SKETCH OF DR. CHARLES T. JACKSON. 405 



scientific men in the country. He was appointed State Geologist of 

 Maine, and surveyor of the public lands of Massachusetts lying in 

 Maine, in 1836, and spent three years in the execution of those works. 

 In 1839 he, as State Geolosrist, surveyed Rhode Island : and he becfan 

 the geological survey of New Hampshire, in which he was occupied 

 for three years, in 1840. At about this time he drew up a plan for the 

 geological survey of New York, which was adopted. He explored the 

 southern shores of Lake Superior, and revealed the mineral resources 

 of that country in 1844 ; returned to the same region in the next 

 year, and opened copper-mines, and discovered iron-mines. In 1847 

 he was appointed to superintend the geological survey of the mineral 

 lands of the United States in Michigan, a work in which he continued 

 for two years, till he was displaced in consequence of political changes 

 in the national Government. He became a member of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History soon after its formation, and was elected one 

 of its curators in 1833. He afterward became one of its vice-presidents, 

 and continued to hold that office till disabled by sickness in 1874. 



Dr. Jackson's name is most closely associated with his claim to 

 priority in the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of ether, which 

 was the subject of a long controversy, and one that was very painful 

 to him. His claim is supported by the testimony of Mr. Francis Al- 

 ger, Dr. J. B. S. Jackson, Dr. Martin Gray,' and Mr. T. T. Bouve, to 

 whose eulogy before the Boston Society of Natural History we are 

 indebted for most of the facts given in this notice. These gentlemen 

 were his chosen friends, and were for a longr time closely associated 

 with him. Dr. J. B. S. Jackson was one of the signers of a remon- 

 strance addi-essed to Cono^ress asrainst its making: a errant of money to 

 W. G. Morton, Dr. Jackson's rival in the claim of discovery, based 

 upon the ground that the signers believed that the reward, so far as 

 the question of discovery was concerned, ought to go to Dr. Jackson. 

 Dr. Martin Gray published a pamphlet under his own name, maintain- 

 ing that Dr. Jackson was the sole discoverer of anaesthesia, and that 

 Mr. Morton could only be considered to have performed a secondary 

 part by proving that the administration of ether is safe in surgical 

 operations. Mr. Bouve, who was for a considerable time a student 

 in Dr. Jackson's laboratory, and afterward met him frequently in 

 social intercourse, accords to him the honor of having been the dis- 

 coverer of the anaesthetic properties of ether, but has *' never thought 

 him entitled to the credit of its introduction into use, or even to that 

 of having thoroughly verified what he claimed to be true respecting 

 the safety of administering it. He had ex]Derimented upon himself, 

 and had afterward demonstrated respecting it, even going so far as 

 to recommend its use by others, and this constituted discovery ; but 

 he did not prove to others what he was himself convinced of, and 

 allowed precious time to pass yes, much time without making any 

 application of the discovery. Indeed, had it not been that Mr. Mor- 



