SKETCH OF JOSEPH LEIDY. 685 



ent promises." The promises have been fulfilled. The young man of 

 1849 has gone ahead, and is now the most distinguished naturalist of 

 America. 



Joseph Leidy was born in Philadelphia, September 9, 1823. His 

 father, Philip Leidy, Avas a native of Montgomery County, Pennsylva- 

 nia, and his ancestors on both sides were Germans from the valley of 

 the Rhine. 



His taste for natural history was exhibited at a very early age, and 

 received judicious encouragement from the master of the school where 

 he acquired the rudiments of an English education. In his leisure mo- 

 ments he, like many other boys of his age, was fond of collecting col- 

 ored pebbles and curiously shaped leaves long before he had ever 

 heard the words mineralogy and botany. An itinerant lecturer, who 

 described himself as belonging to the " Universal Lyceum," having 

 one day been permitted to deliver a discourse to the school on miner- 

 als, his remarks being illustrated by specimens of quartz, mica, feld- 

 spar, etc., the boy's interest was so actively engaged that he procured 

 for himself text-books of mineralogy and botany, and began the sys- 

 tematic study of the two branches without any further encouragement 

 or assistance. 



At the age of sixteen he left school, with the intention of becom- 

 ing an artist, as his father proposed. It is evident, therefore, that the 

 remarkable talent as a draughtsman, which has been of such service 

 to Dr. Leidy in his scientific work, was apparent at this early age, and 

 it is not improbable that the world in gaining a brilliant naturalist has 

 lost a distinguished artist. In the mean time, however, much of his 

 leisure had been passed in a wholesale drug-store near his home. His 

 time here was so well spent that the proprietor did not hesitate, when 

 an opportunity offered, to recommend him as competent to take tem- 

 porary charge of a retail drug-store belonging to a customer. He was 

 encouraged, by his success in filling the trust thus reposed in him, to 

 study the properties and art of compounding drugs as a profession. 



His study of nature while thus occupied had not been neglected. 

 To botany and mineralogy he had added comparative anatomy, his 

 first practical studies in that branch having been made on an ancient 

 barn-door fowl and a common earthworm. So absorbed did he be- 

 come in his anatomical studies, that at the suggestion of his mother, 

 and with the consent of his father, he gave up all intention of becom- 

 ing either artist or apothecary, and resolved to devote himself to that 

 profession which would afford him the best opportunity of pursuing 

 those studies from which it was now evident he could not easily with- 

 draw himself. 



In the autumn of 1840, therefore, he began the study of medicine, 

 devoting his first year to practical anatomy. Having entered the 

 office of Dr. Paul B. Goddard, he attended three full courses of lectures 

 in the University of Pennsylvania, presented a thesis on " The Com- 



