"notable," says Coues," as the first formal treatise exclusively devoted to a collection of North American birds sent abroad." Fifty-eight species were described, among which were several new to science. Other papers of equal value were published upon the quadrupeds and fishes of the same region. Forster was one of the earliest students of the geographical distribution of animals, and his Enchiridion of Natural History" was in its day a standard. His son. John George Forster, who was his companion in the voyage of circumnavigation, owes his fame to his literary rather than to his scientific labors. He published a paper on the Patella or Trumpet Fish found at Bermuda.* The annals of Russian explorations upon the west coast of North America have been so exhaustively recorded by Dall in his Alaska and its Resources." that only passing mention need be made of the two German naturalists, Steller and Chamisso, whose names are identified with the natural history work of the Russian explorer. Among the other naturalists whose names are associated with America during this period may be mentioned Sonnini de Manoncourt, an eminent French zoologist, who travelled in Surinam from 1771 to 1775 and made important contributions to its ornithology. Don Felix de Azara. [b. 1746. d. after 1806], who carried on researches in Spanish America from 1781 to 1801; Don Antonio Parra, who published a useful treatise on the natural history of Cuba in Havana, in 1787; Don Jose C. Mutis, a learned Spanish ecclesiastic and physician, professor of natural history in the University of Santa Fe de Bogota, in Grenada, who carried on a voluminous correspondence with Linnæus and his son from 1763 to 1778. and Joseph Jussieu, botanist to the King of France, who went to the west coast of South America in 1734 as a member of the commission sent by the Royal Academy of Sciences to make observations to determine more accurately the shape and magni Phil. Trans., 1, p. 859. + SMITH: Correspondence of Linnæus, ii, pp. 507-550. tude of the earth. "His curiosity," says Flourens, “held him captive for many years in these regions, so rich and unexplored, where he often joined the labors of the engineer with those of the botanist. To him Europe owes several new plants, the heliotrope, the marvel of Peru, &c., with many curious and then unknown species." Here, also, should be mentioned the eminent French ornithologist, Francois Levaillant, [b. 1753, d. 1824], who was a native of America, and the two Mexican naturalists, also native born, Jose A. Alzate, [b. in Ozumba, 1729, d. in Mexico, Feb. 2, 1790], a learned botanist, and Francisco Javier Clavigero. Francisco Javier Clavigero, the historian of Mexico, was one of the earliest of American archæologists. Born in Vera Cruz Sept. 9, 1731, the son of a Spanish scholar, he was educated at the college of Puebla, entered the Society of Jesuits, and was sent out as a missionary among the Indians, with whom he spent thirty-six years. He learned their language, collected their tra ditions, and examined all their historical records and monuments for the purpose of correcting the misrepresentations of early Spanish writers. When the Society of Jesus was suppressed by Spain, in 1767, Clavigero went to Italy, where he wrote his "Storia Antica del Messico," printed in 1780-81. Clavigero was a man who, in his spirit, was fully abreast of the science of his day, but whose methods of thought and argument were already antiquated. His monastic training led him to write from the standpoint of a commentator rather than that of an original observer, and his observations upon the animals and plants of Mexico were subordinated in a very unfortunate manner to those of his predecessor, Hernandez. In the "Dissertations," which make up the fourth volume of his history, he throws aside, in the ardor of his dispute with Buffon and his followers, the trammels of tradition, and places upon record many facts concerning American natural history which had never before been referred to. He here presented a list of the quadrupeds of America, the first ever printed for the en tire continent, including 143 species; not systematically arranged, it is true, but perhaps as scientific in its construction as was possible at that time, even had its author been trained in the school of Linnæus. Clavigero's dissertations are well worthy of the attention of naturalists even of the present day. His essay upon the manner in which the continent of America was peopled with living forms, shows a remarkable appreciation of the difficulties in the way of the solution of this still unsolved problem. The position taken by its author is not unlike that held by zoögeographers of to-day, in considering it necessary to bridge with land the waters between Asia and Northwestern America, and Africa and South America.