/
PROFESSOR FRANCIS'
DISCOURSE
NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
       PROFESSOR  FRANCIS'





DISCOURSE





                ON





     NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
DISCOURSE:
DELIVERED UPON THE OPENING OF THE
NEW HALL
N  E  W-Y  ORK    LYCEUM
NATURAL  HISTORY.
BY
        JOHN  W.  FRANCIS,  M.D.

MEMBER OF THE WERNERIAN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH--LATE
  PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA, MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE, INSTITUTES OF
  MEDICINE, AND OF OBSTETRICS AND THE DISEASES OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN,
  IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, ETC.

. ■,-■ \j NEW-YORK
H. LUDWIG,  PRINTER, 72, VESE Y-STREET.
M DCCC XLI. 
 
NOTICE.
     The partial estimate of the following Discourse, by a few
friends, not altogether unconversant in Natural History, has led
to its present appearance before the public.   The  occasion and
circumstances which called it forth prevented a more extensive
exposition of the ample theme to which it relates.   An  eve-
ning's  exercise was  little fitted to develope matters, the outlines
of which might more appropriately fill a volume.   Nor did the
address delivered, or now printed, contain all that was originally
prepared : what is submitted, being merely a general and hasty
view of the objects to which the scientific Institution, by whose
request it was written, are  devoted.
                                                J. W. F. 
 
DISCOURSE,  &c.
  RESPECTED AUDITORS :

      I have no language  adequately to express to
you the sensations which influence me on this  occa-
sion.  Properly to address  an assembly like the pre-
sent, composed of the enlightened and refined in the
elegancies of literature and taste, among whom  are
numerous individuals eminent in the several liberal
professions,  and many who have signalized them-
selves by their studies and investigations in the phi-
losophy of mind and matter, challenges of the speaker
an acquaintance with the  extensive fields of  natu-
ral knowledge, which it  would be supererogation in
me to attempt for a moment to assume.  To become
a proficient in the study of the  works of nature, con-
stituting a science of the accumulated wisdom of ages,
and commanding consideration equally by its profun-
dity and its  comprehensiveness, demands the  union
of pursuits,  and feelings, and capabilities, which are
rarely allowed to those who conscientiously exercise
the responsible art of healing,  however ardent may
be their love of knowledge,  and however exalted their 
8
admiration of the harmonies of the creation.  While,
therefore, I deem my appointment to the present hon-
our an unequivocal demonstration of your generous
disposition towards me,  I shall  endeavour to  dis-
charge the trust with what ability I  may;  and if, be-
cause  of the poverty of  my attainments, I do not
appear  before  you in the plenary  attire  of a high
priest of the science, your benevolence will tolerate
my approach as a conscientious and  humble worship-
per at the shrine of the temple.
  This day marks another epoch in  the historical oc-
currences of New-York.   The 28th of December,
1836, is signalized by unfolding the  portals of a new
Temple of Science for the cultivators of natural know-
ledge, by the establishment of this  Hall of the Ly-
ceum of Natural History.  A city long recognized as
conspicuous by her various literary and scientific in-
stitutions, and prodigal in  her  numerous benevolent
and humane associations,  again adds to our admira-
tion  of the worth  and virtues  of her citizens by the
spacious and commanding edifice in  which we are at
this time convened.  May the impulse which so sig-
nal an  occasion creates awaken the members of this
society, however laudable their previous efforts, to an
enlarged zeal in furtherance of the  objects of their
organization; and let us hope that at no remote period
the trophy of scientific renown  may be sustained by
this metropolis with no less an undisputed sway, than
that with which she now bears the insignia of her
distinction as the punctum saliens of internal improve- 
9
ment and  commercial enterprise in the new world.
Henceforth let it be our just pride and emulation to
render suitable offerings for the bounties we have re-
ceived from our disinterested patrons; letus.be emu-
lous of that distinction, which the proper cultivation
of the natural sciences bestows on all who, with suit-
able devotion, investigate the mysteries of the earth
and animated nature,  and study, with a pure enthusi-
asm, the vast and innumerable subjects which a Divine
intelligence has placed within the contemplation of
our powers.   Let us, in the grandeur  and sublimity
of  our  pursuits remember while we enter upon the
several topics of inquiry, how extensive and momen-
tous each may be rendered to the immediate interests
of  man, and how  subservient they all intrinsically
are, in  strengthening and elevating the human mind
to a proper estimate of its own exalted  attributes and
ultimate destiny.
   The  Institution, by the authority  of which we are
at present assembled,  has been for many years past,
familiarly known as the New-York Lyceum of Natu-
ral History.  The appellation of Lyceum was chosen
by its  original founders, not without due  considera-
tion.   Consecrated as that  name long  ago had  been
by the school which Aristotle founded, and in which
the  peripatetics discoursed,  it has been for ages ap-
propriated to places where the  sciences are unfolded,
and physical truth sought by evidence and demonstra-
tion.  Thus  we find,  that when the Athenians had at
length become fatigued with the ideal and subtle dis-
            2 
10
quisitions at the academy of Plato, that the Lyceum of
the Stagirite enkindled new desires of  improvement,
the better to comprehend the mysteries of things by
interrogating Nature herself.   Natural  History then
assumed the dignity of a series of physical and anato-
mical facts, and the philosophy of organization  was
built upon those deep and broad principles on which
all solid knowledge must  ultimately rest.  Without,
therefore, attempting to appropriate  to  Aristotle the
sole honour of being the father of the only sure me-
thod of philosophizing, of deducing general principles
from facts  and well-wrought  experiments, we may
nevertheless  admit, that this penetrating genius and
wonderful man, in his practical positions, like Hip-
pocrates in the medical art, pursued, in no limited de-
gree the inductive theory which subsequently immor-
talized Lord Bacon.  I think we are  warranted in
this conclusion by an  examination of the physical
writings of Aristotle, particularly of that portion de-
voted to the history of animals.  Natural History with
him, was not  merely a  subject of observation, but a
science subjected to the rules of philosophical reason-
ing, by the powers of his elevated mind.  Where the
like or kindred studies  are prosecuted, and for simi-
lar ends, to unfold the Eleusinian nature of things, and
enlarge the treasures of intellect, it seems judicious
to have designated such an association by a name so
universally known and  appropriate ; and I am happy
to  add, that  in adopting  that of the  illustrious an-
cient, my colleagues in  this society have neither been 
11
unmindful of the obligations which  it imposes,  nor
idle venerators of the high title they bear.
  Philosophers  have  repeatedly bewildered  them-
selves, in their endeavours to assign some particular
era as the precise time  when originated their favour-
ite  study, or  cherished science,  or art.   But,  as re-
lates to Natural History, we can  be at no  loss to con-
sider man to have been engaged  as Nature's historian
immediately upon his first occupation, when he came
from the hands of his Maker.   The earth on  which
he walked—the vegetables which added to its beauty
and its fragrance—the air in which it moved—the  wa-
ters by which it was surrounded, and their respective
inhabitants—all necessarily became objects of his at-
tention, and called into exercise his faculties of  obser-
vation and reflection.   To adopt the language  of the
eminently celebrated Bishop Home, " When man was
first formed, Creation was his book and God his pre-
ceptor.   The elements were  so many  letters,  by
means of which, when  rightly understood and put to-
gether, the wisdom, power and goodness of the  Great
Author  became legible to him."  Natural History,
therefore, embracing man himself, a being of life, of
motion, and of feeling, and the innumerable phenome-
na of the earth and the several  kingdoms of nature,
unfolded to his contemplation the richest materials of
study, nor would these fail by the  instruction  which
they imparted, to create in his mind ideas of immea-
surable  grandeur and sublimity.   Imperfect as were
his acquisitions at  this  early period, they  were  suffi- 
12
cient to quicken his feelings by emotions of the purest
character :  he must have felt how prolific, how won-
derful is the creation ; how bountiful her resources ;
with what profusion she has distributed the means of
sustenance ; how beneficent the scheme of its dura-
tion ; how unspeakably good its Author.  In short, no
sooner had he  assumed the full employment of his
physical and intellectual faculties, than he laboured
to ascertain, with more or less success, the properties
of animals, and the virtues of plants, and to discrimi-
nate such as were best adapted to his wants, and thus
to become acquainted with the power, and wisdom and
benevolence of his Creator, through the  instrumenta-
lity of his works.  Therefore has been given to him
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls
of the  air, and over the cattle of the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth ; and
man has been justly pronounced the interpreter of the
works  of nature.  Hence a natural theology  is inter-
woven and inseparably connected with his very being.
  To studies involving the consideration of  subjects
such as those to which I have just alluded, is this
Lyceum especially devoted.  To the most casual ob-
server  it is apparent how important and laudable they
are.   They constitute the very  store-house which
supplies the laboratory of man's most available ope-
rations ; they embrace the various objects which are
connected with  his most common wants and enjoy-
ments; they  grasp  the  useful  and the practical.
Simultaneously with  his birth he becomes dependant 
13
upon  nature  for his future  existence : his means of
living and his duration are derived from this source ;
and it  has justly been observed, before one addition
can be made to his accommodation  or comfort, he
must go to nature for materials,  and to a knowledge
of nature for  the method of using them.
   How inadequate, therefore, is any language to ex-
press in just terms the value of the inquiries  which
must  engage this Society, when we consider this sub-
ject in the various relations of which it is susceptible.
Nature as the source of all  the sciences ;  while she
herself furnishes all the means, the powers and the
appliances by which they are rendered subservient
to the  interests of mankind.   But I forbear to en-
large :  the truth is too palpable, and illustration is
superfluous.  He who  has but a tyro's acquaintance
with the elementary principles of natural philosophy
and the mechanical arts, will at once perceive the
correctness of our observations and the fitness of our
conclusions.
   I have thus assumed the prerogatives of man in
his primitive state ; at that period, when the land had
sprung into  existence, and the unformed elements,
bursting from chaos, were resolving themselves into
this  beautiful fabric of creation—when he began to
breathe, and move among the creatures of the earth.
In contemplating these phenomena, the rudiments of
all knowledge must have  then been developed. Man
was  not  unprovided with the means of discovery.
Necessity and curiosity  were among the  effective 
14
 causes of his intellectual and physical prowess; and
 though we possess but imperfect records of its regular
 progression,  the  indomitable principle implanted  in
 the  human being,  to know himself and  all around
 him, has daily increased, from the dawnings of con-
 jecture to the solid acquisition  of that wisdom which
 points to his high  destiny.  Volumes indeed might
 be written detailing the innumerable  errors and ab-
 surdities which have at different periods retarded him
 ere he arrived at the glorious results of real instruc-
 tion and  certain truth.  Ages of inquiry may have
 been exhausted in  perplexing  research ere an addi-
 tional  fact or a new principle was  ascertained ; but
 his march has ever  been onward, and his penetrating
 glance at length darts through all nature, and bears
 testimony to the vastness of his conceptions and the
 insatiable grasp of  his powers.   Compared  with the
 aggregate mass of  knowledge now within the scope
 of his faculties, little, comparatively, may have been
 the contributions of any individual, or nation, or age.
 It is utterly impossible that it could have been other-
 wise;  but the  countless succession of labourers in
 the  cause  during the revolutions  of  centuries have
 given results which must inspire the deepest venera-
 tion  and gratitude in those who now live in the full
 fruition of these accumulated results.   Let us select
 for example,  the  two  branches of human pursuit
 which seem to have been among the earliest that ar-
 rested the attention and excited the deepest regard
—Botany and Astronomy.  The sacred writings in- 
15
form us of the skill of Solomon: with all due deference,
it was, however, but the  germ of vegetable science.
Yet  have  investigations  been  prosecuted  in  this
department with such solicitude, that we are at pre-
sent able to enumerate more than one hundred thou-
sand species of plants,  and have invoked the aid of a
Linnseus and a Jussieu to dispose and classify them.
The Chaldean shepherds, while reposing under a
cloudless sky, observed the starry firmament. By what
other people of antiquity the cultivation of this exalted
study was deemed a business, we are precluded from
knowing;  but this humble beginning of astronomy
has resulted in the discovery of new worlds—given
birth to the comprehensive and sublime speculations
of a Kepler, a Newton, and a La Place, and enrolled
our Bowditch among the names imperishable in phi-
losophy.—All are but parts of one stupendous whole.
   To  select a theme becoming the present interest-
ing  occasion  has  not  been without its difficulties.
Nothing, perhaps, would be so appropriate as an ex-
position of the present state of natural science abroad,
embracing a cursory view of the early condition of
physical knowledge by its primary cultivators, and
an examination of the present respective merits of
the nations of Great Britain and the European con-
tinent.   To present but  a concise summary of this
character, calls for richer materials than I possess ;
and  justly executed, would trespass on time which
we have  not at  command.  The inevitable conse-
quence of a mere outline of such a survey, however, 
i6   :
if impartially  and judiciously drawn, could not fail
to strengthen our admiration of the  dignity and im-
portance of natural knowledge as connected with the
interests of human society, and raise our estimate of
the  talents which have been appropriated to its eluci-
dation.  It would liberalize our feelings, warm our
charities,  and  counteract the prejudices which unfor-
tunately too often beset even the  most enlightened
cosmopolite philosopher.
  In instituting a comparison of the respective theo-
ries  of the earth, we would be bound  to reduce the
speculations of geologists to the actual condition of
the  globe :  and  whether we enlisted as  disciples of
Neptune or of Vulcan, of the Wernerian or of the Hut-
tonian school,  while scrutinizing the services of the
ingenious  writers who have appeared on  the subject,
with all the lights of  modern  science,  we should be
brought to the  conclusion of the extraordinary confor-
mity of facts,  the most recent and abundant,  to the
cosmogony of the great Jewish lawgiver.  In descant-
ing on another almost boundless topic, zoology, we
should  be struck with the wonderful sagacity and
matchless acumen  of Aristotle, the first  classifier of
this  department of physical  study.  We should be
taught the great excellence to which, as  a branch of
knowledge, it has attained in our own day; and in
the  exposition of zoological systems, we should be
compelled to notice the progress of discovery and the
consequent modifications  of  systematic  reasonino-. 
17
A discussion, not without practical instruction, would
here very properly offer  itself.
  The arrangement of the  several branches of this
division of natural history has vexed minds the strong-
est for accurate discrimination, and, by consequence,
the cogitative powers have been subjected to a logic
as astute as any the schoolmen may have formed.
The Linnsean division, mammalia, among \he\primates,
it is  familiarly known, associates man with the  mon-
key  and the bat—a classification not over flattering to
the lord of the creation.  The fancied chain of being
on which poets and philosophers have written so in-
geniously ; which has occasioned  the association of
minerals with vegetables,  vegetables with  animals,
and  again animals with the Creator, has been the effi-
cient cause of the nomenclature to which I now allude.
