RAFINESQUE. 215 



things the beauty of the quaint French penmanship and the atrocious 

 badness of -the accompanying drawings. 



His numerous note-books, written in French, represent each the 

 observations of a busy summer, and these observations, for the most 

 part unchecked by the comparison of specimens, were by him pre- 

 pared for the press during the winter. To this manner of working, 

 perhaps unavoidable in his case, many of Rafinesque's errors and 

 blunders are certainly due. In one of these note-books I find, among a 

 series of notes in French, the following remarkable observation in Eng- 

 lish : " The girls at Fort Edward eat clay ! " In another place I find 

 a list of the new genera of fishes in Cuvier's "Regne Animal " (1817) 

 which were known to him. Many of these are designated as synony- 

 mous with genera proposed by Rafinesque in his " Caratteri" in 1810. 

 With this list is the remark that these genera of Cuvier are identical 

 with such and such genera "proposed by me in 1810, but don't you 

 tell it ! " 



Rafinesque was six months on the ocean in this second voyage to 

 America ; and finally, just as the ship was entering Long Island Sound, 

 the pilot let her drift against one of the rocks which lie outside of the 

 harbor of New London. The vessel filled and sank, giving the pas- 

 sengers barely time to escape with their lives. " I reached New Lon- 

 don at midnight," says Rafinesque, " in a most deplorable situation. 

 I had lost everything my fortune, my share in the cargo, my collec- 

 tions and labors of twenty years past, my books, my manuscripts, and 

 even my clothes all I possessed, except some scattered funds and 

 some little insurance-money. Some hearts of stone have since dared 

 to doubt of these facts, or rejoice at my losses. Yes, I have found 

 men vile enough to laugh without shame at my misfortunes, instead of 

 condoling with me. But I have met also with friends who have de- 

 plored my loss and helped me in need." 



I shall pass rapidly over Rafinesque's career until his settlement in 

 Kentucky. He traveled widely in America, in the summer, always 

 on foot. " Horses were offered to me," he said, " but I never liked 

 riding them, and dismounting for every flower. Horses do not suit 

 botanists." He now came westward, following the course of the 

 Ohio, and exploring for the first time the botany of the country. He 

 came to Indiana, and for a short time was associated with the com- 

 munity then lately established by Owen and Maclure at New Har- 

 mony, on the Wabash. Though this New Harmony experiment was 

 a failure, as all communities must be in which the drone and the 

 worker alike have access to the honey-cells, yet the debt due it from 

 American science is very great. Although far in the backwoods, and 

 in the long notorious county of Posey, New Harmony was for a time 

 fairly to be called the center of American science, and even after half 

 a century has gone by its rolls bear few names brighter than those of 

 Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and Charles Le Sueur. 



