SKETCH OF GEORGE JARVIS BRUSH. n 7 



SKETCH OF GEORGE JAEVIS BRUSH. 



By Peofessok T. E. LOUNSBURY. 



PROFESSOR GEORGE J. BRUSH was born in Brooklyn, New 

 York, on the 15th of December, 1831. His father was a merchant 

 in that city, but in 1835, retiring from business, took up his residence 

 in Danbury, Connecticut. There the family remained till 1841, when 

 they returned to Brooklyn ; and in the schools of these two places 

 Mr. Brush received his early education. It was not, however, until 

 1846, when he was sent to a school in West Cornwall, Connecticut, 

 that he had an opportunity to pay any special attention to science. 

 This school was kept by Mr. Theodore S. Gold, who was an enthu- 

 siastic student of mineralogy, botany, and of various other depart- 

 ments of natural history ; and he not only gave instructions to his 

 pupils in these subjects, but succeeded in inspiring them with a taste 

 for them. Although young Brush was at this place only six months, 

 he remained long enough to acquire a fondness for natural science, 

 which in the end resulted in changing his course in life. He in- 

 tended to pursue a business career ; and, accordingly, on leaving the 

 school at West Cornwall, entered, in the latter part of 1846, the 

 counting-house of a merchant in Maiden Lane, New York City. There 

 he remained for nearly two years, but the taste for scientific study 

 already acquired did not desert him, and, in particular, he took ad- 

 vantage of every opportunity that came in his way to go off upon 

 mineralogical excursions. A severe illness that befell him in 1848 

 rendered it necessary that he should abandon the mercantile pro- 

 fession, and it was decided that he should take up in its place the life 

 of a farmer. 



Just about this time Professor John P. Norton returned from 

 Germany, and in conjunction with Professor Silliman, Jr., opened 

 at Yale College a laboratory for the purpose of practical instruction 

 in the applications of science to the arts and to agriculture. At the 

 same time he began a course of lectures on agriculture and agricult- 

 ural chemistry. To attend these lectures, to fit himself as thoroughly 

 as possible for the life of a farmer, Professor Brush, not as yet seven- 

 teen years old, repaired to New Haven in October, 1848. This event 

 changed his career. He came to attend a single course of lectures on 

 agriculture. He remained two years as a student of chemistry and 

 mineralogy. In October, 1850, he went to Louisville, Kentucky, as 

 assistant to Benjamin Silliman, Jr., who had been elected Professor 

 of Chemistry in the university of that city. There he remained the 

 following winter, and in March, 1851, made one of the party who 

 accompanied the elder Silliman on a somewhat extended tour in Eu- 



