90 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



To Jefferson's interest was due the organization of the first 

 government exploring expedition. As early as 1780 we find him 

 anxious to promote an expedition to the upper portion of the 

 Mississippi Valley, and offering to raise 1000 guineas for the pur 

 pose from private sources, and while he was President he dis 

 patched Lewis and Clarke upon their famous expedition into the 

 northwest the precursor of all the similar enterprises carried on 

 by the general Government, which have culminated in our mag 

 nificent Geological Survey. 



Jefferson's personal influence in favor of science was of in 

 calculable value. Transferred from the presidency of the prin 

 cipal American scientific society to the presidency of the nation, 

 he carried with him to the Executive Mansion the tastes and 

 habits of a scientific investigator. Mr. Luther, in his recent 

 essay upon "Jefferson as a Naturalist,"* has shown that during 

 his residence in Paris he kept the four principal colleges Har 

 vard, Yale, William and Mary, and the College of Philadelphia 

 informed of all that happened in the scientific circles in Europe. 



He wrote to one correspondent: "Nature intended me for 

 the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme 

 delight." To another he said: "Your first gives me infor 

 mation in the line of natural history, and the second prom 

 ises political news. The first is my passion, the last my duty, 

 and therefore both desirable." 



When Jefferson went to Philadelphia to be inaugurated Vice- 

 President he carried with him a collection of fossil bones which 

 he had obtained in Green Brier county, Virginia, together with 

 a paper, in which were formulated the results of his studies 

 upon them. This was published in the Transactions of the 

 American Philosophical Society, and the species is still known 

 as Megalonyx Jeffersoni. 



" The spectacle," remarks Luther, " of an American states- 



* Magazine of American History, April, 1885. 



