THE BEGINNINGS OF NATURAL HISTORY IN 



AMERICA.* 



By G. Brown Goode. 



Is not Science a growth? Has not Science its embryology? 

 And must not a neglect of its embryology lead to a misunder- 

 standing of the principles of its evolution and of its existing 

 organization ? 



— Spencer : The Genesis of Science. 



ANALYSIS. 



Page. 



I. Thomas Harriott, the earliest English naturalist in America. . 35 



II. Harriott's Spanish and French predecessors and contemporaries. 44 



III. Garcilasso de la Vega and the biological lore of the native 



Americans. 49 



IV. Anglo-American Naturalists of the seventeenth century. . 55 

 V. European explorations in the new world, 1600-1800. . 67 



VI. The founders of American Natural History. .... 74 

 VII. The debt which the naturalists of the present owe to those of 



the past 101 



Three centuries ago the only English settlement in America 

 was the little colony of one hundred and eight men which Raleigh 

 had planted, five months before, upon Roanoke Island, in North 

 Carolina. 



The 17th of August, 1885, was the anniversary of one of the 

 most noteworthy events in the history of America, for it marked 

 the three hundredth return of the date when Sir Richard Gren- 



* Annual presidential address delivered at the Sixth Anniversary Meet- 

 ing of the Society, February 6, 1886, in the Lecture Room of the U. S. 

 National Museum. 



