June, 1851. He was succeeded by Dr. Morton.

SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON was born at Philadel phia in 1799. His father died when he was quite young, and he was placed at a Quaker school by his mother, a member of that society. From this he was removed to a counting-house, but manifesting a distaste for business was allowed to follow the bent of his inclination and study for a profession. That of medicine was the one selected-Quaker tenets tolerating neither priest nor lawyer. After passing through the usual course of preliminary study under the able guidance of the celebrated Dr. Joseph Parrish, he received a diploma, and soon after sailed for Europe, on a visit to his uncle. He passed two winters in attendance on the medical lectures of the Edinburgh school, and one in a similar manner at Paris, travelling on the Continent during the summer. He returned in 1824, and commenced practice. He had before his departure been inade a member of the Academy, and now took an active part in its proceedings. Geology was his favorite pursuit. In 1827 he published an Analysis of Tabular Spar from Bucks County; in 1834 A Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States; in the same year a medical work, Illustrations of Palmonary Consumption, its Anatomical Cháracters, Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment, with twelve colored plates; and in 1849, An Illus trated System of Human Anatomy, Special, General, and Microscopic. During this period he was actively engaged in the duties of his profession, having, in addition to a large private practice, filled the professorship of Anatomy in Pennsylvania College, from 1839 to 1843, and served for several years as one of the physicians and clinical teachers of the Alms-House Hospital.

He commenced in 1830 his celebrated collection of skulls, one of the most important labors of his life. He thus relates its origin :

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Having had occasion, in the summer of 1830, to deliver an introductory lecture to a course of Anatomy, I chose for my subject The different Forms of the Skull, as exhibited in the five Races of Men. Strange to say, I could neither buy nor borrow a cranium of each of these races, and I finished my discourse without showing either the Mongolian or the Malay. Mongolian or the Malay. Forcibly impressed

with this great deficiency in a most important branch of science, I at once resolved to make a collection for myself."

His friends warmly seconded his endeavors, and the collection, increased by the exertions of over one hundred contributors in all parts of the world, soon became large and valuable. At the

1842.

time of his death it numbered 918 human speci- | afterwards continued at irregular intervals until mens. It has been purchased by subscription for, and is now deposited in, the Academy, and is by far the finest collection of its kind in existence.

The first use made of the collection by Morton was the preparation of the Crania Americana, published in 1839, with finely executed lithographic illustrations. It was during the progress of this work that he became acquainted with George R. Gliddon, of Cairo, in consequence of an application to him for Egyptian skulls. It was followed after the arrival of Mr. Gliddon, in 1842, by an intimate acquaintance, and the publication in 1844 of a large and valuable work, the Crania Egyptiaca.

Morton finally adopted the theory of a diverse origin of the human race, and maintained a controversy on the subject with the Rev. Dr. John Bachman of Charleston.

Dr. Morton died at Philadelphia, after an illness of five days, on the 15th of May, 1851. A selection of his inedited papers was published, with additional contributions from Dr. J. C. Nott and George R. Gliddon, under the title of Types of Mankind: or Ethnological Researches, based upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and upon their Natural, Geographical, Philological, and Biblical History. It is prefaced by a memoir of Dr. Morton, to which we are indebted for the materials of this notice.

JOSIAH C. NOTT, the son of the Hon. Abraham Nott, was born in Union District, South Carolina, March 31, 1804. His father removed with his family in the following year to Columbia. After his graduation at the college of South Carolina in 1824, Mr. Nott commenced the study of medicine in Philadelphia, where he received his diploma in 1828. After officiating as demonstrator of Anatomy to Drs. Physick and Hosack for two years, he returned to Columbia, where he remained, engaged in practice, until 1835. A portion of the two succeeding years was passed in professional study abroad. In 1836 he removed to Mobile, Alabama, where he has since resided. In 1848 he published his chief work-The Biblical and Physical History of Man. He has also written

much on Medical Science, the Natural History of Man, Life Insurance, and kindred topics, for the American Journal of Medical Science, the Charleston Medical Journal, New Orleans Medical Journal, De Bow's Commercial Review, the Southern Quarterly Review, and other periodicals.

MR. GEORGE ORD, the friend, assistant, and biographer of Wilson, himself a distinguished ornithologist, succeeded Dr. Morton.

In 1826 the Academy purchased a building, originally erected as a Swedenborgian place of worship, to which its collections were removed. Their increase, after a few years, rendered enlarged accommodations necessary, and on the 25th of May, 1839, the corner-stone of the building in Broad street, now occupied by the institution, was laid. The first meeting was held in the new hall on the 7th of February, 1840. In 1847 an enlargement became necessary, and was effected.

In 1817 the Society commenced the publication of The Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences. It was published at first monthly, and VOL. II.-37

In March, 1841, the publication of the Proceedings of the Academy was commenced. It is still continued; the numbers appearing once in every two months. A second series of the Journal was commenced in December, 1847.

These periodicals are supported by subscrip tions, and by the interest on a legacy of two thousand dollars, bequeathed by Mrs. Elizabeth Stott.*

JOHN C. FREMONT.

