n8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A proposition was made to Mr. Schoolcraft in 1828 to go as 

 one of the scientific corps of an exploring expedition which the 

 Government contemplated sending to the south seas, under the 

 direction of the Secretary of the Navy. In his reflections on the 

 prospects of this expedition and the acquisitions to knowledge 

 that might be expected to accrue from it, he regarded the experi- 

 ments of Dr. Maskelyn, denoting a greater specific gravity in the 

 central portion of the globe than in its crust, as opposed to a 

 theory that was then advocated of an interior void. Yet he 

 thought " we are advertised, by the phenomena of earthquakes, 

 that this interior abounds with oxygen, hydrogen gas, caloric, 

 and sulphur, and that extraordinary geological changes are af- 

 fected by their action. It does seem improbable that the pro- 

 posed expedition will trace any open connection with such an 

 interior world ; but it may accumulate facts of the highest impor- 

 tance." There was something, however, about the getting up 

 and organization of the expedition which he did not like, and an 

 apprehension whether Congress would not cripple it by voting 

 meager supplies and outfits. He declined to go. 



A note from Mr. G. W. Featherstonaugh, giving a disparaging 

 view of American scientific achievement, and inclosing the pro- 

 spectus of a journal designed to correct these things, gave Mr. 

 Schoolcraft opportunity for bearing strong tribute to the genu- 

 ineness of real American scientific research. The critic's remarks 

 might be true as to a certain class, who had not made science a 

 study; but, if applied to the power and determination of the 

 American mind devoted to natural history, it was " not only un- 

 just in a high degree, but an evidence of an overweening self- 

 complaisance, imprecision of thought, or arrogance. No trait of 

 the American scientific character has been more uniformly and 

 highly approbated by the foreign journals of England, France, 

 and Germany than its capacity to accumulate, discriminate, and 

 describe facts. For fourteen years past, Silliman's Journal of 

 Science, though not exclusively devoted to natural sciences, has 

 kept both the scientific and the popular intelligent mind of the 

 public well and accurately advised of the state of natural science 

 the world over. Before it, Bruce's Mineralogical Journal, though 

 continued but for a few years, was eminently scientific; and 

 Cleaveland's Mineralogy has had the effect to diffuse scientific 

 knowledge not only among men of science, but other classes of 

 readers. In ornithology, in conchology, and especially in botany, 

 geology, and mineralogy, American mind has proved itself emi- 

 nently fitted for the highest tasks." 



The Michigan Historical Society was founded, chiefly through 

 Mr. Schoolcraft's instrumentality, in 1828, and the Algic Society 

 on February 28, 1832. The latter organization had in view the 