But  even the metaphysics of Bonnet are not to be
allowed  to  supply the chasms  originating from our
incapacities: neither an artificial nor a natural ar-
rangement  of the characteristic organs of animals
ought to tolerate such freedom : an improved physi-
ology discards it, and the inherent dignity of man, as
a moral and accountable  being, renders demonstrative
the difference between the operations of human reason
and  the impulses of the  instinctive faculty of brutes.
A later and more successful division of zoology, by
the immortal Cuvier, rests on the nervous and senso-
rial, and not on the  circulatory and  respiratory sys-
tems :  and  in order 1, Bimana, we find the species
man placed at the head  of the living creation, and no
              3 
18
longer primus inter pares. Nor would our labours here
end :  though we be disqualified from speaking with
oracular precision—mineralogy would demand of us
that  homage be rendered to Theophrastus, and the
elder Pliny, among the ancients, while the vast acces-
sions to this  science by the enterprise and  sagacity
of the moderns have given it the certainty of experi-
mental knowledge,  and  placed this branch of inves-
tigation for its importance to the elegant  arts and use-
ful resources of man as second to none in the volume
of nature.   In a comparative estimate of the contri-
butions of eminent men in this extensive field of pro-
ductive effort, imaginative  Germany,   philosophic
France, and harmonious  Italy would prefer the claims
of their respective sons, in accents too loud and too
continuous to be resisted.
  The vegetable kingdom in like manner, if properly
treated, might solicit as her due our ardent contem-
plation, and invoke the sincerest plaudits, by her three-
fold claims, her precise classical terminalogy, the co-
piousness  of her treasures, and her extensive utility.
Botany, sacred by  its antiquity  and its salutiferous
agency in primitive medicine, would summon our best
efforts in its behalf by the dominion which it holds  in
the breast of every lover of the bounties of creation,  as
a study sanative as Hygeia herself, in its influence on
her worshippers, and rich in variegated and attractive
formations.  Who would not aspire to participate  in
recreations such as those in which a Ray, an Evelyn,
a Tournefort and a Haller delighted ?  Who would 
19
not strive to master a pursuit which, by its quotidian
discoveries and advancements, repays its votaries with
new truths; and enter the list of that mighty phalanx
of meritorious individuals who, in different ages and
nations, have revealed its secrets and preferred its ex-
cellence ?  Such a review of the progress and present
state of the physical sciences would teach us the  most
pleasing and instructive part of history, the progres-
sive development of knowledge, and the advancement
of our species in arts, science, and civilization; while
we would indulge a juster and higher opinion of the
capabilities and acts of the age in which we live.  And
though we might be  reluctant to  look to  Hesiod or
Columella for principles in  practical agriculture,  or
to Aldrovandus or Rhondeletius for minute anatomy,
or to  Agricola  for the philosophy of mineralogical
science,  we would, by the study of the writings  of
these master  minds,  the better comprehend the  obli-
gations which each successive age owes to its prede-
cessor, and ever  bear in grateful  recollection the
contributors who have reared to its present lofty state
the intellectual fabric of man.  It may justly be said
that he who should execute  such a theme would re-
quire the bow  of Ulysses. But let us leave the acquire-
ments  and the wisdom of venerable Europe, and turn
our reflections to a consideration of the New World.
  That extraordinary era which gave wings to thought
by the invention of the art of printing, was signalized
by the discovery of a new continent, in extent nearly
equal to one third of the habitable globe ; thus bring- 
20
ing to light an unexplored field of investigation, 01
singular and peculiar interest to the student of nature.
The comparatively recent  period at which we date
the addition of this vast portion of the world to our
knowledge of the rest has sanctioned the expression,
" the new world;"  and in adverting to the character
of its aboriginal inhabitants,  its geological features,
and fossil remains, its climate, and its natural produc-
tions, we are led to conclude  that its  natural history
is no less new than is its geography.  We would not
imply by this remark an opinion that the American
continent is of a more recent  origin than other parts
of the earth so long known.  We might give  scope to
speculation, and notice the positions and mutations of
organic forms; trace remote or near resemblances to
what has been observed in other regions, in  order to
solve unmanageable phenomena with results  more or
less problematical or true.  But we presume America
to have received the impress  of the great first cause
contemporaneously with other parts of this terraque-
ous sphere,  whatever may be our geological hypo-
thesis.   Sufficient, moreover, is now well ascertained
concerning appearances still existing of remote anti-
quity, and our knowledge of the  changes  actually
going on in the geological world,  with the causes of
their production, to reconcile us fully to the  belief of
the accuracy of this conclusion.
   The  peculiar position of America, as well as its
great extent, invites our regard:  stretching  from the
 arctic polar circle to the fifty-sixth degree of southern
 latitude, its boundary lies fifteen hundred miles beyond 
21
the extremity of the old continent.  Hence the im-
mense barrier it opposes to the sea and atmosphere ;
passing through every variety of climate, capable of
being the habitation of man, and fit to yield the innu-
merable productions peculiar either to the temperate
or the torrid zone.   To attempt  the briefest notice of
these  various products would prove an undertaking
of  great extent.   The grandeur of these  objects
affords a fine subject for philosophical consideration.
Nature  indeed  has conducted her operations with a
bold hand, and given them an extraordinary magnifi-
 cence.
   With the exception of  the  Himalayahs,  in the
 southern  division,  her mountains are  superior in
 height to those  on the other portion of the globe : the
 plain  of Quito,  the base  of  the  Andes,  is elevated
 farther above the  sea than the Pyrenees ; while the
 lofty Andes, though exposed to the rays of a torrid sun,
 are covered with  perpetual snow.  From such lofty
 heights descend her majestic rivers, the Orinoco,  the
 Amazon, and the Plata, rolling onward to the sea, of
 a size and proportion to which those of the ancient
 continent dwindle  almost into rivulets by  compa-
 rison.  Northern America is also characterized by
 remarkable features,  extent,  diversity of climate, and
 physical outlines  of rare and interesting peculiarities.
 The course of her mountains occasions geographical
 distributions, worthy of the closest investigation : her
 rivers, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, ere they
 feel the influence of the tide, become arms of the sea
 rather than rivers of fresh water; and that wonderful 
22
 chain of lakes more properly called inland seas, has
 nothing of  a similar character elsewhere to which it
 may be compared.
   The country of which it  is our happy destiny to
 be inhabitants, is  divided by Volney and others into
 three great natural sections, created by two chains
 of mountains,—the Atlantic region, lying east of the
 Alleghany mountains; the valley of the Mississippi,
 including an  area of nearly one  and a half millions
 of square miles, or the country watered by the Mis-
 sissippi, the  Missouri,  and their numerous branches ;
 the  Pacific  region, or  the country lying west of the
 Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
   The Alleghanies consist of some four or  five dis-
 tinct ridges, with wide  and fertile valleys interposed :
 their entire length may  be  some twelve  hundred
 miles.  The  Rocky Mountains pass at  a distance of
 five hundred miles from the Pacific, and  consist of
 several elevated chains, occupying a breadth of three
hundred miles, with deep intervening valleys.  Accord-
ing to Major Long, their elevation is  about twelve
thousand feet.
   But not to fatigue attention, the natural history of
such a country cannot but excite the  greatest interest
in civilized man.  As might  readily be  conjectured,
there exists in each of  these grand divisions physical
peculiarities as  to  soil, climate, and productions  of
the greatest diversity,  which might tax the industry
of the longest life in investigation.
   We are not permitted to enter into an examination 
23
of the theories of Clavigero and Robertson on the in-
tricate question as to the people by whom these vast
regions were first inhabited.  We assume the opinion
as that best sustained by facts and reasonings, that
the progenitors  of  all the American nations, from
Cape Horn to the  southern limits of Labrador, from
similarity of aspect, colour, &c, migrated from  the
north-east parts of Asia ; and on like grounds we ad-
mit that  the  nations which inhabit Ladrador, Esqui-
maux, and the parts adjacent, from their likeness to
the American nations, and their resemblance to the
northern  Europeans,  have been  derived  from  the
north-east part of Europe.  Pennant has remarked,
the inhabitants of the new world do  not  consist of
the offspring of a single nation ; different people, says
he, at different times must have arrived there ; and
it is impossible to say that any one is now to be found
on the spot of its colonization ;  while a distinguished
philosophical writer of our own, Albert Gallatin,
contends that even  with regard to the Esquimaux,
who seem to be  characterized by some striking pecu-
liarities, there is no  solid foundation for the  opinion
of those  who would ascribe to them an origin differ-
ent from that of the  other Indians of North America.
  A subject which comes  more immediately within
our scope  at this time is that branch of physical re-
search which considers the different groups of animals
and plants which are dispersed over this immense sur-
face.   To comprehend this subject fully requires an
extensive  survey in zoological and botanical geogra- 
24
phy.  We must  study with a clear discrimination the
constant and mutable characteristics of animals, modi-
fied by geographical distribution, as well by the agen-
cy of the mountainous elevation and that of the shel-
tered valley, as by the latitudinal and longitudinal po-
sition.   A similar principle of discrimination  applies
also to the vegetable kingdom.   The intimate relation
which obtains between the great variety in the families
of plants and diversity of temperature, is among the re-
cognized truths well understood by the philosophical
botanist: of the animals and plants of the new world,
however, we  are justified in asserting that they are
characteristic of the country, and form a subject of
great extent, complete and, in their attributes, distinct.
We may readily coincide with the philosophical Hum-
boldt ;  they are adapted  to the climate,  and  the  cli-
mate is  adapted to them.
  The most  casual glance over  these extensive re-
gions will bring  to view the richest treasures for the
consideration of  the-naturalist.  For example, of the
mammalia, the most remarkable  fact which courts
investigation, is  the few species of that  class which
are common  to  both the eastern  and western  conti-
nents ;  and the  many that  are the appropriate in-
habitants of the western: it is affirmed of the quadru-
mana, or handed animals, that about eighty-two spe-
cies  out of one hundred and eighty-seven are  peculiar
to America, not one of them being found in any other
part of the world : of about one hundred and six car-
nivorous  animals, well  ascertained as  peculiar to 
25
America, not  one is known  to exist  on the eastern
continent;  and it is further stated, that all the mam-
malia which are common to the two continents, even
to the extent of being considered as climatal varieties
of the same species,  belong to the northern parts of
America, and  almost all of them to the extreme north.
  It is a proverb with the medical faculty that every
climate, while it has its own diseases, is also favoured
with its appropriate indigenous remedies.  This prin-
ciple of Divine harmony seems to be no less true with
respect to the  animals and the localities of a country.
Some philosophers, as Clavigero, have affirmed, that
the beasts of cold regions may have passed over the
northern isthmus, which perhaps connected Europe,
America,  and Asia;  while the animals and reptiles
peculiar to hot countries passed over the isthmus that
connected South America with Africa.   Pennant was
of the belief  that all the animals of America were
originally derived from the north-eastern quarter of
Asia, to which they had previously made their way
from Mount Arrarat:  nor is this speculation rendered
the less feasible by the reasonings of Capt. Burney,
in his late paper read  before the Royal Society, in
which he inclined to the belief that Asia and America
are not only contiguous, but parts of one and the same
continent.  But it is  difficult  to reconcile this theory
with the distinctive forms  of animal life and the phy-
sical characteristics of countries.   Whatever may be
the migratory  capabilities of  animals, few attend the
peregrinations of man.   While,  however, we allow
           4 
26
that the distribution of animals involves speculations
of great complexity, and presents a problem which
perhaps will ever be beyond  the ken of human wis-
dom to solve, it is the imperative duty  of the natural-
ist to  collect  every fact which  can  illustrate  the
characteristic  localities of the  innumerable  species
which  constitute the animal kingdom,  and trace the
association of  genera and species over the surface of
the earth.
  Admitting, to its fullest extent, the interchanges of
place which occur among animals by reason of their
migratory movements, whether accidental and irregu-
lar, or  stated and periodical, and the complexity into
which  inquiries on this head  are thus unfortunately
involved, we, nevertheless, find to our entire satisfac-
tion, that every country is characterized by various
peculiar tribes, and many of them, although the far-
thest removed from what we  consider as the central
station in which all living creatures were originally
placed, are naturally  the  worst  prepared with  the
means  of locomotion.  Thus we find  that the tiger,
with his herculean strength, confines  himself to  the
most beautiful of the Asiatic islands;  the panther
crouches among the branches of the African forests ;
the jaguar, of the new world, prowls along the wood-
ed  shores of  the  Orinoco; the  moose  deer roams
amidst the primeval forests of the North American con-
tinent,  and the gigantic cetacea gambol beneath  the
ices of the poles.
  The fur-bearing animals are principally confined 
27
to the regions of perpetual  snow  in Arctic Ame-
rica ;  and while it is ascertained that some are com-
mon  to  both  continents, many, it  is equally well
known, are peculiar to North America.  The musk
ox is deemed to be an  arctic  quadruped,  yet is it
unknown both in Asia and Europe, while two races
of deer and the prong-horned antelope are recognized
only in America.   The Fauna Boriali Americana  of
Dr. Richardson, contains many illustrations of a simi-
lar sort.   The zoological aspect of the northern parts
of British North America, according to  this intrepid
and enlightened traveller, the companion of Captain
Franklin in his late expedition toward the North Pole,
is more allied to that of  Norway and Lapland and
some of the corresponding parallels of Asia, than to
the southern parts of the new world. The equatorial
regions  of Asia, Africa,  and America, possess  no
quadruped which is common to more  than two of
those regions,  and it might be said that none of the
three possess  a single mammiferous animal in com-
mon.
   Melville Island, and the rest of the North Georgian
group, may be affirmed  as the most northern region
to which our knowledge extends. In the more north-
ern  parts we have the  polar bear, whose  southern
limits seem to be  found  at fifty-five degrees :  as  we
retire from the north to  the more southern latitude,
we lose the musk ox and the icy hare.   The distin-
guished explorer of Arctic Zoology has also thrown
a large amount of information  on the zoology of  the 
28
temperate parts of North America.   The  bison may
be found far south, probably at the thirty-fifth degree
of north latitude.   Its characteristic positions are the
great prairies to the westward of the Mississippi, where
it may be seen in droves of countless numbers. Lewis
and  Clarke  mention several species  of the  cerous,
canes,  and  ursus, as  inhabiting the plains  on the
banks  of the Columbia river.  The Rocky Mountain
sheep  and goat are, upon good authority, conjectured
to be peculiar, and to differ essentially from the ar-
gall of the north of Asia.   We have still further illus-
trative  proofs of the effects which local peculiarities
produce  on  the zoological  character  of  a  country.