JOHN CHARLES FREMONT is the son of a French emigrant gentleman, who married a Virginia lady. He was born in South Carolina, January, 1813. His father dying when he was four years old, the care of his education devolved upon his mother. He advanced so rapidly in his studies that he was graduated at the Charleston College at the age of seventeen. After passing a short time in teaching mathematics, by which he was enabled to contribute to the support of his mother and family, he devoted himself to civil engineering with such success that he obtained an appointment in the government expedition for the survey of the head waters of the Mississippi, and was afterwards employed at Washington in drawing maps of the country visited. He next proposed to the Secretary of War to make an exploration across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. The plan was approved, and in 1842, with a small company of men, he explored and opened to commerce and emigration the great South Pass. In his Report, published by government on his return, he portrayed the natural features, climate, and productions of the region through which he had passed, with great fulness and clearness. His adventures were also described in a graphic and animated style; and the book, though a government report, was very widely circulated, and has since been reprinted by publishers in this country and England, and translated into various foreign languages. Stimulated by his success and love of adventure, he soon after planned an expedition to Oregon. Not satisfied with his discoveries in approaching the mountains by a new route, crossing their summits below the South Pass, visiting the Great Salt Lake and effecting a junction with the sur-veying party of the Exploring Expedition, he determined to change his course on his return. With but twenty-five companions, without a guide, and in the face of approaching winter, he entered a vast unknown region. The exploration was one of peril, and was carried through with great hardship and suffering, and some loss of life. No tidings were received from the party for nine months, while, travelling thirty-five hundred miles in view of, or over perpetual snows, they made known the region of Alta California, including the Sierra Nevada, the valleys of San Joaquin and Sacramento, the gold region, and almost the whole surface of the country. Fremont returned to Washington in August, 1844. He wrote a Report of his second

*Notice of the Origin, Progress, and Present Condition of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. By W. J.. W. Ruschenberger, M. D., Phila. 1852.

expedition, which he left as soon as completed in the printer's hands, to depart on a third, the object of which was, the examination in detail of the Pacific coast, and the result, the acquisition of California by the United States. He took part in some of the events of the Mexican war, and at its close, owing to a difficulty with two American commanders, was deprived of his commission by a court-martial, and sent home a prisoner. His commission was restored on his arrival at Washington, by the President, and he soon after again started for California on a private exploration, to determine the best route to the Pacific. On the Sierra San Juan one third of his force of thirty-three men, with a number of mules, was frozen to death; and their brave leader, after great hardships, arrived at Santa Fe on foot, and destitute of everything. The expedition was refitted and reinforced, and Fremont started again, and in a hundred days, after penetrating through and sustaining conflicts with Indian tribes, reached the Sacramento. The judgment of the military court was reversed, the valuable property acquired during his former residence secured, and the State of California returned her pioneer explorer to Washington as her first senator in 1850.

Colonel Fremont married a daughter of the Hon. Thomas H. Benton. He has, during the recesses of Congress, continued his explorations at his private cost and toil, in search of the best railway route to the Pacific.

The Reports to Government of his expeditions have been the only publications of Col. Fremont; but these, from the exciting nature, public interest, and national importance of their contents, combined with the clear and animated mode of their presentation, have sufficed to give him a place as author as well as traveller.

JAMES NACK.

JAMES NACK holds a well nigh solitary position in literature, as one, who deprived from childhood of the faculties of hearing and speech, has yet been able not only to acquire by education a full enjoyment of the intellectual riches of the race, but to add his own contribution to the vast treasury. He was born in the city of New York, the son of a merchant, who by the loss of his fortune in business was unable to afford him many educational advantages. The want was, however, supplied by the care of a sister, who taught the child to read before he was four years old. The activity of his mind and ardent thirst for knowledge carried him rapidly forward from this point, until in his ninth year an accident entailed upon him a life-long misfortune.

As he was carrying a little playfellow in his arms down a flight of steps his foot slipped; to recover himself he caught hold of a heavy piece of furniture, which falling upon him injured his head so severely, that he lay for several hours without sign of life, and for several weeks mentally unconscious. When he recovered it was found that the organs of sound were irrevocably destroyed. The loss of hearing was gradually followed by that of speech. He was placed as soon as possible in the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, where the interrupted course of his

mental training was soon resumed. He showed great aptitude for the acquirement of knowledge, and an especial facility in the mastery of foreign languages. After leaving the institution he continued, with the aid of the few books he possessed, a private course of study.

He had for some time before this written occasional poems, of one of which, The Blue Eyed Maid, he had given a copy to a friend, who handed it to his father, Mr. Abraham Asten. That gentleman was so much struck by its promise, that he sought other specimens of the author's skill. These confirming his favorable impressions, he introduced the young poet to several literary gentlemen of New York, under whose auspices a volume of his poems, written between his fourteenth and seventeenth years, was published. It was received with favor by critics and the public. Mr. Nack soon after became an assistant in the office of Mr. Asten, then clerk of the city and county. In 1838 he married, and in 1839 published his second volume, Earl Rupert and other Tales and Poems, with a memoir of the author, by Mr. Prosper M. Wetmore.

