ii 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



changed to Schoolcraft. He died at the age of one hundred and 

 two years. John, his third son, was a soldier under Sir William 

 Johnson. Lawrence, John's son, distinguished himself during the 

 siege of Fort Stanwix. He was afterward director of the glass- 

 works of the Hon. Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, at Hamilton, near 

 Albany ; and established the manufacture of glass in western 

 New York. 



Henry Schoolcraft spent his childhood and youth in Hamilton, 

 cultivated poetry, and maintained an excellent standing in schol- 

 arship. At an early age he manifested a taste for mineralogy 

 and natural science, which were then (about 1808) almost un- 

 known in the country ; formed the beginnings of collections ; 

 and organized an association for mental improvement. He inves- 

 tigated the drift stratum of Albany County as seen in the bed of 

 Norman's Kill ; and afterward, while living at Lake Dunmore, 

 Vt., put himself under the teaching of Prof. Hall, of Middlebury 

 College; added chemistry, natural philosophy, and medicine to 

 his studies ; erected a chemical furnace, and went into experi- 

 menting ; and picked up a knowledge of Hebrew, German, and 

 French. He began writing for books and periodicals in 1808 — 

 contributing, among other things, papers on the Burning Springs 

 of western New York, and on archaeological discoveries that had 

 been made in Hamburg, Erie County. In the last paper, which 

 was published at Utica in 1817, he pointed out the necessity of 

 discriminating between the antique French and European, and 

 the aboriginal period, in American antiquity. He was engaged 

 for a time in directing the building of works connected with his 

 father's glass-making enterprises in Vermont, New Hampshire, 

 and western New York. The ideas and knowledge gained in 

 these operations supplied the material for his proposed work on 

 Vitreology, or the application of chemistry to glass-making, the 

 publication of which was begun in 1817. The supervision of 

 these works required the making of considerable journeys, and 

 these created in him the desire to travel through the wilds of the 

 " Far West," which then hardly extended beyond the Missouri 

 River. 



He made some " preliminary explorations " to his contemplated 

 journey in western New York in 1816 and 1817, and started from 

 Olean on the Alleghany River for a journey down the Ohio and 

 up the Mississippi in 1818. A large company of intending emi- 

 grants had gathered there waiting for the season to open, and 

 Schoolcraft took passage in the first ark. Arrived at Pittsburg, 

 he stopped to explore the geology of the Monongahela Valley, and 

 was greatly interested in the rich coal and iron beds. He stopped 

 to visit the Grave Creek mound and the ancient works at Mari- 

 etta. At Louisville he found " organic remains " of several spe- 



