2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



to Boston, to enter upon commercial pursuits in connection with his 

 elder brother, the late excellent Mr. Samuel Appleton. By his per- 

 severance, his industry, his integrity, and his force of character, he 

 rose to the very first rank among the merchants of Boston, and iden- 

 tified himself with not a few of the most important enterprises of the 

 last half-century. He was associated with the late Mr. Francis C. 

 Lowell in the introduction of the power loom into our country, and 

 in the establishment of the cotton manufacture in New England ; and 

 he was one of the founders of the great manufacturing city which 

 bears the name of his associate and friend. 



But his practical pursuits by no means absorbed his attention. He 

 found time to observe, to think, to read, and to study ; and he acquired 

 the power of communicating the results of his reading and reflection 

 in a style of remarkable condensation and clearness. 



He was not without a taste for natural science, and was early accus- 

 tomed to travel with a compass in his pocket, with a view to making 

 observations as he went along. In a communication which he prepared 

 in April, 1826, and which was published in Silliman's Journal in the 

 following October, under the title of " Proofs that General and Power- 

 ful Currents have swept and worn the Surface of the Earth," he was 

 among the first to call attention to those grooves and scratches on the 

 surface of the rocks which have since given occasion to so much 

 scientific discussion. 



His studies, however, were mainly directed to subjects connected 

 with his business pursuits. He studied the laws of currency and 

 credit, of trade and revenue, of labor and wages ; and his writings 

 on all these topics were among the most valuable of the period in 

 which he lived. They were generally brief articles, thrown into the 

 columns of a newspaper from day to day, to meet the exigencies of an 

 immediate question. But sometimes they assumed the form of elaborate 

 essays. His " Remarks on Currency and Banking," published origi- 

 nally in 1841, and which reached a third edition in 1857, may be men- 

 tioned particularly, as an important contribution to the right under- 

 standing of this much-vexed subject, and one which has by no means 

 lost its interest or its value with the occasion which called it forth. 



Mr. Appleton was frequently employed in public life, and I'endered 

 distinguished service to the Commonwealth and to the whole country, 

 both as a member of our State Legislature, and as a member of 

 Congress. His speeches, in the House of Representatives of the 



