SKETCH OF AMOS EATON. 113 



SKETCH OF AMOS EATON". 



PROF. AMOS EATON was one among those who cultivated 

 science in the earlier half of this century, who labored 

 to popularize the study and make it accessible to the masses. 

 American geology and botany owe much to him. His books on 

 those subjects have two special merits they were among the first 

 published in which a systematic treatment for America was at- 

 tempted, and they were written throughout in a language that all 

 could read. 



Amos Eaton was born in Chatham, Columbia County, N. Y., 

 May 17, 1776, and died in Troy, N. Y., May 6, 1842. His father, 

 Abel Eaton, was a farmer in comfortable circumstances, and of 

 the best standing as a citizen. The scholastic tendencies which 

 determined the character of his career appear to have shown 

 themselves at an early age, for we find that in 1790, when he was 

 only fourteen years old, he was appointed to make a fourth-of- 

 July oration, and acquitted himself acceptably in the effort. Serv- 

 ing as a chain-bearer in the surveying of some land, he acquired 

 a taste for that business. He had no instruments, and, in order 

 to obtain them, he arranged with a blacksmith to "blow and 

 strike " for him by day, in return for which the blacksmith should 

 help him make instruments at night. After several weeks' work, 

 a needle, magnetized from kitchen tongs, and a working chain 

 were turned out. A compass-case was made out of the bottom of 

 an old pewter plate, well smoothed, polished, and graduated ; and 

 the young man, at sixteen years of age, was ready to do little 

 jobs of surveying. 



He fitted himself for college with the Rev. Dr. David Potter, 

 of Spencertown ; entered Williams College, and was graduated 

 thence in 1799, with a high standing in science. He prepared 

 himself for the legal profession, studying law with the Hon. 

 Elisha Williams, of Spencertown, and the Hon. Josiah Ogden, of 

 New York. An association which he formed in New York with 

 Dr. David Hosack and Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, the most distin- 

 guished scientific men in the city at the time, marked another 

 determinative point in his career; for, under their instruction, 

 he became interested in the natural sciences, and particularly in 

 botany. So earnest did he become in these studies that, having 

 borrowed Kirwan's Mineralogy, he made a manuscript copy of 

 the whole work. Having been admitted to the bar of the Su- 

 preme Court of New York, he settled in Catskill as a lawyer and 

 land agent, and continued his studies in science. At this place 

 he began, in 1810, a popular course of lectures on botany, which 

 is believed to have been the first attempted in the United States. 



VOL. XXXVIII. 8 