According to Dr. Richardson, the moose deer and the
American hare are'met with at the junction of Peel's
river with the  Makenzie.   The didelphis  forms a
genus,  according to Cuvier, peculiar to America; and
I conjecture  that we have rational grounds  to infer
that  the castor fiber, which is found on the most soli-
tary parts of North America, is a species distinct from
that  of Europe, which seems not to possess or exer-
cise the faculty of house-building.  If such be  the
fact,  we can promptly reconcile  many conflicting ac-
counts of the  beaver.  We may, moreover, justly
boast of the mastodon as  our exclusive property,
whose size is greater than that of the  elephant, and
of heavier proportions, and, as once, an inhabitant of
North  America alone.   The fossil  skeletons of two
edentata,  of great size,  have  been discovered in
America,  the  megatherium  and  the  megalonyx. 
29
With the brilliant aids daily increased in this age of
fossil zoology, I am yet disposed to receive with
great allowance the remarks  on this subject of an
eminent writer, Dr. Lyell, in  his work on Geology.
The Siberian  fossil remains which he has classified
with  the American mammoth, are a distinct and in-
ferior animal  from that of America, and truly a spe-
cies of elephas, not mastodon.  A too solicitous desire
to establish a favourite hypothesis, has not unfre-
quently detached the best minds  unwittingly from
the path of a  legitimate philosophy.
   From the  collected results of enterprising and in-
telligent travellers, it has been ascertained, with tole-
rable accuracy, that there are  one hundred and forty-
seven species  of mammiferous animals in North Ame-
rica, eleven of which are fossils, and no longer occur
in the living state, and twenty-eight of the cetaceous
order.  The  remaining one hundred  and eight are
considered as  American quadrupeds, and of these only
twenty-one species  are common to North America
and the old  world.  Mr. Jefferson, more than fifty
years ago, said,  that of twenty-six quadrupeds com-
mon  to both countries, seven  are larger  in  America,
seven of  equal size, and twelve not sufficiently exa-
mined : that  there are  eighteen quadrupeds peculiar
to Europe, and more than four times that number pe-
culiar to America;  and that the  first of these, the
tapir, the  largest  of animals peculiar  to  America,
weighs more  than a whole  column of European.
But  we are  not  contesting the opinion of certain 
30
 foreign writers, who have alleged the inferiority of
 American animals, and the deterioration of those im-
 ported.   We at the present day might search in vain
 for a well-informed naturalist who would grant an
 affirmative to a position of such tendency.  Such a
 doctrine has, in fact, long since been demonstrated
 erroneous, and holds at present no place in the en-
 lightened mind of the nineteenth century.
   Our Ichthyology is rich and peculiar in many spe-
 cies ; and the law of limitation to particular localities
 is found  to be sustained with respect to marine ani-
 mals as well as those of the land: in short, naturalists
 have said that the  species of whales differ, those of
 the north from those of the south seas; and geologists
 have remarked that the external aspect of the skele-
 tons of fishes from the gypsum formation  of Paris,
 is very different from that of the fresh water fishes of
 the bituminous marl-slate, independent of their zoolo-
 gical characters.
   Our  American rivers  abound  in individuals who
 have their like in the waters of Europe ; and we have
 others exclusively our own.  It is known that the
 fish of  the Ohio and of other of our great rivers are
 peculiarly abundant both in number and species, yet
 few seem to resemble those of Europe ; and although
 the migratory attribute of many of the piscatory tribes
 renders it difficult  to discriminate  their natural loca-
 lity, enough is understood to justify the assertion that
 we suffer not by comparison on this head.  It appears
that Lacepede, not many years since, described about 
31
two  thousand fishes;  and at this present time this
number may be quadrupled.  Baron Cuvier remarks
that the amount of known fishes may be safely esti-
mated above six thousand.  Many of the fishes of our
inland lakes have no superior for  their rare edible
qualities, and exist in quantities of surpassing calcula-
tion.  If the fecundity of the New^York waters be in
anywise a criterion for determining the relative pro-
portion  of this extensive class for the United States,
we may justly set down the amount for America in
large numbers.
   In  Herpetology we  have sufficient to gratify the
keenest desires of the  most ravenous student in this
department of nature.   The extraordinary aspect and
habits of a considerable portion of the reptiles in par-
ticular which are found in the southern and western
sections of the United States, imperfect and superficial
as our knowledge on the subject still is, invite to re-
searches which promise  to  repay with adequate re-
turns.   I believe no naturalist has elsewhere found a
more magnificent specimen of the Testudo Coriacea
than that  caught  in the waters of our bay, and now
exhibited  in  the  American Museum of this  city.
Within a very few years,  says Dr. Harlan, most im-
portant facts have been elicited, and many new and
interesting species of reptiles have been added to a
list formerly extensive.   Several of the Ophidea are
certainly peculiar, and the crotalus horridus, the most
formidable and invulnerable of  poisonous  serpents,
was deemed by one of the fathers of our country a fit 
32
 emblem to designate the national standard for the antici-
 pated glories of the new republic created by the war
 of the revolution.   For my own part, I concur in the
 wish of the patriotic Franklin, that the bald eagle had
 not been chosen as the representative of the American
 confederacy,  and  I  think his reasons  abundantly
 cogent: the  eagle, says he,  does  not get his living
 honestly ; he is a bird of bad moral character ;  he is
 cowardly—the little king-bird, not larger than a  spar-
 row, attacks  him  boldly, and  drives  him out of his
 district; therefore he is not a fit representative of that
 yeomanry who have thus far driven all the king-birds
 out of the country.   So far the opinion of Dr. Frank-
 lin.   As to  the crotalus, or rattle-snake,  he is a ge-
 nuine  aboriginal; he  is the  beau-ideal of etiquette,
 and a type of honesty ; he is  never the first to molest,
 and he always  gives due warning of his intentions by
 his rattles; and whenever his person or his rights are
 invaded, his aim is unerring and triumphant.  Our
 Indians, who best know him, give  him this chivalric
 character.  I would wish it to be most distinctly un-
 derstood that the observations I have just made are to
be confined to the bald eagle.   The indefatigable
Audubon has lately given us  a distinct notice and de-
scription of the  Falco Washingtonianus, or the Wash-
ington Eagle.   This noble bird first  drew his atten-
tion while voyaging far  up the Mississippi, in 1814.
The Washington eagle is bold and vigorous, but jea-
lous of his prerogatives; superior to vulgar expedients,
he disdains the piratical habits of the bald eagle, and 
33
honourably maintains himself without molesting the
rights of others.
   Did not time admonish us, we might take a survey
of the ornithological treasures of South America and
the North. With the exception of the migrants, almost
all are peculiar and specifically distinct from those of
other parts of the world.   We know that temperature
and other physical qualities  of a country exert a
mighty influence on the locality and habits of birds :
still their migratory  movements are influenced by
causes which philosophy has not yet clearly explained.
In tropical countries on the approach of summer they
wing their way to temperate regions; while those of
these regions pass in  large numbers to  the polar cir-
cles : on  the  approach of  winter  the  hyperborean
regions are left almost desolate by a southern migra-
tion.  The rapidity of flight and extent to which many
of the feathered tribe range are sufficient to excite
our highest admiration of the ways  of providence:
when exhibitions of this nature are exemplified by
the lofty and sustained flight of the towering eagle,
and by the  albatros, with his outstretched wings, in
his discursive range over the wide seas from the polar
portions of the  great ocean to the torrid zone, we
may perhaps marvel,  as  anatomists, at the strength
of muscular power;  but by how much more is our
wonder increased when  we find the frailest of the
pennated  tribe, the delicate  and beautiful  humming-
bird, with its brilliant plumage, which winters to the
southward of the United  States, range  in summer to
           5 
34
the fifty-seventh degree of north latitude, and yield m
fact to few birds in the extent of its migrations.  Kotze-
bue traced the ruff-necked Nootka humming-bird to
the sixty-first degree of the western shores.   Capt.
King observed members of this diminutive size flying
in a snow-storm near the Straits of Magellan, and if
Oviedo is veritable authority, we may equally admire
their  instinctive courao-e.  We  are  all familiar with
the prodigious flight of the crow, the  gull, and the
wild pigeon of America, which in vast flocks some-
times darken the heavens like an eclipse.   It is not a
little  curious as a subject of inquiry, by what impulse
these organized beings are influenced in these migra-
tory movements.   Job hath asked, " Doth the hawk
fly by thy wisdom,  and stretch her wings towards
the south?"  The hybernation of the swallow  has
provoked discussion equally tedious as unsatisfactory.
The eminently pious White of  Selborne has at once
said, the God of nature is their secret guide; and the sa-
cred volume assures us the stork of the heavens know-
eth her appointed times ;  and the turtle and the crane
and the swallow observe the time of their  comino-.
  The result of the latest investigations in ornitholo-
gical science determines the entire number and varie-
ties of birds  at present ascertained throughout the
world to be upwards  of six thousand.  The more
southern climates exhibit the greatest riches in orni-
thology : thus it appears that in  the Cape of Good
Hope there are above one hundred more  species of
birds  than  are to be  found throughout the whole of 
35
Europe.   Great Britain and Ireland produce  only
two hundred and  seventy-seven  different kinds  of
birds, of which one hundred and forty-two are  land
birds, and one hundred and thirty-five water birds
and  waders.  The  species of Europe  and North
America have been classed under one hundred and
seven genera, of which sixty-four are common to both
countries ; nineteen American, foreign to Europe, and
twenty-four European, equally unknown in America.
   The geographical distribution of birds,  as might
readily be inferred from their possession of wings, is
of much wider extent than that of any other animals—
a subject which Humboldt has illustrated with his  ac-
customed talents.   Even the ostrich, cumbrous as it
is, and slightly favoured  with these organs, is still
known to roam to a great extent.   The falcon is found
in Greenland,  in  Europe, in  New Holland and in
North America.  The white owl is seen in four quar-
ters of the globe, and the golden plover occupies nearly
as extensive a range.  Major Long discovered the
white-fronted swallow  in  the  vicinity of the Rocky
Mountains,  and Dr. Richardson very recently noticed
it  as far north as Fort Chepewyan.  Contrary to  the
opinion of Buffon, the tribe of parrots is most exten-
sively distributed.   Wilson found the Carolina parrot
in the interior of  Louisiana, and on the shores and
tributary waters of the Mississippi and Ohio;  even
in the neighbourhood of Lake Michigan, in the forty-
second degree  of north latitude.   How extensive  are
the treasures of  North American  ornithology,  can 
36
 only in part be inferred from the constant accessions
 made to the number of individual species and varie-
 ties, since  the  publication of the  Arctic  Zoology of
 Pennant, by Parry, Ross, Franklin. Sabine, Dr. Rich-
 ardson, Skinner, and other explorers of natural his-
 tory.   As natives, we have unquestionably no small
 number.
   There is no indigenous bird of the old continent
 answering to the turkey of America.  The grouse and
 the canvas-back duck are found in temperate America;
 few of the waders resemble those of Europe: the
 American flamingo is more beautiful than the Euro-
 pean, and the  scarlet ibis is peculiarly magnificent.
 Our mocking bird has established his unrivalled repu-
 tation as the Orpheus of the woods, over every other
 songster: the Baltimore oriole demands our  regards
 for his remarkable plumage and other qualities.   The
 condor, according to Lewis and Clarke, inhabits not
 only the whole chain of the Andes in Mexico,  Peru,
 and Chili, but is frequently seen in the range of the
Rocky  Mountains.   Several  of the  species of the
wood-pecker have extensive geographical limits. Say
found the red-headed  species in  the region of the
Rocky Mountains, and  Lewis and Clarke in the for-
ests near the Pacific.   The  list might be swelled to
an indefinite extent, were we to avail ourselves of the
latest contributions of Wilson, Nuttall, and others.
But we will more profitably wait the results of the
labours of the indefatigable  Audubon.  In his third
volume  alone, just  published, he  informs us that he 
37
has described no less than sixty species not noticed by
his illustrious predecessor, Wilson.
  The energy of the vegetable productions of the new
world is displayed with a prodigality which commands
our admiration   Nature, in this department, seems
to have  delighted  in manifestations of her power,
beauty, and  grandeur, and to have unfolded a series
of views  well calculated  to awaken desires the most
urgent, and create  associations the most noble, with
our ideas of the beneficent author of all.   To him
who is solicitous of accurate attainment in his know-
ledge  of this kingdom of nature, the present  is as
opportune as any former period.   Though the opera-
tions of man, in his measures of settlement and civi-
lization, have not been made without encroaches on
the vegetable creation, yet the primeval forests of our
country  still rear their venerable  forms, and impress
us with  delight and  reverence, equally by their illi-
mitable extent and continuity, their gigantic size and
altitude, their variety, and the mystery of their anti-
quity.  Two centuries have indeed passed away since
the landing  of our pilgrim fathers ; but it constitutes
 a small portion  only of the longevity of these first
occupiers of the American soil, who still flourish with
verdure and purity in their pristine state and gran-
deur.
   The concurrent testimony of naturalists sustains the
 belief that there is a stronger resemblance in the vege-
 table  productions of the more northern parts of Ame-
 rica with those  of the  eastern continent, than with 
38
any other part; and what may be deemed the polar
vegetation has a further southern range than is pos-
sessed in Europe.   Moreover, though we have gene-
rally yielded to the assertion that  in the  northern
regions plants were very few, and of the most humble
growth,  yet we are justified in inferring, from the late
exploratory journeys of Capt. Franklin and  others,
that  vegetation is not, even there,  so parsimonious
and so feeble as travellers have been wont to affirm.
In the country about  the southern parts of Hudson
Bay, the black and white spruces correspond with the
coniferse of Lapland:  as we recede, however, from
the polar regions, a consequent more promising vege-
tation abounds:  many of the genera of plants  are
indeed the same as those which exist in corresponding
latitudes on the eastern  continent; the species often
vary.  Botanists have given us ample  illustrations of
Canadian arboriculture; and as we leave the country
of the lakes, we have  demonstrative evidence of the
richness and magnificence of American forest scenery,
even to the borders of the  Gulf of  Mexico.  The
prolific  character and  power  of our soil, within this
whole range in extent, and from  the  borders of the
Atlantic to the  Rocky  Mountains  and the  Pacific
ocean, has been observed by many.
  It may with greater precision be  remarked of the
soil of the United States, that the fertility of the land
of the eastern section is not so great  as that of the
western; and that, both by the course of rivers and
in valleys, it is most productive : nor need  we place 
39
in a more imposing light than has nature, individual
examples of vegetable development, from the magno-
lia and the liriodendron of the south, to the pinus Dou-
glasii of the great Pacific region,  and other magnifi-
cent trees which enrich and beautify the lands; nor
enlarge  on the inborn wealth inherent in the cotton
plant of Georgia, the rice of South Carolina, the to-
bacco of Virginia, the  cerealia of our own state,  or
the zea maize still more abundantly prolific over our
wide-spread republic.   The mass of forest trees are
unquestionably to be found chiefly elsewhere than in
the eastern states.  The luxuriant south and south-
west astonish by their  fecundity, and convict Bulow
and Parkinson, and other libellers, who tell us  of the
deteriorating qualities of the land, by the most invin-
cible demonstration.
