534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but the ship on which, he took passage was captured by a French priva- 

 teer, and he was made a prisoner. On regaining his liberty he started 

 for the NeAV World, landing in Philadelphia in 1810, and soon en- 

 gaged in the manufacture of alum. He accompanied Maclure to New 

 Harmony (of which more anon), and, on the failure of the community, 

 became professor in the university at Nashville, and subsequently was 

 appointed State Geologist of Tennessee, a position he held until a year 

 before his death, which occurred in 1850. 



William Maclure, the pioneer American geologist, was a Scotch- 

 man by birth. He came early in life to Philadelphia, where by a suc- 

 cessful mercantile life he acquired an ample fortune. He spent several 

 years in travel, hammer in hand, exploring every State and Territory 

 from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Florida. The results of these excur- 

 sions were embodied in the first paper on American geology ever pub- 

 lished, which appeared in the " Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society " in 1809. At the time of the foundation of the Acad- 

 emy he was on a geological trip, but as soon as he returned he became 

 a member, and from that time until his death retained a lively interest 

 in its welfare and prosperity. He gave largely of books, specimens, 

 and money, his donations of the former amounting to over 5,000 vol- 

 umes, and of the latter more than $25,000. Mr. Maclure was eminent- 

 ly a philanthropist, but, like many others of similar disposition, was 

 rather visionary. He entertained the idea of educating all mankind, 

 of establishing a university where all human knowledge should be 

 taught, and was also a firm believer in, and strong advocate of, the 

 " community system " ; and, with these ideas predominant, he persuaded 

 Troost, Say, and Lesueur to accompany him to New Harmony, Indi- 

 ana, where his Utopian plans were to be carried into execution. But 

 man is liable to err, and internal dissensions and legal difficulties soon 

 caused the community to break up. Maclure died shortly after in 

 Mexico. 



Thomas Say was born in Philadelphia in 1787, and in his early 

 years attended a private school some miles out of the city, where, ow- 

 ing to the inefficiency of his instructors, he acquired but little except 

 a most intense dislike to all polite literature. His father, seeing that 

 his tastes were anything but literary, apprenticed him to an apothecary, 

 and afterward he entered into partnership with John Speakman in the 

 drug-business. This partnership was peculiar in the disinterestedness 

 with which it was conducted. Speakman alone attended to the busi- 

 ness, that his partner might devote all his time to the pursuit of sci- 

 ence. But the firm of Speakman and Say came to an untimely end by 

 indorsing for unfortunate friends. After the failure, Say took up his 

 quarters in the rooms of the society, making his bed beneath the skel- 

 eton of a horse, and living for several years on bread and milk, with an 

 occasional chop or egg, during which time his food did not cost on 

 the average twelve cents a day. Say, as has been stated, accompanied 