* In his first Dissertation of the Animals of Mexico" he combats the prevailing European views as to the inferiority of the soil and climate of the New World and the degeneracy of its inhabitants, engaging in the same battle in which fought also Harriott, Acosta, and Jefferson. Clavigero's contributions to archæology and ethnology are extensive and valuable, and we can but admit that at the time of the issue of his "Storia Antica" no work concerning America had been printed in English which was equally valuable. Although in his formal discussion of the natural history of Mexico he follows closely the nomenclature and arrangement of Hernandez, there are many important original observations inserted. I will instance only the notes on the mechanism of the poison-gland and fang of the rattlesnake, the biographies of the possum, the coyote and the tapir, and the Tuza or pouched rat, the mocking-bird, the chegoe and the cochineal insect. Clavigero states that Father Inamma, a Jesuit missionary` of California, has made many experiments upon snakes which serve to confirm those made by Mead upon vipers. To the post-revolutionary period belongs Dr. Manasseh Cutler, *See similar speculation in George Scot's Model of the Government of the Province of East New Jersey in America. Edinburgh, 1685. for fifty-one years minister of Ipswich Hamlet, Mass., [b. 1743, d. 1823], who in 1785 published "An Account of some of the Vegetable Productions naturally growing in this part of America, botanically arranged,"* in which he described about 370 species. Cutler was a correspondent of Muhlenberg in Pennsylvania, Swartz and Payshull in Sweden, and Withering and Stokes in England. He left unpublished manuscripts of great value. He was one of the founders of the settlement in Ohio, and at one time a member of Congress. After Cutler, says Tuckerman, there appeared in the Northeastern States nothing of importance until the new school of New England Botanists, a school characterized by the names of an Oakes, a Boott, and an Emerson, was founded in 1814, by the publication of Bigelow's "Florula Bostoniensis.” Thomas Walter [b. in Hampshire, 1740] published in London, in 1787, his Flora Caroliniana," a scholarly work describing the plants of a region situate upon the Santee river.† Dr. Hugh Williamson. of North Carolina, [b. 1735, d. 1819], was a prominent member of the American Philosophical Society. He was concerned in some of the earliest astronomical and mathematical work in America; published papers upon comets and climatology, which were favorably received, and secured his election to many foreign societies, and in 1775 printed in the Philosophical Transactions his "Experiments and Observations on the Gymnotus Electricus or Electric Eel." Dr. Caspar Wistar [b. 1761, d. 1818] was one of the early professors of chemistry [1789] and anatomy [1793] in the College of Philadelphia. He was the discoverer of some important points in the structure of the ethmoid bone, a man of eminence as a teacher, and versed in all the sciences of his day. Dr. James Woodhouse, of Philadelphia, [b. 1770, d. 1809], made investigations in chemistry, mineralogy, and vegetable physiology which were considered of importance. *Mem. Amer. Acad. Sci., 1785. † See Brendel, American Naturalist, Dec., 1879, p. 759. The story of the origin of American scientific societies has been so often told that it need not be repeated here. The only institutions of the kind which were in existence at the end of the period under consideration were the American Philosophical Society, an outgrowth primarily of the American Society for the Advancement of Natural Knowledge, founded in Philadelphia in 1743, and secondarily of Franklin's famous "Junto," whose origin dates back to 1727, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1780. The relations of the colonial naturalists to the scientific societies of England have not so often been referred to, and it does not seem to be generally known that the early history of the Royal Society of London was intimately connected with the foundation of New England, and that the first proposition for the establishment of a scientific society in America was under consideration early in the seventeenth century. The great Mr. Boyle," writes Eliot," Bishop Wilkins, and several other learned men, had proposed to leave England and establish a society for promoting natural knowledge in the new colony, of which Mr. Winthrop, their intimate friend and associate, was appointed governor. Such men were too valuable to lose from Great Britain; and Charles II. having taken them under his protection, the society was there established, and obtained the title of the Royal Society of London."* For more than a hundred years the Royal Society was the chief resource of naturalists in North America. The three Winthrops, Mitchell, Clayton, Garden, Franklin, Byrd, Rittenhouse, and others were among its fellows, and the Philosophical Transactions contained many American papers. As at an early date the Society of Arts in London began to offer prizes for various industrial successes in the colonies, for instance, for the production of potash and pearlash, for the culture of silk, and for the culture of hemp, the vine, safflower, olives, *ELIOT: Biographical Dictionary. |