   The Michauxs, father and son, are  orthodox au-
thority on the development of American forest  trees :
the former by  his treatise on Oaks, the latter by his
 American Sylva; and it must be considered as among
the perplexing topics of inquiry,  to what  causes we
 are to attribute the popular ignorance on this subject,
 after so many years since the publication of these
 respective  and  convincing works.  The species of
 large trees, says Michaux the younger, are much more
 numerous in North America than in Europe :  in the
 United States  there are more than one hundred and
 forty species  that exceed  thirty feet in height: in
 France, there are but thirty that attain to this size, of
 which eighteen enter into the composition of the for- 
40
ests, and seven only are employed in building1.   He
who is solicitous of precise information on this gra-
tifying  subject, will turn to the Travels and to  the
Sylva of this French philosopher.   We can only cite
a few examples.  The hemlock spruce, so abundant
in the  northern and eastern states as to form three
quarters of the ever-green woods,  with a circumfer-
ence of from six to  nine feet, grows to the height of
some seventy or eighty feet.
   The Liridendron, so beautiful in its foliage and
flowers, so useful in the arts, and so widely diffused
in the  Atlantic states and in the far west, exhibits  a
circumference of fifteen or sixteen to twenty feet, and
elevates its head  to one  hundred and twenty or one
hundred and forty feet.  The cypress of the southern
States and of Florida attains the height of one hun-
dred and  twenty feet, with a trunk of twenty-five or
forty feet  in  circumference.  We  have the beech of
more than one hundred feet in height.  We have  a
great variety of the juglans, so ornamental to taste, so
useful in the mechanic arts, growing to the height of
from sixty feet to double that altitude.   Long ago,
according to Dr.  Rush, there were ascertained to be
more than ten millions of acres  of the rock or sugar-
maple ; and according to Warden, in 1810, ten mil-
lions of pounds of sugar were made from it:  at pre-
sent, it is  supposed that more than twelve millions of
pounds of this article are made from the sugar-cane
of Louisiana alone.  This beautiful forest-tree,  the
pride of the  genus  acer, often  reaches the height of 
41
 some seventy or eighty feet, with a proportional dia-
 meter.   The Magnolia invokes  stronger language
 than we can employ.  The species of this genus are
 remarkable for their  foliage and their magnificent
 flowers : some of them attain to the height of seventy
 or eighty, or one hundred feet.   They may well be
 ranked among the most brilliant ornaments of a rural
 retreat;  nor need we wonder at the reverential affec-
 tion with which  the unfortunate empress Josephine
 cherished the Magnolia in her garden at Malmaison.
   What a formidable display we possess of the differ-
 ent species of oak : they seem to be multiplied accord-
 ing to thediversity of climate in our western continent.
 Michaux has described twenty-six species, and  the
 number  has been  enlarged by Lewis and  Clarke,
 Long, Nuttall,  and other explorers.   We forbear to
 notice them more minutely;  nor can we mention only
 in name the linden and the tilia and the catalpa.  The
 occidental plane, or sycamore, is not equalled by any
 other tree with deciduous leaves, either in the old or
 on the new  continent.   It is found abundantly, from
 Lower Canada to  Louisiana and the Floridas.  It
 possesses a richer foliage than even the Asiatic plane.
 Michaux saw one at Marietta forty-seven feet in cir-
 cumference, four feet  from  the ground.  In some
 situations, it is unquestionably the largest tree in the
United States.  Here I must conclude this enumera-
tion  of our vegetable productions with the  pine, of
which so great a variety abound.
  The different species are of different value. Their
                       6 
42
use in the arts is familiarly known and  appreciated.
They demand philosophical notice, and have received
it from  Lambert in his Monograph, and Michaux is
enthusiastic on their importance.  That  amiable and
unsophisticated disciple of nature, the late Mr. Doug-
lass, who a short while ago was among  us, but who
has  lately gone to the possession of felicities, purer
and  more exalted  than those furnished  even by the
American forests, saw a species of pine upwards of
three hundred feet in altitude ;  and Michaux, speak-
ing of this arbiter of the woods, says, this ancient and
majestic inhabitant of the North American forests is
still  the loftiest and most valuable of their  produc-
tions, and its summit is seen at an immense distance,
aspiring towards heaven, far above the heads of the
surrounding trees.  He measured a white pine five
feet  four inches in circumference, and one hundred
and  eighty-four  feet in length.  He records of an-
other, that its height was stated to be two hundred and
sixty feet.   In adverting to the  sublime elevation of
our native pine, it was  aptly said by some European
writer, the trunk of an individual American tree is
enough to constitute a becoming spire for the proud-
est British cathedral; and though not allowed on this
occasion to descant on the excellence of this tenant
of the  forest  as  a material in ship-building, I am
nevertheless just now forcibly reminded of an inci-
dent which took place, on my enjoying the society of
some English savans,  just after the close of the late
war, at the house  of Sir James Edward  Smith, the 
43
President of the Linnsean Society of London.   Many
interrogatories were put touching the natural products
of our vegetable  world.   "Your ships are built of
pine; you cannot boast," says one of the guests, some-
what sarcastically, " of the  English oak."—" Talk
not to the doctor of the English oak," interposed, with
softer feelings, another, an accomplished lady of the
Edgeworth school, " the American pine has done its
duty."
  But we must hasten to  say  a few words  on our
Mineralogical resources :  and here  you will  antici-
pate me  in the remark, that the treasures brought
daily to light give  us the fullest confidence to  believe
that America is rich in productions of this character.
The effects of  difference of  climate  and  latitudinal
and longitudinal position, have not that influence in
this department of nature we have observed of  ani-
mals  and vegetables :  the diversity  in  the old  and
new worlds is here not so great.  The  gold and sil-
ver and copper of the Andes have been duly appreci-
ated ; the mountains of America abound in metals of
peculiar value.  We need not speak  of the treasures
of Mexico and Peru.  As to the United States,  salt
is widely distributed in great abundance,  generally
remote from the sea, in innumerable salt springs, in
divers and distant sections,  in extensive  plains be-
yond the Rocky Mountains, and in mountainous ele-
vations.  The results of numerous manufactories give
evidence of the extraordinary quantities of this indis-
pensable material.   Gypsum has been discovered in 
44
very many parts, and most abundantly in this state.
Iron is found abundantly in all the states ;  and mag-
netic iron ore in large masses in excess, has been no-
ticed in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, in
the mountains of New Jersey, and elsewhere.  Ores
of copper are recorded in various parts of the Union,
particularly in New Jersey.  The same may be said
of lead  in many states, and to a wonderful extent in
Missouri.  Zinc,  antimony, black lead or graphite,
molybdena,  &c, in  some quantity.  Coal has provi-
dentially been found to an immense extent, and we
have strong data to infer that, ere long, either the an-
thracite or bituminous formation will be ascertained
to exist in all the individual states.  The precious
metals—gold, derived from Virginia and North Caro-
lina, and silver, from those  and other localities—are
essayed to an extent commanding importance as ob-
jects of  national legislation.  In the incipient state,
therefore, of geological investigation, we have learn-
ed enough to argue the most triumphant returns.
  With this hasty, and necessarily imperfect exposi-
tion of the ascertained resources of our physical  con-
dition and of our productions, we must at present be
satisfied.  We need not prophetic  aid in forming a
conjecture of  what ultimately are the destinies  of a
country, the inherent resources of which are such as
we have thus rapidly sketched.   The  impartial in-
vestigations of a day not long  distant, will convince
us that the surest monuments of our Republic's great- 
45
ness and power are jet to be created.   Nor is it say-
ing too much, that neither the people at large, nor
our practical  statesmen, can  remain long satisfied
with our present limited scientific foundations, and
our consequently defective views of a climate and a
country  of such powers.  A thorough knowledge of
the available means of a people, is the firmest ground-
work of successful legislation.   All studies which
promote  such knowledge must increase the enjoy-
ments of life, and augment the aggregate of individ-
ual happiness.  If the commands of wisdom be re-
regarded by a rational being, the spirit of the patriot
cannot rest quiet when awakened by the contempla-
tion of what the  American confederacy now is, com-
pared with what it was a century ago, and with what
it seems destined to become a century hence.  One
hundred years past, the entire  population of the colo-
nies scarcely doubled the present number of inhabi-
tants of this city alone.   The  child is now born who
may look forward to the astonishing results of a pro-
gressive  population favoured by laws the dictates of
their own intelligence, the proprietors  of a country
in which he now lives, and which still presents to the
eye an  almost  untrodden  forest,  which within the
lapse of that time will be   occupied  by at  least
one hundred  millions of people.  What a gigantic
theatre  for the actors of that  day !   What scope for
the man  of science, and the writer of literature, and
the moral instructor !  How subordinate the rank of 
46
 many now flourishing nations ?  Imagination is lost
 in the colossal prospect.
    Let  me  then ask my indulgent  audience,  of the
 numberless institutions established in different sec-
 tions of our land, for the promotion  of the higher de-
 partments of science,  if any there be possessed of
 more intrinsic claims to consideration than  that in
 behalf  of which we address  you  to-day ?   If the
 objects of life depend upon the due  preservation and
 cultivation  of the  animal, the social, and intellec-
 tual powers of man,  assuredly this Lyceum  is the
 proper  school in which much  of that  knowledge
 ought to be imparted.   The many subjects which are
 inseparably connected with the  first of  these divi-
 sions,  according to  the soundest political economy,
 are among the immediate topics of their inquiry; the
 second, if duly  considered in several of its nicest re-
 lationships, falls distinctly within the scope of their
 deliberations ; and of the third, man's mental  gratifi-
 cation—the highest of which he  is  susceptible—the
 study of nature  holds indubitable  importance.
   Let me then,  in the spirit of generous research,
 put forth one or  two interrogatories,  prompted  by the
 present occasion. How far have these abundant natu-
 ral treasures of the new world become the objects  of
 investigation ?   What progress has  been  made by a
 people thus favoured, in unfolding, for the benefit of
 man, these extraordinary bounties  of creation ?   Has
 a corresponding  spirit of research characterized our
indigenous writers and philosophers,  with  such mate- 
47
rials at command ? We will trespass a little on these
or kindred subjects, and, in our cursory notice of what
has been accomplished, respectfully offer a few inci-
dental suggestions on what  we  are  imperatively
bound to perform.
   Intellectual improvement is not, nor can it ever be,
the first object of attention among a people encom-
passed by the complicated difficulties of first settle-
ment, and restricted by the  necessities inseperable
from so peculiar a condition.   Their immediate and
pressing wants must first be supplied   Yet notwith-
standing these circumstances, we find that the mental
energy of our  first settlers,  and of their immediate
descendants, was displayed to an honourable advan-
tage by their exploring new and diversified objects,
and by their  descriptions of what seemed to them of
most general regard.   The mountain and the valley;
the marsh and the  sea-cost; the animals and plants,
and fossils of an untrodden country, naturally pos-
sessed with them an inherent interest.   The impetus
which was thus early  given to the domain of know-
ledge has, fortunately for their posterity,  advanced
forward with an accelerated velocity, and we cherish
with becoming reverence and gratitude the memory
of the Cushmans, the Mathers, the Winthrops, the
Winslows, the Mortons and the Princes, equally as we
regard the labours of those enlightened and philoso-
phic men, who, in their transient visits among us, with
comprehensive minds, have found in America themes
profitable both to the new and to the old world. 
48
   Within the compass of human investigation,  no
 inquiry more imperiously challenges the efforts of the
 intellect than that  which embraces facts involved in
 the discussion on the origin  of the different  varie-
 ties of the human species,  and the dispersion of par-
 ticular races or tribes of men.   Prolific in conjecture,
 it nevertheless is rich in truths of the deepest inter-
 est ; and while hypothetical views are admitted with
 a becoming scepticism, the questions propounded in-
 volve researches of  the most  ennobling  character.
 It is  familiarly known that  the philosophical world
 has long been, and still continues, much divided on
 the subject.  The ancient Greeks and Romans inclin-
 ed to the  opinion that every country has its indige-
 nous stock  of inhabitants ; and this  theory saved a
 vast deal of trouble in attempting to  account for the
 first population of insulated  and distant countries.
 In modern times, Linnaeus  maintained that, in every
 species of plants as well as of animals, only one pair
 was originally produced ; and among his  chief argu-
 ments in support of his views, he considered that na-
 ture had provided the requisite means of multiplica-
 tion and  dispersion :  such, for instance, as we see in
 the seed  of the poppy, or of the tobacco-plant, one of
 the latter of which will multiply more than forty thou-
 sand fold.   In a subject of  such great  extent, one
might have thought that the origin and history of our
tribes of Indians would have awakened a larger share
of attention  among American writers than  it  has re-
ceived.  The accounts of La Hontan, Clavigero, and 
49
many others of the Jesuit travellers, are known to
partake too largely of fable, and several of our own
indigenous authors, as Adair, Boudinot, and  Hecke-
welder, to have been too much  controlled  in their
statements by fanciful  and preconceived theories.
  The basis of a sound inquiry as to the original peo-
ple of America, is founded on a preliminary disquisi-
tion on its early physical constitution, and its dismem-
berment from Central Asia.  The extraordinary disco-
veries recently made at Palenque and Vehamel throw
great light on the  subject.   The traditions of the In-
dians discountenance the idea that they were the ori-
ginal inhabitants ;  and the Mexicans affirm that their
forefathers lived ages past at the north.   The studies
of the various antiquities found both in Mexico and in
our western and northern states, would favour disco-
very as to the original occupiers of the soil, and of the
numerous tribes of North American Indians.   When
we further reflect  on the great variety of the different
tribes, readily recognized among the American abori-
gines, or the differences  perceptible between those of
the western and northern parts of America, and of the
eastern and southern and Floridian, we shall be satis-
fied that the subject demands not merely a close sur-
vey of the  physical structure and constitution of the
American  races,  but a  philological examination of
their language.
