80 
however, and went to Philadelphia, where he found several good 
friends and other persons, it seems, who were not, for we hear of him 
during his stay there as having been bankrupted in a business ad- 
venture and defrauded of all his savings by the falseness of a fel- 
low-countryman, to whom he had intrusted his affairs while on his 
exploring expeditions into what was then called the West, between 
the Alleghanies and.the. Mississippi. 
Through the influence of one of ‘his’ Philadelphia friends he 
secured an appointment to a professorship in the Transylvania 
University, at Lexington, Kentucky, upon the duties of which — 
position he entered in the fall of 1819. Here he passed seven 
busy years, during which time he made extensive collections, ¢S- 
pecially in conchology and botany, wrote and published many 
papers, attended to his duties at the University and acted as sec- 
retary of the Kentucky Institute—the first scientific society formed 
within the State. One of his great ambitions seems to have been 
to found or to assist in the foundation of a botanic garden at Lex- 
ington, and in 1823 he presented the matter before the State Leg- 
islature with such success that the Senate psssed a bill to that 
effect, but it failed of passage in the Assembly. He then under- 
took to push the scheme by means of private subscription and the 
_. formation of a joint stock company. An act of incorporation 
was secured, ground was purchased and planting was actually 
begun, but those upon whom he relied failed to meet their obliga- 
tions and the attempt was finally abandoned. This embittered 
and saddened him still further, and he says: « * * * this garden 
would have been my delight; I had traced the plan of it, with a 
retreat among the flowers, a greenhouse, museum and library; 
but I had to forsake it at last and make again my garden of the 
woods and mountains.” 
He does not seem to have been in touch with his associates in 
_ the University, who took but little interest in his scientific work, 
and he was doubtless impatient of their criticisms and indiffer- 
ence. Added to this, the students ridiculed him and finally, in 
June, 1825, he left Lexington and once more made his way t® 
Philadelphia. During the next fifteen years he seems to have 
lived in a hand-to-mouth manner, practicing medicine in his ow? 
: _ way, lecturing at the Franklin Institute and assisting in the estab- 
