AMERICAN SAVANS. 437 



man he is working up the articulates of the 

 Wilkes Expedition. Wyman, recently made 

 professor at Cambridge, is an excellent com- 

 parative anatomist, and the author of several 

 papers on the organization of fishes. . . . The 

 botanists are less numerous, but Asa Gray and 

 Dr. Torrey are known wherever the study of 

 botany is pursued. Gray, with his indefati- 

 gable zeal, will gain upon his competitors. . . . 

 The geologists and mineralogists form the 

 most numerous class among the savans of the 

 country. The fact that every state has its 

 corps of official geologists has tended to de- 

 velop study in this direction to the detriment 

 of other branches, and will later, I fear, tend 

 to the detriment of science itself ; for the utili- 

 tarian tendency thus impressed on the work of 

 American geologists will retard their progress. 

 With us, on the contrary, researches of this 

 kind constantly tend to assume a more and 

 more scientific character. Still, the body of 

 American geologists forms, as a whole, a most 

 respectable contingent. The names of Charles 

 T. Jackson, James Hall, Hitchcock, Henry 

 and William Rogers (two brothers), have long 

 been familiar to European science. After the 

 geologists, I would mention Dr. Morton, of 

 Philadelphia, well known as the author of sev- 