  According  to Dr.  Pritchard,  Professor Vater was
the first who observed  the remarkable analogy of
structure which exists between the  most distantly
           7 
50
separated of the American languages ; and herein he
differs  essentially from the views of Mr. Jefferson:
and Baron  Humboldt, the highest authority we can
cite,  coincides with Professor Vater.  We have fur-
ther  concurring testimony  on the  structure  of  the
American language by one who has recently enlarged
our knowledge by ample and legitimate sources of
information, Dr. Duponceau,  of Philadelphia, and
who  has applied  the term poly synthetic to all  the
American languages which exist from  Greenland to
Cape Horn, " although these languages differ essen-
tially from  the principles of construction which are to
be found in the idioms of the old hemisphere."  Whe-
ther these bold and ingenious speculations be ground-
ed on data beyond the reach of controversy will pro-
bably soon be made known by the philological acumen
of a  distinguished patriot  and statesman now resident
among us, whose work just announced for publication
by the American Antiquarian Society, is so anxiously
looked for.  I allude to the Synopsis of the  Indian
Tribes within the  United States, east of the  Rocky
Mountains, and in the British and Russian possessions
in North America, by the Hon. Albert Gallatin.
  In a periodical  work  of classical excellence,  we
have been lately favoured with some  interesting de-
tails  concerning the most interesting relic of antiqui-
ty ever discovered in North America ;  the remains of
a human body armed with a breast plate,  a species
of mail,  and arrows of brass.   It  was found in the
town of Fall River, in Bristol county, Massachusetts 
51
about two years since.  I must refer to the work al-
ready cited for circumstantial particulars. If the body
found at Fall River, says the anonymous writer, be one
of the Asiatic race who transiently settled in Central
North America,  and afterward went to Mexico and
founded those cities, in exploring the riches of which
such astonishing discoveries have recently been made,
" then we may well suppose, also, that it is one of the
race whose exploits  have been immortalized by the
father of poetry."  I have referred to this example of
the antiquities  found in our country, because  of its
being so recent and so important.  It strengthens the
assertion that this wide field of research has, as yet,
remained comparatively uncultivated.
   There is, unquestionably, strong evidence of an an-
cient population having occupied America, different
from that  of the Indians ; but we must refer to the
discoveries published by our antiquarians,  as Rafines-
que,  Drake,  Atwater, Breckenridge,  Mitchill,  and
many others.   Within a few days past  we have seen
it announced, that the Royal Society of Northern An-
tiquaries at Copenhagen,  have projected a work, de-
nominated Antiquitates Americans, which is intended
to contain a collection of Icelandic  and other  Scan-
dinavian manuscripts, relative to the discoveries of
this continent by the Scandinavians long  before the
time of Columbus, and even as early as the tenth and
eleventh centuries.
   A volume, entitled American Antiquities and Dis-
coveries in the West, by Joseph Drake,  is  also de- 
52
serving of consultation for the variety and number of
its facts and conjectures.   It is  replete with papers
from some  of our most industrious  and successful
writers, and countenances the theory that emigrations
by land, as well as by sea, were performed at a re-
mote period.  Nor would justice be done  to so cu-
rious and  fertile a subject as the origin and charac-
ter  of  our Indian tribes, without a close perusal of
the  discourse on the Iroquois Indians, by the late De-
Witt Clinton, an honorary associate of this Lyceum,
and of the  learned address of the Rev. Dr. Jarvis
before  the Historical Society of New-York.  To the
valuable contributions which have been made by the
late Dr. Barton in his New Views of the Origin of the
American Tribes, and by Dr. Duponceau, both of
Philadelphia, it  is with  becoming state pride  that  I
refer to our lamented Clinton, whose  portraiture of
the Romans of the  West will long remain among
the most enduring memorials  of his  comprehensive
mind, and varied knowledge and talents.
  I will further  add, it behooves us to appropriate  a
becoming portion of our earnest efforts in investi-
gating the physical  and intellectual attributes of the
red man  of America.   With a  formation singularly
ennobling, and with original mental endowments of
rare and  surpassing  order, a  pseudo-philosophy has
too long debased him in the rank of being : it is re-
served for us, who have the means of best  knowing
him, to be faithful to ourselves,  and as lovers of hu-
manity to vindicate his  claims as second to none of 
53
his species in  physical conformation, in loftiness of
genius, in eloquence, and in the arts  of war.  That
the subject is  rich in novel inquiry,  will the more
readily be acknowledged when we  are  given to un-
derstand  that even the celebrated Blumenbach, who
has so profoundly discoursed on the varieties of the
human race, has never been able to enrich his great
cabinet with an entire skeleton  of the North American
Indian.  The biography of Red Jacket  and of Corn
Planter, natives  of our  own  state,  present matters
worthy of the closest reasonings of a Locke  and a
Condillac.  We therefore can  appreciate at a higher
rate the Aboriginal Port Folio of Mr.  Lewis, now
issuing with  such felicitous  illustrations,  and  the
graphic sketches of our countryman Catlin.
   The youngest  of the physical  sciences is, unques-
tionably, Geology.  Scarcely thirty years have elaps-
ed, since this branch  of human pursuits seemed little
more than the study of crabbed names; now it so-
licits our  attention by facts, wonderful for their mul-
tiplicity, and pregnant  with  results of  the deepest
interest.  The fanciful creations of untenable conjec-
ture have yielded to theories of sober result; and the
formation of the earth, derived from laws the deduc-
tions of a rational philosophy,  has  shed a light on
geological investigations  of the clearest  import in
unveiling  the minutest operations of nature.  It is
flattering to our pride, that the number of American
writers who have entered on this attractive science,
is  already so great.   To  the  first president of this 
54
Lyceum may be  awarded, I think, the  title of the
father of American Geology : and it must ever remain
a cause of regret,  that he who seemed so peculiarly
qualified to  elucidate the physical structure of his
native country, had not subsequently directed his co-
pious intellect to a fuller exposition of our geological
phenomena:  I allude to the late Professor  Mitchill,
whose  Sketch of  the  Mineralogical History of the
State of New-York appeared as early as 1797 :  an
elaborate document of unquestionable excellence, and
which, without due acknowledgment, has been freely
appropriated by Volney and other travellers.  In this
paper, Dr. Mitchill employed the then popular nomen-
clature  of Kirwan  and Cronstedt, and advanced the
opinion that  the United States furnished indubitable
proofs of volcanic  formations, in which belief he has
been sustained by facts in our own state, and by the
decisions of several recent observers.   Subsequently
Dr. Mitchill,  in his collegiate course of lectures, was
almost an exclusive advocate for the doctrines of the
Wernerian school, to which he yielded his conviction,
from the great ability with which they were enforced
by the celebrated Scotch Professor, Jameson, of Edin-
burgh.  Our palisado rocks, and some few geological
occurrences in the  south-western regions of the United
States,  constituted the  prominent exceptions to  the
Neptunian theory,  as  taught  by Mitchill:  at least
such was the case when I listened to his University
instruction, in 1811.  Another ardent disciple of na-
ture, Mr. M'Clure, has also contributed to the Ameri- 
55
can Philosophical Society, Observations on the Ge-
ology of the United States, with remarks on the pro-
bable effects that may be produced by the decompo-
sition of the different classes of rocks on the nature
and fertility of soils, the merits of which essay have
been judiciously estimated.
   I have thus noticed these productions  of Mitchill
and M'Clure,  as among the  first prominent efforts of
science to unfold our  geological and mineralogical
treasures, and the catalogue of  eminent  individuals
who are entitled to our consideration for their services
in this branch of inquiry might be greatly swelled with
the  enumeration of the names of Elliot, Godon, Hay-
den, Drake, James, Silliman, Van Rensselaer, Eaton,
Clinton, Jackson, Macneven, Dana, Townsend, Alger,
' Clemson, Vanuxem, Morton, Taylor, Smith, Troost,
Rogers, &c.  The system of Mineralogy, by Cleave-
land, which has elicited the admiration of both worlds,
 gives  us an ample  expose  of the  mineral  riches of
 America, while the late researches of Professor Hitch-
 cock hold out in confident grounds the flattering pros-
 pects  of abundant  coal formations, anthracite  and
 bituminous, widely distributed throughout the Union.
   Our sister state, Pennsylvania,  has lately entered
 into the career of geological investigation  with ear-
 nestness and power;  and  the  Transactions of her
 newly-organized  society, worthy of  the city whence
 they emanate, bear evidence of the commanding atti-
 tude the cultivators of this  branch of physical study
 among them  are destined to maintain.  Mr. Taylor's 
56
papers on the coal formations of that state, with those
of Troost, of Clemson, and  of  Conrad, are justly
classed among the most valuable of the many excel-
lent contributions which that work contains.
  Restricted as I am on this  occasion, I neverthe-
less cannot omit to remark that  the Geological Re-
port of Mr. Featherstonehaugh on the elevated coun-
try between Missouri and the Red River,  contains
facts  conducive to the interests of  the geologist and
to the investigator of organic remains.  The indis-
putable evidences of successive changes in the struc-
tural  condition of the globe which  this science now
explains, affords such positive  criteria by which our
acquaintance with the earth may be advanced,  that
this study becomes an imperative  duty for the miner-
alogist to master with all imaginable ardour, in order
the more completely to classify strata;  and we may
appeal to the admirable work of Professor Hitchcock
in demonstration of the manner in which such an un-
dertaking  may be achieved.  Indeed, it is  scarcely
possible to point out a pursuit to which human intel-
ligence  has been directed, which will repay its culti-
vators with greater honour, or subserve the cause  of
patriotism on a larger scale.  The materials are  so
full, the subject so novel, and the results so beneficent,
that we might search in vain for  any one to contest
our declaration.
  That the empire state should remain without a geo-
logical survey, conducted by legislative provision, is
a reproach which, it is  anticipated, will shortly be 
57
 removed :  and the hope is cherished that the Report
 officially offered to the constituted authorities, by the
 secretary of. state, Mr. Dix, will be carried into exe-
 cution  by gentlemen competent  to  the task.  The
 plan by districts is  admirable, and  I echo the senti-
 ments of the scientific, when I add, that few papers
 of so able a character have ever been presented for
 public  adoption.  There is too much knowledge of
 the physical sciences extant, for any one at the pre-
 sent time to gainsay, with the expectation  of making
 proselytes,  the positive truth, that  a geological ex-
 amination is the only sure means by which the inhe-
 rent treasures of a country can be unveiled, and made
 useful to commerce, science, and the arts;  and the
 report of Mr. Secretary Dix is confessedly so rich in
 inducements,  that every  possible motive is held out
 to prosecute the plan which he announces.
   That the undertaking is too much for  individual
 appropriation is manifest; and the aid of govern-
 ment is very properly invoked for its satisfactory ac-
 complishment.   May we cherish the hope that in the
 appointment  of  qualified  persons for the  honoura-
 ble work every consideration of private and local in-
 terest will be discarded, and that, unswayed by the
 sinister motives of party politics, the gentlemen se-
 lected may be worthy of the  occasion  and the mo-
 mentous object.  The Honourable Stephen Van Rens-
 selaer, with  a munificence and a  disinterestedness
 alike challenging our approbation, is too well known
to you for his generous zeal in facilitating the cultiva-
           8 
58
tion of this department of physical truth, as well as
several other  pursuits for the  amelioration of man,
not to receive our passing tribute.  The valuable
survey of  the county of Albany, executed at his ex-
pense, by Professors Eaton and T. R. Beck, is here
referred to in evidence of his patriotism and discern-
ment.   The scholars of such a votary of important
knowledge, must partake of the zeal of their patron.
Moreover,  New-York,  in unquestionable language
may say she  is the special field of geological in-
quiry,  as  the  briefest  statement of her treasures
within the  earth already ascertained, would absorb
several hours  in the enumeration.  The  wonders of
Niagara and the Trenton Falls, and the antiquities of
Onondaga, are of themselves  enough to secure re-
turns for the largest appropriations.  But when we
further reflect  that our state has been signalized by
the discovery therein of organic remains of the largest
of an extinct race of animals, whose zoological cha-
racter  has  unveiled new wonders to the learned,
we are stimulated in pushing on the boundaries of
scientific knowledge.
  Besides, in the march which geology is now makino-,
comparative anatomy becomes an  essential  aid,  as
plants, as  well  as  animals derive  the materials of
which they are composed from the mineral kingdom  :
the discoveries thus brought to view in this depart-
ment of nature create additional impulse in the breast
of the  explorer  of  nature's  laws.  I well recollect
the fervour of expression with which the late John 
59
Bell, the Edinburgh anatomist, remarked in my in-
terview with him, on the extraordinary  advantages
which America afforded for exploring geological phe-
nomena.  The organic remains already discovered
in America, said he, almost compel  me  to a visit
thither;  " for,  with your remarkable bones in my
hands, I could form a new theory of the earth."   Like
Cuvier, this great anatomist and surgeon thought that
the fragments  of bones of extinct animals in the
hands of the philosopher, were sufficient to elucidate
the history of the primeval world ere  man was crea-
ted.   The  contribution which  Dr. Harlan of Phi-
ladelphia has just made by his rich volume on this
and  kindred subjects, will  be estimated by  every
lover of wisdom:  the  medical  reasoner and  the
man  of general science will cherish him  with the
kindest feelings.  I am restricted in this place to the
mere mention of the name of a work worthy an en-
larged notice, and lately published by Dr. Morton,
of Philadelphia, entitled, a Synopsis of the Organic
Remains of the  Cretaceous Groups  of  the United
States; and to  the several papers  of  Dr. Dekay
printed in our  annals.   Let me add, though our
Transactions are enriched with communications on
this novel topic, we are equally bound by the splen-
dour of discovery and the importance of its results
to redouble our zeal in our elaborations on this subject.
  Fossil ichthyology and fossil botany, both directly
associated with and constituting a part of geological
science  have  very  recently assumed a high impor- 
60
 tance : the work of Professor Agassiz, just published
 on the first of these subjects, has  brought from its
 secret place, to manifold light, irresistible evidence of
 the great usefulness of inquiries on this head ; and it
 argues well of the zeal of my countrymen, that we
 have already had proferred us some singularly curious
 and novel facts on fossil fish, by Professor Hitchcock,
 for more ample details of which I  must refer to the
 scientific Journal of Professor Silliman.   Fossil bota-
 ny, longer prosecuted, is also immediately subservi-
 ent to the elucidation of fossil zoology,  stratification,
 and geology.   The most satisfactory  paper which
 brings itself to my recollection  on this interesting
 subject is that by the Abbe Correa de Serra, as print-
 ed in the Royal  Society Transactions  for 1799, en-
 titled an  Account of a Sub-marine Forest on the East
 Coast of England.   I am led particularly to specify
 this paper from the well-known scientific reputation
 of its author, and because it contains reasoning of an
 awakening interest at the present time.   Several
 American Naturalists have found resemblances  of a
 similar character in our own country ;  for example,
 the phenomena on the coast of Cape Cod, and on the
banks of the Connecticut River ; and  thus have the
followers of truth an admirable philosophic guide.
