522 NATHANIEL ELLIS ATWOOD. 



We place Mr. Adams among our great men, not because of discov- 

 eries like Franklin's or inventions like Whitney's ; not for piercing 

 logic like that of Edwards, nor thrilling eloquence like that of 

 Webster ; not for triumphs like Scott's in the field, or Allston's in 

 the studio, not, in short, for some achievement that makes foreign 

 nations say, "The Americans have done something new"; — but be- 

 cause his voice and his pen, his acuteness and his firmness, preserved 

 for us that liberty, that peace, and that very existence as a nation 

 without which science and art, logic and eloquence, and all the con- 

 quests of war and peace, would be a mockery ; and because we owe it 

 to him that the country of Edwards and Franklin and AVebster and 

 Whitney is still the country of Allston and Scott, and that the old 

 truths and the old principles still rule throughout the old nation. 



NATHANIEL ELLIS ATWOOD. 



The life of Nathaniel Ellis Atwood furnishes an instance of success 

 in scientific pursuits achieved against the serious obstacles of lack of 

 means and of elementary instruction. 



He was born in Provincetown, September 13, 1807, the son of a 

 poor fisherman, John Atwood. In 1816, the family, the better to 

 pursue their calling, moved to Long Point, the very tip of Cape Cod. 



And here young Nathaniel, at the age of nine, began his service in 

 the open fishing-boat. Already at thirteen he did a man's duty on 

 board a schooner engaged in the fisheries on the banks of Newfound- 

 land, and in early manhood he had risen to the command of the 

 vessel. Soon he changed to the coasting trade, and for some time 

 commanded a brig that sailed to the West Indies. But fishing was 

 his favorite employment, and to this he returned, and continued to 

 pursue it till near his sixtieth year. After leaving the sea he still 

 maintained his connection with the fisheries by the manufacture of 

 cod-liver oil, in which he showed much skill, and which he pursued as 

 long as he lived. 



Captain Atwood's mode of life was certainly not one favorable to 

 scientific research. But the love of such research was in him, and he 

 allowed no obstacle to stand in the way. He early began to observe 

 the habits and characteristics of fishes, and to read such books on 

 natural history as he could get. Keen observation and a powerful 

 memory enabled him, as time went on, to accumulate a great quantity 

 of novel information, all of which was placed at the service of Dr. 

 Storer when he wrote his Report on the Fishes of Massachusetts, in 



