258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Conrad was a strict Quaker and an approved minister of that 

 faith. His father was John Conrad, a blacksmith, and Solomon 

 was born July 31, 1779, and died October 2, 1831. Of his early 

 life nothing is positively known, but it is probable that he was 

 apprenticed to a printer or bookseller. It is known that a strong 

 fancy for scientific study was early developed, and the fears of 

 his friends were realized that he would not be successful in busi- 

 ness, because of attention divided between his shop and his cher- 

 ished specimens at home. His partner ruined him financially. 

 His herbarium is now in the possession of the Philadelphia 

 Academy of Natural Sciences. As evidence that the country was 

 more attractive than the shop on Market Street, I quote the fol- 

 lowing from the manuscript journal of a nephew : " My father, 

 . . . with Solomon Conrad, would take long walks in search of 

 new specimens. I went with them once on a stroll along the 

 banks of the Schuylkill, when they saw at the same time, in the 

 shallow bed of the river, a fine lot of mussels. Both rushed to the 

 spot, regardless of the rough stones and splashing of the muddy 

 water, the broad tails of their plain coats standing out behind 

 and their arms reaching out in front, eager to secure the prize." 

 In the spring of 1829 Solomon Conrad, who at that time had ac- 

 quired a wide reputation as a mineralogist and botanist, was elected 

 Professor of Botany in the University of Pennsylvania, and deliv- 

 ered, May 1st, his introductory address. In The Friend of fifth 

 month, 9, 1829, the late Roberts Vaux, of Philadelphia, gives the 

 following estimate of the lecture : " With a succinct review of the 

 history of botany he very happily blended some biographical no- 

 tices of the distinguished men to whom the science owed its origin 

 and illustration. He traced with great acuteness and perspicuity 

 the analogy of vegetable and animal life, admitting the limit of 

 human knowledge. Every view that he furnished of the subject, 

 upon which he is so well qualified to impart instruction in all its 

 details, was just and forcible, while the simplicity of his manner 

 and chasteness of his style were by no means the least interesting 

 traits of the lecturer." The venerable Frederick Fraley, Esq., of 

 Philadelphia, recently informed me that he was present at the 

 introductory lecture referred to, and that Mr. Vaux had in no 

 wise allowed his enthusiasm to outrun his discretion. 



On June 21, 1803, when his father was but twenty-four years 

 old, Timothy Abbott Conrad was born. His mother was then 

 staying at the home of her father, four miles from Trenton, N. J., 

 in Burlington County, New Jersey. To this birthplace young 

 Conrad became so strongly attached that he yearly made pilgrim- 

 age thereto, even when no representative of the family lived 

 there. In his purely literary writings he so frequently refers to 

 the place that he was once twitted about it, but without effect. 