  There  is another matter  closely connected with
 some of the preceding references, which ought to ex-
 cite  our  admiration.   Associated with geology, is
hydrology.  The survey of the coast by the United
 States government, conducted  by Mr.  Hasslar, has 
61
elicited  many valuable facts for the natural philoso-
pher ; but we are yet grossly in the dark as to some
of the leading phenomena which exist in the water
by which we are surrounded :  as the temperature and
depth of our great inland lakes.  Scoresby, Sabine,
and Parry, have ascertained that the arctic sea in-
creases  in temperature with the depth.  We are ig-
norant  of the saline contents of our atlantic waters,
and  of  the  chemical products of our lake waters.
Perplexing  doubts involve our results as to  the as-
signable cause of the  phosphorescence of the  sea;
credence is  given by some to the  speculations  of
Mitchill,  while  Jameson,  by others is deemed  to
have deduced inferences  more tenable.   Nor am I
aware  that  any American, since  Dr. Franklin, has
traced the force of the currents of the ocean,  though
Beechy and other  English navigators have  very
lately  increased the  number  of our facts on this
head.   When we reflect that the waters of the earth
cover three-fourths of its surface, and sustain myriads
of animated beings, more than people the atmosphere
and the  dry land, we must be persuaded of the vast
accessions to natural history that are to be made by
our  acquiring a profounder and more extensive ac-
quaintance with every thing in relation to them.  The
naturalist who accompanied Kotzebue describes the
waters of the polar seas as swarming with animal life;
with medusae and zoophytes, moluscas and Crustacea,
besides innumerable fishes: and you  all are familiar
with the labours of Mr. Ellis  on the nature of the 
62
corallines.   Our countryman, the late Jonathan Wil-
liams,  deduced some novel and important facts from
experiments which he instituted in the  waters of the
Gulf Stream: though made some forty years ago,
Americans,  I am afraid, are more indebted to  Sir
Humphrey Davy for bringing the deductions of Wil-
liams to our recollection, than we are to  our own
spirit of inquiry.  No feature in the physical forma-
tion of New-York is more remarkable than her inland
seas, and yet, with the exception of Clinton, hardly
another has ventured an opinion as to  their primary
constitution; whether they were not originally saline.
The exuviae of marine  animals discovered within
them would lead to the inference that the whole dis-
trict of country in which  they are was  originally
covered by the  ocean.  The same  imperfect state of
knowledge pertains to almost all we have yet promul-
gated as to the  manner in which our unrivalled Hud-
son has been formed.   The labours of Mitchill, Wil-
liams, Patridge, and Pearce, have not rendered such
an inquiry superfluous.
  To this  casual notice of our marine and inland
seas, we may add a passing remark on a congenerous
subject, our mineral waters.   These treasures of the
country attracted some scientific attention at an early
day, and the observations on the constituents of the
waters of the Virginia springs seem to have been the
forerunner  of a great number of the analytical expo-
sitors of other mineral waters found elsewhere.   Hu-
manity  derives  fresh aids for  the  exercise of her 
63
powers, by a closer study of these important remedial
agents, from a practical investigation of their chemi-
cal and medicinal  properties.  Since iodine is found
to exist in many of these waters, where it was least
expected, a philosophical examination of our thermal
and other springs  becomes vitally interesting.  This
newly-discovered  medicine has  wrought the most
healthy influence  on the goitre of the western coun-
try, since its introduction into practice in that section
of the state, in  1823, and its value as a constitutional
renovator is admitted by clinical experience.  The
waters of the mineral springs of Balston and Sara-
toga have for a memorable period been the heralds
of their own  virtues.   Several of  them are now
deemed to possess iodine.  The sulphurous waters
of Avon, in Livingston county in this state, will, as
their merits become known, be  recognized for their
potency and their sanative operation in a large class
of physical infirmities.  I apprehend that, as in most
other sulphurous  springs,  iodine will also be found
an important constituent in the composition  of the
Avon waters, and  this herculean remedy can scarcely
be over-estimated.  The volume of Dr. Bell, on the
mineral waters of the  United  States, recommends
itself to the inquirer of this too-neglected study.
   The zoological kingdom is avowedly prominent
among the subjects which the  Lyceum professes to
investigate.  I have  already adverted  to the multi-
tude and magnificence of its objects, which our coun-
try possesses.  It is not to  be concealed that for the 
64
 greater portion of our knowledge of them, we are
 under obligations to enlightened and casual visiters
 from abroad ; and however well meant their endea-
 vours, and valuable their services, to this source we
 are compelled to attribute the origin of many of the
 errors which have been promulgated.  As the  geo-
 graphical distribution of animals, as well as of plants,
 is a branch of natural history of but recent date, its
 manifold  advantages  in generalizing the numerous
 facts  connected with the physiology of animals and
 vegetables, is of consequence, as yet, but partially esti-
 mated.  It assumes the highest importance, however,
 when we profoundly study American Natural  His-
 tory.   Prompted by the true spirit of research, inqui-
 ries conducted by  this aid will unfold  the numerous
 ramifications in which such pursuits unavoidably lead,
 and which are otherwise too indistinct for clear elu-
 cidation.  We  thus place in a  subordinate rank of
 operation, temperature  and  the configuration of a
 country, and are constrained to consider the distribu-
 tion of animals as fixed by  the  will of the  Creator,
 rather than certainly regulated by any isothermal
 lines.  This doctrine has been ably  sustained by
 Kirby, as  most in  conformity with the general tenor
 of well-recognized truths.   These  views, I may  sub-
join, are corroborated the further we prosecute the
 study of our indigenous animals : for we will discover
that analogical reasoning is too hazardous to be exten-
sively applied,  however  subordinate we may occa-
sionally find it in investigating the fauna of a particular 
65
district.  If these principles were not established on
a satisfactory basis, we should find a greater similarity
in the animals of America, of Asia, and of  Africa, in
reference to corresponding latitudes, than  we know
certainly obtains.  Let me remark, that this curious
topic, so ably elucidated by Humboldt, though not
divested of ambiguity, is a suitable subject for the
enterprising spirit of the American naturalist.
  I am aware that, so far as regards the arctic circles,
the objections which  have been thus slightly thrown
out against the theory of climatal or latitudinal divi-
sions,  as too arbitrary for the  geologist,  encounter
some difficulties; inasmuch as these regions contain
not only genera, but numerous species common  to
both continents.   The Fauna Boreali Americanae is
proof in point.  But as has been remarked, this the-
ory loses all its force when applied to such discussions
as are  made to include the tropical region of Asia,
America, and Africa, in one province, and  the south-
ern extremities  of America and Africa, in another.
  Let us, however, hasten our remarks:  of the natural
history of  many animals, even for ages known, and
often described by able pens, much is imperfect, much
erroneous, and demands the exposition  of more com-
petent observers.  The metropolis in which we reside
favours us  with great opportunities of practically prov-
ing the verity of this assertion.  If the Olympic games
were rendered subservient to the advancement of a
knowledge of noble animals, by the ancients, and the
menageries of Alexander were the delight  of princes,
              9 
6G
and profitable to his master, Aristotle,  assuredly the
Zoological Institute organized in this city, may be
made tributary to the same laudable end.  And,  in-
deed, such it has already proved, though but an esta-
blishment of yesterday.   The habits of animals are
there closely observed, modified, however, by circum-
stances ;  their diseases better understood, and their
anatomical  structure  unfolded,  as occasions  offer.
From opportunities arising from this  source, gross
popular errors in  the anatomy and physiology of the
hyena were lately disclosed, and  to the same intelli-
gent gentlemen, Doctors A. Sidney Doane and Benja-
min Drake, of this city, are we under obligations  for
additional confirmatory facts on the relative develop-
ment of the brain and nervous system in other animals.
These anatomists have  also, by direct  inspection,
lately shown from the distribution of the nerves, that
those of the huge rhinoceros, of weight more than
eight thousand pounds, were not larger than those of
the orang outang,  weighing only sixty pounds. Hence
we are led to infer, that we are to scrutinize with more
minuteness the  aggregate proportion which  the ner-
vous development of different animals bears to their
respective brains, to determine with surer results the
sensorial and muscular powers, the quantum of  sa-
gacity and intellectuality, so to speak, belonging to
the several members of the animal kingdom.
  From  the period of Tulpius,  in  whose work  we
have the best figure of the orang outang, to the time
of Cuvier, philosophers have  busied themselves with 
67
descriptions of the simiae.   The reports of travellers,
as well as the specimens of such animals exhibited in
Europe, demonstrate  to the clearest senses, that the
man-like simiae, whether the orang outang of Borneo,
or the  chimpanse of Angola, as well as  the long-
armed monkey or gibbon, are greatly different in their
skin from man; and  other peculiarities, dwelt upon
by Gmelin,  Bontius,  and White, might be  easily  re-
ferred to, as well understood.  But  I will  venture to
affirm, that our precise knowledge of the most remark-
able one of this  species has been  improved by the
careful  anatomical differences recorded by Drs. Doane
and Drake, whose names I have just mentioned.  Nor
am I unmindful of the results which zoological data of
this nature,  founded on comparative  anatomy, would
supply,  in arming us  with materials to grapple with
the subtle disquisitions  of  White,  in his  ingenious
work on the Regular Gradation in  Man.   But that
to which I would still more earnestly invite the ser ■
vices of this society,  is to furnish discriminating and
scientific accounts of our native zoological produc-
tions.   The time has  arrived when the reproach is too
great longer to rest contented with the imperfections
which mark our knowledge of this branch.   Several
of our most  remarkable indigenous animals are with-
out a becoming historian.   Even the accounts of the
moose deer,  and the elk, the badger, several species
of the bear,  the fox, and many others, are so confused
as to perplex the European investigator.  How ample
the field of inquiry is,  may be learned from  the Arctic 
68
 Zoology  of Richardson,  the  several explorers who
 have recently visited our north-western territories, as
 also from the  early labours of Bartram in Florida,
 and the succession of authors to the late productions
 of the lamented Godman, the Fauna of  Harlan, and
 the recent valuable edition of  Cuvier, by Dr. McMur-
 trie.  The observation  seems to be too well estab-
 lished, that many of our  native quadrupeds  of the
 largest size have progressively disappeared as culti-
 vation has advanced: but  while the difficulty of ac-
 quisition has increased, the value of successful re-
 search will, with every true lover of nature, meet with
 a corresponding consideration.
  If, moreover, we Americans are less amenable  to
 censure for ignorance of the Ornithological history
 of the United States, let  us render homage to those
 eminent individuals who have achieved the task for
 us ; and frankly avow our obligations to  Wilson, and
Bonaparte, and Audubon, and Nuttall, for having more
 ably and more  beautifully illustrated this department
 of animated nature than  all preceding naturalists,
 and presented  this study for philosophic contempla-
tion  equally attractive by its facts, as captivating by
the diction in which they are conveyed.
  I am aware that most of my hearers are more fa-
miliar than myself with the peculiar merits of these
unrivalled naturalists; but I could not omit  this slight
recognition  of their excellence, nor would I thereby
cast down the hopes of the aspiring.  Our ornithology
is not yet completed, though  we justly prize  the la- 
69
bours of our associates  Cooper, Dekay, Le Conte,
and  other  contributors to  our Transactions; nor is
the enterprize so perilous  as  to deter future efforts,
or abate the hope of distinction in this line of  ex-
ertion.  The matter and  the manner are both within
the reach of our native writers, and the salutations of
the enlightened await each new result.
   Our fish, reptiles, and  insects, and our conchology,
all demand further elucidation.  Natural history is
now so philosophically  and  so  discriminately con-
sidered in the  classification  of its cultivators, from
the mammalia down through all its characters, to  the
organization of even the zoophyta and the infusoria,
that, in contemplating this vast subject, we may fairly
say that comparatively nothing, in some of these  de-
partments, has as yet been done by us.  The mono-
graph of Dr. Mitchill, on the fishes of the waters of
New-York, may be  considered  among the  first in
merits,  as it is  unquestionably the earliest production
on the  subject  of the piscatory tribes of the United
States.   He has been ably succeeded by the  valu-
able contributions of M.  Le Sueur, and by Dr. Smith,
of Boston; by  the  catalogues of Mr. Greene,  Mr.
Earle, Mr. Barnes,  and Col. Totten, on the Testacea;
and  a distinguished associate of our society, Dr. Jay,
has also just printed, for common benefit, a valuable
Catalogue of the Specimens  contained in his exten-
sive  Conchological Cabinet.
   Dr. Holbrook, of South Carolina, has very recently
given us the earnest of a work of extraordinary  im- 
70
 portance on our Herpetology, and secured to himself
 the renown of both worlds  by the freshness of his
 materials and his lucid expositions.  Dr.  Harris, of
 Boston, has prepared a list of the insects found in the
 State of Massachusetts:  it embraces two thousand
 three hundred and fifty species; and all of you are
 aware of the talents which have been given to this
 branch of natural history  by our colleague, Capt. Le
 Conte, whose work  is now publishing with suitable
 elegance in Paris, and will unite in the solicitude we
 feel, that renovated health may enable him  to com-
 plete what has been so auspiciously commenced.  The
 contributions of Mr. Say, of Mr. Le Sueur, of Dekay,
 of Hentz, of Gould, of Harris, of Nuttall, with many
 writers in the Academy of Philadelphia, in Professor
 Silliman's Journal, and in the Annals of our Lyceum,
 here present themselves to our recollection, in review-
 ing the labours of our predecessors and contempora-
 ries in the several departments of natural science.
  In inviting your attention to these several subjects,
 all so imperfectly investigated, and yet so full of re-
 sults,  I am desirous  to  impress you with the impor-
 tance of cautious  observation and precise  description.
 It is far better for the mind to be left  entirely free to
 occasional conjecture in resolving doubts, than to be
encumbered with the false  or hasty deductions of care-
less investigation. Some  writers on natural  history
 are too frequently infatuated  by the  fatal desire of
novelty :  hence the interminable catalogue of syno-
nyms we have to encounter: the vanity of discovery 
71
outweighing the interests of real knowledge.  I fear
that the eminent naturalist, Rafinesque, is not wholly
secure from this imputation. It has well been observed
by  Dr.  Dekay, " New nominal species perplex the
student, increase the labours of the critical naturalist,
and render the study of natural history tedious and
difficult.  If it was generally understood (continues
this eminent naturalist) that it is more meritorious to
extinguish a single nominal species than to establish
a dozen new ones, it would  effectually check the
present mania for making  new  species  on  slight
foundations.   This  also leads to  an overweaning
anxiety to secure  priority;  and hence descriptions
are liable to be drawn up in a crude and  hasty man-
ner, without reference to the co-ordinate characters."*
  Let us rapidly glance at the vegetable kingdom;
the subject, properly handled, might germinate into a
volume. A triumphant list of American writers might
be  recorded, who have exposed the riches and the
wonders of our vegetable productions.   There seems
to have been, from a remote period, a peculiar dispo-
sition among our countrymen to studies having that
object in view.  Not  a few of the earliest explorers
dwelt with rapture  on the treasures of vegetable
America;  and some  of the most conspicuous prede-
cessors of  Linnaeus, as well as that great man and his
immediate disciples, seize at every occasion, to aug-
ment their knowledge of the novel and extraordinary
display of vegetable  existence which 'this country
  * Dekay : Address to the Lyceum of Natural History of New-York. 
