1846-47-] SCIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES. 281 



dence, American society, isolated and separated by the 

 broad and stormy Atlantic, had been left to its own 

 resources. At first a new society is necessarily limited 

 to material progress, with sound moral and religious 

 training ; but sciences and the fine arts are not yet 

 needed. Some scattered naturalists had here and there 

 sprung up, but were not appreciated in proportion to 

 their real merits, and were obliged to publish their 

 observations in Europe, as was the case with the great 

 ornithologist, Audubon. However, now that the great 

 Napoleonic wars were over, a sort of revival in scien- 

 tific researches and studies had begun. The American 

 savants were not numerous enough to influence society ; 

 but a general desire to make scientific discoveries and 

 to try what Americans could do for themselves in this 

 field of human knowledge, illustrated by Buffon, Linne, 

 Cuvier, Lamarck, de Candolle, etc., had already begun 

 to exhibit signs of activity. Local scientific societies 

 had sprung up at Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and 

 Washington, and essays in scientific periodical publica- 

 tion, although not prosperous, because as yet a little 

 premature, had shown that American savants, and 

 especially American geologists, were desirous to enter 

 the arena. 



Curiously enough, science entered America led by 

 geology. To be sure, botany, ornithology, conchology, 

 entomology, and other branches of zoology, had some 

 representatives scattered all along the Atlantic borders, 

 and even as far west as New Harmony (then in the Indian 

 Territory) in the Ohio Valley, but they were not only 

 isolated, but also without the support of the people. 



