CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 43 



made either alone or with his relatives. In June, 1839, 

 a trip of twenty-five miles on foot to Holly Springs, 

 with his uncle and Cousin Penrose, after birds and game 

 is recorded. The next day he was so much used up by 

 the long tramp that he was obliged to "cut" his college 

 classes and spent his time studying Wilson's Ornithology, 

 lent by Dr. Foster. 



About this time he began to take drawing lessons from 

 a Miss St. Omer. 



In August he accompanied a party including two of 

 his uncles and others with a team, which set out to survey 

 coal lands on the Schuylkill. They were away some two 

 weeks and when they returned to Reading the boy was 

 troubled with palpitation of the heart. There seems to 

 be little doubt that the long tramps over hill and dale, 

 often with a heavy pack of game or fossils, produced a 

 dilation of the heart which is not uncommon among 

 athletes, and which was more or less responsible, even- 

 tually, for his premature decease. 



As a child it is probable that he had visited Philadel- 

 phia at various times with his relatives, but the first 

 journey there alone is noted in his Journal for September 

 5, 1839, at the age of sixteen. 



Among other "sights'" of the city he visited "Tyn- 

 dale's china store on Chestnut Street, which is lit by sixty- 

 two gaslights," evidently a recent installation of the new 

 illuminant. On the seventh of September he went to 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences, where he sawAudubon's 

 great folio on American birds. On the eleventh he re- 

 turned to Carlisle by train, a journey of ten and a half 

 hours; at present possible in three and a half hours. 



On the opening of college in October he was excused 

 from attending the six o'clock morning prayers, by 