72
furnishes.   In an unpublished  manuscript corre-
spondence, recently favoured me by  my friend, Mr.
Dunlap, I find that Dr. Johnson, of Perth Amboy, is
chronologically to be ranked  among  the pioneers of
this class of naturalists.  His letters bear date exactly
a century ago, and he says he thinks the information
he imparts to his friend abroad will be found profita-
ble to an inquirer of like facts, one Mr. Linnaeus !  The
polar star which subsequently illumined the heavens,
and has  been hailed by all nations,  had then, in its
ascent, hardly  appeared above the  horizon.  Soon
after this early date, when the artificial system of the
great Swede had been submitted for the adoption of
the learned in his own country, we  find it unfolded
to the votaries  of Flora, by the learned and  accom-
plished Colden, on the banks of the Hudson.
   I proffer these particulars, as examples of the zeal
of our forefathers for a knowledge of natural science.
In the meanwhile, individuals of consummate acqui-
sition in this field  of  investigation from remote Eu-
rope visited our shores, traversed  our forests, reaped
the rewards of their enthusiasm,  and transmitted to
their respective homes the offsprings of our soil. Clay-
ton and  Kalm, Masson and the Michauxs, were of
the number of these  adventurous naturalists.  The
productions they chiefly sought were not so much
objects of curiosity; but such as, transferred to  their
respective climates, might become of benefit to the
arts and  domestic and rural economy.  Our surprise
will therefore cease, when in Europe we behold the 
                        73

occidental  plane flourishing  in the garden of Paris,
and  our maple  appropriated to decorations of regal
furniture.  It is a delectation, unmixed and cordial,
to contemplate the characters of these lovers of natu-
ral history : while nature continues her bounties, may
their number never dwindle, nor their excellence de-
teriorate.   Their memory is perennial.  Clayton was
a medical  graduate of Oxford,  of the  strictest in-
tegrity, ever piously inclined, and was wont to  say
that  he beheld the traces  of infinite wisdom and con-
trivance in the humblest flower.   His Flora Virginica
is known to every botanist. Kalm, originally intended
for the ecclesiastical profession, became a physician
and  professor at Abo.  Fired  with the zeal of his
preceptor, Linnaeus, he, when quite young, discovered
many new plants.  He was particularly  anxious to
explore the virtues of vegetable bodies, their uses in
medicine and in the arts.  It was through the recom-
mendation of Linnaeus that  he was chosen to under-
take his voyage to America.  His many discoveries
essentially enriched the  species  plantarum, of his
great master.  Masson, by education, was early dis-
ciplined for  botanical expeditions.  He  visited the
Cape of Good Hope, the Azores, Madeira, and many
other remote parts.   Disdaining pecuniary recom-
pense,  save the slenderest stipend, he appropriated
every faculty of mind  and body to enrich his native
country with foreign plants,  capable  of being  natu-
ralized.  His success was equal to his expectations.
Some few  of our older residents still remember him
           10 
74
while in New-York.   Of the mildest temperament
he was excelled by none in enthusiasm in his pur-
suits. It is refreshing to survey the character of Mas-
son :  more  brilliant names have rendered  his less
dazzling.  Plants and naturalists were his absorbing
associations.  Similis similibus gaudet.
  The Michauxs, father and son, have so connected
their  labours, that they may be deemed almost  as
one.  The ardour and success with which they pro-
secuted botanical investigation,  have  few  parallels
in science.  Their names will be perpetuated so long
as their  favourite study  is  cherished.   Seldom has
royal or imperial bounty been bestowed with greater
wisdom than that in behalf of the Michauxs.
  These eminent men, it will be perceived, were but
sojourners in the land; many others might be men-
tioned ;  but I am spared the necessity of being more
copious  in these notices, as our late president, Dr.
Mitchill,  has published some account of them in the
Collections of the New-York Historical Society.   I
regret, however, that his sketches are too frequently
the less valuable from their extreme brevity and occa-
sional inaccuracy.
  It is also impossible for us, on  this occasion, to add
much concerning our indigenous writers on Ameri-
can Botany, however meritorious they are.   To the
Bartrams, father and son, succeeded the Bartons, of
Philadelphia;  Bigelow, of Boston ; and Elliot,  of
South Carolina, as most  conspicuous  by  their re-
spective publications.  We may justly boast of several 
75
Floras of different states; that  of Pennsylvania, by
Muhlenberg; the genera of North American plants,
by Nuttall;  the Flora of the Northern States, by Pro-
fessor Torrey; the Flora of Eaton; the Flora Bostoni-
ensis of Bigelow ; the Flora Ludovica of Robins and
Rafinesque, and the elaborate synopsis  Fungorum
of Schweinitz, who has treated as  a master of the
recondite mysteries of the cryptogamia.  A list of the
Plants indigenous to the state of New-York was pub-
lished by  Jacob Green, in 1814.   A Catalogue  of
Plants growing spontaneously within thirty miles of
the  city  of New-York, was given to the  public by
this Lyceum shortly after its organization.  I ought
to have  mentioned elsewhere the paper of Professor
Lewis C. Beck,  on  the geographical Botany of the
United States, communicated to the Albany Institute,
in  1828.   Within a few weeks past, an  admirable
Compend  of Botany has been  favoured the student
by our fellow member, Dr. Gray.
   Were  I to do justice to our subject, I should dwell
upon the merits of many other accomplished natural-
ists,  whose efforts  extended botanical knowledge;
and to him in particular who has been so suddenly
summoned away from among us, who filled so large
a space,  who held so high a rank, and whose loss we
all so deeply feel, my preceptor and my friend during
a large portion of my existence.  His education, his
pursuits, his ample  resources,  and his liberal expen-
ditures, were all  subservient to the  advancement of
the several departments of science, and to those espe- 
76
cially  associated with  medical  philosophy and the
kindred branches.  It was natural that he who had
so  sedulously  laid  a broad foundation  in medical
learning,  should become the  ornament of medical
practice, and the eloquent  expositor of its soundest
doctrines : that  he who in early life had largely par-
taken  of  the solid  instruction imparted by a  Smith
and a Curtis, among the greatest teachers, should be
imbued with the spirit of the naturalist, and excel in
the promotion of the sciences.  Yes, Gentlemen; your
society has honoured itself in the expression which
it has  employed on this melancholy occasion :  " Re-
solved, That it is incumbent on this Society publicly
to express their sense  of the services rendered by
their late  distinguished associate,  Dr. Ho sack,  not
only to their Institution, but to the cause of science
in this country by his personal services, his munifi-
cent patronage,  and the countenance and encourage-
ment he has uniformly shown its  votaries."
   The humble  individual whom you have chosen to
commemorate in suitable terms the merits and labours
of our late associate, hopes that  ere long he may be
enabled to execute, in part  at least, this responsible
task.   It were  easy for you to have selected talents
and erudition of a higher order for the purpose ;  dif-
ficult, indeed, to have found one who would enter on
the duty with feelings more faithfully  consecrated to
the undertaking.*

  * The task is assigned to better hands.  Since the delivery of this Dis-
course, the duties of Biographer of this eminent individual, have been en- 
77
   As the vegetable world comprehends a large  por-
tion of the most beautiful and important productions
of nature, so, too, there is no science which requires
on the part of him who profitably studies it, a larger
variety of physical knowledge:  to such a one  the
pursuit is enchanting.    A patient and continuous
effort  is  demanded, in order  to  become acquainted
with the immense labours already achieved: a sound
judgment to discriminate the phantoms of the imagina-
tion from well-sustained deductions  and incontro-
vertible truths :  viewed  in this  light,  the study of
plants becomes most instructive.   I have adverted to
the geographical  distribution of plants ;  this compre-
hended,  our researches  touching  the  localities  of
vegetables, and thence the Floras of our own country
or of particular sections,  is of easier acquisition.   De
Candolle and Sprengel have given us a curious chap-
ter on the best laws for  our government in this sort
of investigation.   On a sure foundation it exerts an
essential influence on the science of the cultivation of
the  garden and  the field;  on the  rearing and  pre-
servation of  the forest, and  other occupations.   The
physiology of plants has absorbed the  best minds,
from the  time  of Malpighius  and  Grew to our own
day: and the diseases to which they are vulnerable,
have been shown in numerous  cases,  by Duhamel
trusted to one well known for his ardent admiration of his worth, talents,
and long professional career.  The extensive correspondence and manu-
scripts of Dr. Hosack were, immediately after his decease, assigned to the
Rev.  Henry W. Ducachet, M.D. D.D., now Rector  of St. Stephen's
Church, Philadelphia, whose abilities justify the highest expectations. 
78
and Schabol, to be remarkably analagous to those we
ourselves suffer.   Nevertheless,  how useful  would
prove the service, and how extensive  the consequent
reputation  of that American, who having  examined
the discrepancies of Mayow and Ingenhouze, Priest-
ley and Ellis, and fortified with  the  facts  of  recent
science, should set forth the philosophy of vegetables,
their anatomy and functions, their noxious and their
sanative powers,  free from the perplexities which at
present embarrass us.
  The  longevity of trees has  not been overlooked,
though it has not been sought into with the measure of
importance it solicits.  Many  naturalists have given
tabular views of the ages attained by vegetable bodies,
and the classical scholar knows that the ancients were
not incurious on the subject.   Our North American
forest trees are the representatives of so many fami-
lies of arborescent plants growing from a remote time
unmolested, that the principles which have been ap-
plied  to an investigation of the  respective ages of
vegetable life, might be here tested  with a prospect
of a better determination  of their accuracy.
  Every one is acquainted with the history of the
venerable chesnut-tree of Mount  Etna, described by
Adanson; and with the cypress-tree of Mexico.  To
the olive, I believe, is attributed the greatest longevity.
A thousand and more years have been assigned as
the  life of  the oak.  I have seen the yew reported
as of  some seven centuries growth, in vigorous foli-
age, in Yorkshire in England; and  the orangery of 
79
Francis the First flourishes at Versailles, with the
beauty and fragrance it imparted during the reign of
that gallant monarch.  Nor when in Holland, could I
be withheld from the temptation of taking a branch
from the palm which Clusius planted at Leyden, in
1609, which Boerhaave  watered,  and which Haller
has described, and at that time more than two centu-
ries old.  It is said that the chesnut-tree of our west,
which flourished when Columbus first reached the
new world, still possesses its wonted energies.   I am
not botanist enough to know whether our sycamore
or plane tree is as  tenacious of duration.   Inquiries
into the longevity of trees would lead to a more accu-
rate knowledge of the best means for their growth
and health, as well as of the causes of their decay.
Like human bodies, they have within themselves in-
herent sources of destruction; and, unfortunately, like
them, they may be  assailed from without by foreign
and pestilential agents.  The recent successful expe-
riments of Sir Henry Stewart of Edinburgh are cal-
culated to increase our means of research on several
matters connected with vegetable life, and we ought
ere this to have settled the disputatious speculations
to which the theory of Mr. Knight has given origin.
I  have elsewhere recorded the inquiries which Dr.
Bostock of London has submitted on this subject.
   In the multitude of  works almost daily appearing,
we have  the  pledge that our Flora will soon be ren-
dered more satisfactory: with none does the obliga-
tion to  do this work so positively rest as with Ameri- 
80
can botanists ;  and there is not a production from the
most enlightened foreigner, if properly examined, that
will not be found susceptible of improvement.  I speak
this not with censure, but while I make the declara-
tion, am most ready to bear the testimony of gratitude
for all they have done for us.   The Oaks of Michaux,
surpassing all other monographs on the products of
our country, is acknowledged to be deficient in many
species;  and the magnificent volume  of the accom-
plished Lambert, on our  Pines, is  marred by errors
which  an intelligent  backwoodsman  might rectify.
The late Simeon De  Witt, in a brief paper in the
Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of the
Useful Arts, invited the attention of naturalists to the
misnomers of  some of the forest trees of the United
States  : a regard to his  suggestions would  prevent
much misapprehension.   In the Sylva Americana of
D. J. Browne, a commendable solicitude has been had
on this embarrassing neglect.
   Six, I believe, was the number of the different spe-
cies of triticum (wheat) stated by Linnaeus.  Botanists
at present have increased the amount  to twenty-two.
If the wild wheat discovered in Oneida county, New-
York, shall be found to be an indigenous, not an im-
ported grain, and of spontaneous growth, we may justly
boast of the Triticum Americanum.   Chnton says it
delights in a wet soil, which  is  not congenial to the
common wheat: it presents not only a different aspect,
but seems to have peculiar and characteristic qualities.
Should these conjectures  be verified,  our state  may 
81
claim the birth-place  of Ceres,  as well as Sicily,
where mythology has yielded to her the title of queen;
and the goddess enjoy two special abodes—our fertile
west, as well  as her favourite Enna.   A harvest, in
more respects  than one, awaits the decision of this
question by the American naturalists.
   The living  owe  to the illustrious dead a faithful
record of their acts and  virtues:  if man's intellectu-
ality be an  emanation of the Deity, the principle of
gratitude is of an  equally exalted origin.  Yet how
imperfect and how  scanty are our written memorials
of the eminent individuals who have preceded us, and
to whom we have been made debtors by their  eluci-
dations  of  the  manifold beauties of creation,  their
contributions  to natural science,  and the additional-
powers they have thus given man.
   This just reproach ought to  be removed, and bio-
graphical memoirs  of the distinguished naturalists
who have adorned  our country deserve to occupy  a
portion of our time, and to hold a conspicuous place
in our printed annals.  It is  a duty which we  ought
no longer to  dispense with.   That eminently cele-
brated  body,  the Royal Society  of London, did not
disdain to perpetuate the trivial  incidents of the life
of John Tradescant, the humble gardener of Kew.
Where are the laurels with which we have decorated
the brows of the intrepid explorers of this new world,
who, with a hardihood to which the European philo-
sopher is a  stranger, have brought the vast treasures
of knowledge from the remotest regions to our closet
            11 
82
studies and fire-sides?  Mr. Ord  and Mr. Peabody
have, indeed, with a noble feeling,  done justice to-
ward Wilson;  the late  Dr. Trevitt of the United
States Navy, has given us many precious particulars
of the unfortunate Dombey, the victim of botanical
zeal, whose energies and actions  surpass, in the ro-
mantic, the story of Robinson Crusoe.
