1895.] NAT URAL. SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 299 



apprenticed to a saddler, joined a village debating society, and, 

 under the inspiration of his mother, spent all his spare time in self- 

 instruction. 



J. H. Redfield was born at Middletown, Conn., July 10, 1815. 

 His mother died when he was but four years old. His father at this 

 time had a saddler's shop and country store. His early education 

 has been already told. In this account Mr. Redfield notes that 

 every country store sold liquor, but in 1830 his father refused, as a 

 matter of conscience, to sell any more. About 1825 his father be- 

 coming interested in steam barge traffic on the Hudson, spent most 

 of his time in New York, and in 1827 took his family there. John 

 was sent to a Laucasterian school. It furnished good, although cheap, 

 education — ($51.50 a year). The principal teacher, Rev. Samuel U. 

 Barnes, originally a Baptist clergyman, gave natural history lessons 

 on the blackboard. He gave J. H. Redfield and six other boys 

 extra lessons in mineralogy, taking them on excursions on Saturdays. 

 Barnes was one of the founders of the New York Lyceum. He used 

 to join in the sports of the boys as well as their studies, and for the 

 first time in his life young Redfield loved school. 



The father took every means to advance the son's education 

 as opportunity afforded. Though personal assiduity did much, he 

 owed much to the teachers employed by his father for him. He 

 had this help in the several languages he acquired, the Italian, 

 which he mastered late in life, being the only one he learned wholly 

 by himself. In 1853 he left school finally and became a clerk in the 

 "Swift Sure Line" of steamboats. His father died in 1858, but he 

 continued in the office three years longer, till removing to Phila- 

 delphia. 



The New York Lyceum was organized April 24, 1817, and be- 

 came the New York Academy of Sciences in 1876. As a new mem- 

 ber of the Lyceum young Redfield thought a tyro had made a mistake 

 in venturing among great men, but he found them all so child-like 

 and genial that his agitation was soon dispelled. Dr. Asa Gray, the 

 librarian, was especially cordial. Young Redfield had his first 

 scientific appointment as one of a committee to rent a room. It was 

 thought wonderful that twenty-four members assembled to receive 

 the committee's report. His father gave occasional addresses on 

 meteorology and geology. Dr. John C. Jay first made conchology 

 interesting in the Lvceum and Redfield became charmed with that 