THE OLD CLOCK.

Two Yankee wags, one summer day,
Stopped at a tavern on their way,
Supped, frolicked, late retired to rest,
And woke to breakfast on the best.

The breakfast over, Tom and Will Sent for the landlord and the bill; Will looked it over; "Very rightBut hold! what wonder meets my sight! Tom! the surprise is quite a shock!”— "What wonder? where"-"The clock! the clock !"

Tom and the landlord in amaze
Stared at the clock with stupid gaze,
And for a moment neither spoke;
At last the landlord silence broke-
"You mean the clock that's ticking there?
I see no wonder I declare;
Though may be, if the truth were told,
'Tis rather ugly-somewhat old;
Yet time it keeps to half a minute;
But, if you please, what wonder's in it?"

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Tom; don't you recollect," said Will, "The clock at Jersey near the mill, The very image of this present, With which I won the wager pleasant?” Will ended with a knowing wink-Tom seratched his head and tried to think. "Sir, begging pardon for inquiring," The landlord said, with grin admiring, "What wager was it?"

"You remember
It happened, Tom, in last December,
In sport I bet a Jersey Blue

That it was more than he could do,
To make his finger go and come
In keeping with the pendulum,
Repeating, till one hour should close,
Still, Here she goes-and there she goes-
He lost the bet in half a minute."

"Well, if I would, the deuse is in it!"
Exclaimed the landlord; "try me yet,
And fifty dollars be the bet,"
“Agreed, but we will play some trick

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To make you of the bargain sick!"
I'm up to that!"

"Don't make us wait,

Begin. The clock is striking eight."
He seats himself, and left and right
His finger wags with all its might,
And hoarse his voice, and hoarser grows,
With-here she goes-and there she goes!"
'Hold!" said the Yankee, "plank the ready!"
The landlord wagged his finger steady,
While his left hand, as well as able,
Conveyed a purse upon the table.
"Tom, with the money let's be off!"
This made the landlord only scoff;
He heard them running down the stair,
But was not tempted from his chair;
Thought he, "the fools! I'll bite them ye.!
So poor a trick shan't win the bet."
And loud and loud the chorus rose

Of, "here she goes-and there she goes!"
While right and left his finger swung,
In keeping to his clock and tongue.
His mother happened in, to see
Her daughter; where is Mrs. B-?
When will she come, as you suppose?
Son!

“Here she goes—and there she goes !”
"Here?-where?"--the lady in surprise
His finger followed with her eyes;
"Son, why that steady gaze and sad?
Those words-that motion--are you mad?
But here's your wife-perhaps she knows
And"

“Here she goes—and there she goes !”
His wife surveyed him with alarm,
And rushed to him and seized his arm;
He shook her off, and to and fro

His fingers persevered to go,

While curled his very nose with ire,
That she against him should conspire,
And with more furious tone arose

The, "here she goes-and there she goes!"
"Lawks!" screamed the wife, "I'm in a whirl!"
Run down and bring the little girl;
She is his darling, and who knows
But".

"Here she goes-and there she goes!"
"Lawks! he is mad! what made him thus?
Good Lord! what will become of us?
Run for a doctor-run-run--run-
For Doctor Brown and Doctor Dun,
And Doctor Black, and Doctor White,
And Doctor Grey, with all your might."

The doctors came and looked and wondered,
And shook their heads, and paused and pondered,
Till one proposed he should be bled,

"No--leeched you mean"-the other said

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Clap on a blister," roared another,

No-cup him"-" no-trepan him, brother!" A sixth would recommend a purge,

The next would an emetic urge,

The eighth, just come from a dissection,
His verdict gave for an injection;
The last produced a box of pills,
A certain cure for earthly ills;

"I had a patient yesternight,"

Quoth he, "and wretched was her plight,
And as the only means to save her,
Three dozen patent pills I gave her,
And by to-morrow I suppose
That"-

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Here she goes-and there she goes !"

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PROFESSOR of Moral Philosophy in Harvard College, and late editor of the North American Review, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He became a graduate at Cambridge in 1833, and from 1835 to 1839 was tutor in the institution in the department which he now occupies, of Philosophy and Political Economy. He subsequently occupied himself exclusively with literary pursuits, while he continued his residence at Cambridge. In 1842 he published Critical Exsays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy; and in the same year an edition of Virgil, for the use of schools and colleges. In January, 1843, he became editor of the North American Review, and discharged the duties of this position till the close of 1853, when the work passed into the hands of its present editor, Mr. A. P. Peabody. During the latter portion of his editorship of the Review, Mr. Bowen's articles on the Hungarian question attracted considerable attention by their opposition to the popular mode of looking upon the subject under the influences of the Kossuth agitation.

In the winter of 1848 and 1849 Mr. Bowen delivered before the Lowell Institute in Boston a series of Lectures on the Application of Meta·

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