39 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



may be led by the natural course of his work from one branch to 

 another, which at first view seems quite distinct from it. Professor 

 Haldeman was in his early youth a collector of living objects around 

 his father's estate, and thus laid the foundations, in his recreations, 

 for the eminence he afterward reached as a naturalist. Then, having 

 turned his attention to ethnology, he was drawn to the study of lan- 

 guages and philology, and became one of the most distinguished Amer- 

 ican scholars and authorities in those branches. Next, he became in- 

 terested in archaeology, and contributed to that subject in his papers 

 before the American Association of 1880, the last literary labors of his 

 life. His success in all of these branches appears to have been owing 

 to the adaptation of his natural tastes, and these to have been devel- 

 oped from inherited peculiarities. 



Samuel Stehman Haldeman was born, August 12, 1812, at Lo- 

 cust Grove, on the Susquehanna River, twenty miles below Harris- 

 burg, Pennsylvania. His family were of Swiss descent, had possessed 

 the extensive estate which was their home for several generations, 

 and occupied a considerable social position. His great-grandfather 

 was a member of a local Committee of Public Safety in Revolutionary 

 times ; his great-uncle was the first Governor-General of Canada under 

 British rule ; his grandfather was a member of the General Assembly 

 of the State in 1795. A niece of his great-grandfather and great- 

 uncle, Mrs. Marcet, born Jane Haldimand, was a celebrated scientific 

 writer, distinguished as the first who attempted to popularize science, 

 by the publication of her " Conversations " on chemistry, natural phi- 

 losophy, botany, mineralogy, language, and political economy. Pro- 

 fessor Haldeman derived his middle name from the maiden name of 

 his mother, Frances Stehman, who was an accomplished musician, 

 and transmitted to him that correct ear for the notation of sound that 

 made him in after-life so accomplished a phoneticist. His father was 

 a man of literary tastes, and warmly encouraged the son's aspirations 

 in a direction congenial to his own. Young Haldeman's education, till 

 he was thirteen years old, was carried on in the local schools and his 

 father's library. No little of it was gained on the farm, where he 

 made the collections of specimens in natural history, which he was 

 taught by a Methodist minister how to prepare, and of aboriginal 

 stones and implements, which constituted his first museum, in the loft 

 of the family carriage-house ; and where he gathered shells, he says, 

 on the banks of the Susquehanna long before he knew the meaning 

 of genus and species. 



When five years old he was a fellow-scholar with Daniel Engle, 

 who could not speak English, but could spell in German, and sat with 

 him. Young Haldeman soon discovered that his companion could 

 spell in another language, and engaged him to bring his German 

 spelling-book to the school, so that he could learn to do the same. 

 The book was brought, and carefully hidden, to be studied in secret. 