  The excellent Dr. Garden has found a congenial
friend to perpetuate his worth in Sir James Edward
Smith.  Dr. Sewell of Washington city, has not for-
gotten our  late fellow-labourer, the persecuted and
too short-lived Godman ;  some record has been pre-
served of the  entomologist,  Thomas  Say,  and a
tribute has  been paid to an early promoter of mine-
ralogy among  us,  the  late  Dr.  Archibald Bruce.
Nor has the first president of the  Lyceum, Samu-
el L. Mitchill,  been permitted to  depart without
some commemoration  of  his  learning  and devo-
tion to natural science.    We  are, too, indebted
to  the  generosity and friendship  of  one  of  our
lately deceased associates,  for a memoir  of great
importance on  the  public  life  of  DeWitt  Clinton;
and in all that relates to that great undertaking which
has rendered his name enduring  among all people,
the work of Dr.  Hosack will long be  consulted as
the authentic source  of important information.   But
Clinton deserves from  some competent individual of
our society that his investigations and  contributions
in American natural history, should be more widely
known and analyzed.  He studied, when not  tram- 
83
melled  by public cares, with philosophical precision,
the peculiarities of the physical constitution  of our
aborigines ; furnished us with  important conjectures
on the habits and characteristics of the zizania aqua-
tica, or wild rice  of the American lakes, wrote on
birds and on fishes, and loved, with a naturalist's fond-
ness, every department of physical science.  He de-
lighted to dwell upon every incident associated with
the labours and services of  naturalists ; from Henni-
pen to Kalm, every  thing was  familiar to him; the
great Swede was ever a topic of delight and the he-
roic achievements of Cuvier the theme of his admira-
tion.   So much did  he, at a late period of his life, be-
come enamoured of the genius and skill of the mo-
dern  French school of naturalists, that there is rea-
son to conclude he  would  have finally adopted the
natural system of Jussieu in preference to the artifi-
cial method of Linnaeus, and would have  chosen the
improved nomenclature of the Parisian savans rather
than that of the English writers, whose works he had
studied with deference,  and to whose authority he
had originally bowed with submission.
   There is, moreover, an obligation of the severest
nature  enjoined, in  particular  upon us, to display to
the broadest light of  every intelligent beholder, the
disinterested career of De Witt Clinton.   He was not
surpassed by any other individual whom  it has been
my happiness to know, in  advancing knowledge for
the general benefit; all his studies were directed to the
patriotic intent of adding to  the resources of our pro^ 
84
ductive industry, and to swell the vastness of the em-
pire  state.   And when we take a retrospective sur-
vey of that unhallowed act upon his reputation which
the violence of party strife inflicted in our society
proceedings at an early date of our existence, we are
summoned with united effort to give to our successors
the faithful portraiture of him whom we now revere
as an associate, and whose intellect stamped its im-
press on the age in which he flourished.  By a faith-
ful biography, from the  Lyceum only, can we ex-
punge that ballot  which  refused him membership
until the  monitions of conscience hastened to repara-
tion by a united suffrage in his behalf and the rescue
of our own honour.  It is a curious coincidence, that
at the very time when  individual malignity thus ex-
ercised its nefarious influence at home, testimonials of
distinction  from  eminent foreign  societies flowed  in
abundance upon Clinton in acknowledgment of his
successful  efforts in the extension of science in his
native land.
   Some few other  eminent names might be added,  of
which we may boast imperfect notices.  But are we
not chargeable with supineness when  no  becoming
accounts exist of  the  early trials and sufferings  of
Carver, who depended on the eleemosinary kindness
of Sir Joseph Banks ; of the learning and labours  of
Cutler ; of the prodigious and successful efforts  of the
Bartrams ; of Catesby; of Colden; of the noble dar-
ing of Lewis;  of the researches of Bradbury ;  of the
contributions of  the lamented McBride ;  no memoir 
85
of Pike, who to military ardour added a love of the
natural sciences ;  no record  of Pursh, whose Flora
of our country is the last and most ample of its kind;
of Andrew Ellicot, the philosopher, who with astro-
nomical  accuracy first explored the  western wilder-
ness and published  results of  cheering  importance.
No detailed account of Stephen Elliott,  a genius of
the first rank in botanical knowledge.
   Nor ought we so long to  have withheld our record-
ed homage of  that eminent individual whom Portu-
gal in her official wisdom lately commissioned as her
resident minister with us ; the late Abbe Correa de
Serra.  That profound philosopher and erudite scho-
lar embraced within his mental grasp the circle of
knowledge, and in natural history was unquestiona-
bly unsurpassed.  Those who were in personal com-
munion with him, can never forget the luminous illus-
trations  of his  learning on almost every topic.   His
society advanced the  pursuits  of  natural know-
ledge by the exemplary charms which  he,  its great
proficient, possessed, while his  sumptuous conversa-
tions  proved a  new  stimulant to effort, and awaked
fresh enthusiasm in the breast of its less ornate disci-
ples.
   I must terminate  these  imperfect notices of our
benefactors with one other.  It  is indeed  a transition,
from the celebrated Abbe to Paul Sannier; but Paul
cannot be omitted.   Originally of France, his early
life was absorbed in practical horticulture, and as an
experimenter in vegetable physiology, as one of the 
86
 subordinates at the Jardin des Plantes.  Here he had
 instilled into him the principles of the Ordines Na-
 turales by their  author, Jussieu.   Shortly after he
 was selected for  his botanical attainments to accom-
 pany the elder Michaux to this country: he proved
 serviceable as collector.  By regal means, Louis XVI,
 by whose patronage Michaux the elder was author-
 ized to procure American productions, a plot of ground
 in New-Jersey was appropriated as a suitable garden
 for rearing  and preserving plants and  trees, mainly
 designed for the institutions in France.
   In this sequestered place, Paul, with the exception
 of occasional excursions to this city, and to parts ad-
 jacent,  passed the remainder  of his days.   Here he
 was visited  by the younger  Michaux, Pursh, Doug-
 lass,  Bradbury, and other foreign naturalists,  who
 reached our shores.  Poor Wilson, the  ornithologist,
 often found shelter within his humble dwelling from
 the lowering sky and the tempestuous storm, and often
 have I heard Michaux enlarge on the refreshing en-
joyments of  Paul's hospitality.  Paul was a sort of
 Sir Oracle with them, and his responses were heeded
 by all who sought practical knowledge in natural his-
 tory.    Paul, I believe,  may be estimated the first as
to time, who without  much  pretension,  inculcated
 among  us the classification of Jussieu, and the arbo-
riculturist may perhaps  be now, for the first time, in-
formed, that to him are we to assign the  introduction,
into this country, of the Lombardy poplar. Paul holds
a place in the progress of botanical pursuits not unlike 
87
that enjoyed so long by the late venerable Wrn. Bar-
tram, of the Kingess Botanical Garden; though  I
should be  reluctant to assign to him a place so
conspicuous  as  that  of  our  philosophical  travel-
ler.  I see in my audience  several naturalists who
knew him personally better than  myself.  Let Mi-
chaux speak of the goodness of his heart and of his
disinterested philanthropy:
         The meanest flower that blooms, can give
         Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
   Paul was so exclusive in his attention to his avoca-
tions, that hardly any  other subject  than trees and
plants ever found entrance  into his  mind.  To the
day of his death he considered his little circumscribed
residence as still the property of his royal master, and
ignorant of the vicissitudes of political revolution re-
luctantly gave credence  to  the fact of the decapita-
tion of his bountiful but unfortunate king.  Paul now
lies in the Hackensack church-yard :  his tomb-stone
recounts not half his excellence.
   Assuredly the lives of men such as  I have noticed,
might be made profitable study for the rising  genera-
tion: they furnish realities  which far  outshine the
brightest imaginings, invigorate ardour for physical
truth, and swell the amount  of rational enjoyment by
the greater diffusion of a knowledge of nature, and
the means by which that knowledge is awarded. The
various achievements of Henry R. Schoolcraft, give
earnest  of what individual effort  may accomplish
when prompted by such  noble  impulse. 
88
  I have thus, gentlemen, thrown together some few
of the more prominent subjects which have presented
themselves to the mind in my casual reflections on
the  objects of the association.   Many other equally
conspicuous, for obvious  reasons, I am compelled to
leave untouched.  If what has fallen from me has in
the  smallest degree excited a deeper interest in the
welfare of this Lyceum, and exhibited its pretensions
to the  countenance  and  support of  the  disciples of
knowledge, I am satisfied.
  In conclusion, I am constrained  to add one or two
other remarks.   The  more we reflect upon the  se-
veral advantages which characterize New-York, the
stronger will be our conviction that of all places in
our land, that in which our lot is cast, enjoys a match-
less superiority.  Our location is of easy access  at all
times and to all people :  our population is surpassed
by none in enterprize and in resources :  well digest-
ed laws and the principles of religious toleration give
to each individual equal rights  and secure equal im-
munities, and leave the mind to the fullest scope in
the  exercise of its intellectual pregrogatives.   Choice
in every business of life is optional with every one,
and the freedom of selection  is only controlled by
those circumstances which each  may  volunteer to
combat.   With an ample population of this character,
it is only  necessary that each should know his own
good in order successfully to pursue it, whether it
lies in  the arts mechanical, or philosophical; whether
in details  subservient to the humble avocations of ex- 
89
istence or in the prosecution of studies which lead to
individual distinction or national renown.  In a com-
pact thus organized, the smallest intellect may find
occupation and happiness ;  the most capacious mind
every thing which it desires to embrace.  Hence the
hope that this association will never be found without
those aids and encouragements which emanate from
a people enlightened with a becoming spirit of inde-
pendence, and zealous of their individual importance.
   But  there  are other peculiar  circumstances  to
which I would fain  allude in behalf of this Society.
I know that from its first formation up to the present
hour, it has been the cherished object of the enlight-
ened members of the liberal professions; the jurist,
the  theologian, and  the physician, each has contri-
buted to its valuable  memoirs and to its rich cabinets ;
each has aided it by those means, without which all
efforts  are nugatory,  all hope  vain.  This fact de-
clares volumes in behalf of that general position long
ago advanced by classical  authority,  that cultivated
minds, though of different callings, find a mutual plea-
sure in pursuits, whether remote or immediate, which
liberalize the  feelings,  instruct the understanding,
and dignify human nature.   This truth is axiomatic,
when  we embrace  within our view the natural  sci-
ences ;  their  vastness is extensive enough for  the
greatest capacity;  their variety adequate  to every
taste;  their inherent interest enough  to arouse the
energies  of the most indifferent;  their value such
only, as he who possesses  can fully estimate ; such
                 12 
90
only, as he who is without that knowledge must often
most sadly feel.
   But more fortunate still:  with the  countenance of
those whe are recognized as of the liberal profes-
sions strictly so called,  this association has received
the co-operation of other individuals whose liberality
our records attest: we all are apprized that to the na-
tural advantages which  New-York posesses are su-
peradded the artificial, resulting from  the successful
culvitation of the mechanical arts : hence our city
may be denominated one vast workshop, and be re-
garded as the focus of countless  avocations, blessed
with adequate support and encouragement; different
and  diversified causes thus reacting,  we can readily
comprehend the  sources  of her wealth, her power,
and  her  extent:  the spirit of  the  arts depends upon
freedom of action and a wholesome competition; and
the mind itself of  the artizan  is liberalized by asso-
ciation and by what favours  the  avenues of trade.
Hence we foster, with  the broadest  expansion  of
American feeling, the  services  of a Whitney, an
Evans,  an  Eckford, and a  Fulton:  and  if  we
fairly  canvass  the  question,  we  shall  betray no
ignorance in saying that the strongest  patrons of use-
ful science are often found among individuals of the
mechanical professions.   This society gratefully ad-
mits  this affirmation.
  But I would allude to another  class of men, who
have given to New-York its most unequivocal title to
distinction;  who, in an unprecedented short period, 
91
have  converted a humble village into a magnificent
city, unparalleled for its enterprize, its recuperative
energies,  and its  mercantile  relationships.  I was
gratified when in consulting our minutes, I found such
generous benefactions from that quarter. It, however,
corresponds with the opinion I long ago formed of the
patronage which mercantile men are wont to bestow
on objects of taste and utility.  Myself and my brother
practitioners are free to acknowledge  that our best
patients  are affluent merchants.  I  would  enlarge
this eulogy:  I  am persuaded  that the most efficient
contributors to the  support and progress of  literary
and scientific  establishments, both  abroad  and  at
home, are of the mercantile profession.  Witness,  in
natural knowledge, the individual instances of Rum-
phius, of Holland;  Hollis, of England;  and Gre-
sham  and Roscoe,  of the  same  country;  in con-
federation,  the Hon.  the East India Company, with
Sir Wm.  Jones, whose Transactions  rank with the
foremost in  all Europe in the promotion of the natural
history of Asia.
   In  speaking  of commerce, an elegant classical wri-
ter of our country,  Robert Walsh,  has lately judi-
ciously observed : " The pursuits of  commerce lead
to the cultivation of the arts of peace,  and to habits
of liberal and useful research.  They tend to soften
and refine  the manners, and  to  promote the virtues
of humanity.   They enlarge  the understanding, and
fortify the moral qualities.  They generate  a spirit
of tolerance, and form a solid character of clear, sa- 
92
gacious sense, destructive to the frivolity and to the
prejudices, without which despotism cannot  exist."
And of the salutary influence which commercial avo-
cations exert on the political destinies of a people, the
same eloquent writer further remarks : " No govern-
ment purely arbitrary can be established, or long en-
dure, in a  country  where commerce is tolerated,  or
protected, upon a large and liberal plan."*
   Let me assure the gentlemen, members of that emi-
nent rank in life, that nothing which they have con-
tributed towards this Lyceum has been lost:  let me
urge  them, so far  as their onorous and responsible
duties will permit, to associate with  us in  promoting
intellectual pursuits.  We need their further counte-
nance and support to  uphold the cause of science in
the eyes of the public.   For all that they may bestow
upon us,  they will receive in return a premium  of
higher estimation than times of the severest panic can
command.  Life's banquet with them will be enriched
with  pleasures flowing  from the reflection that they
have aided the cultivation of studies, which in  an
especial manner prepare the mind for the advance-
ment  of its own internal  powers of happiness, and
render it doubly capable of increasing that of others;
studies which give  a new sense  for enjoyment to the
possessor, relieve the wearisomeness of indispensable
toil, and refresh the spirits in a thousand commenda-
ble ways.   In fine, they will  in after days luxuriate
in the self-satisfaction of contributing to place on an
                 * Didactics, p. 91-2. vol. i. 
93
unshaken basis, an Institution which, though origi-
nally the offspring of a few disciples of nature, is
destined, with fostering care, to grow, with the spirit
of the age, and shed an undying lustre  on the Em-
porium of the  Western world.
FINIS. 
f