52 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOlSr. 



of a more extensive collection of American geological specimens 

 than Yale College, or any other institution upon this continent."* 



" In this period," remarked Bache, " the prosecution of matlie- 

 matics and physical science was neglected ; indeed barely kept 

 alive by the calls for boundary and land surveys of the more ex- 

 tended class, by the exertions necessary in the lecture-room, or by 

 isolated volunteer efforts. 



"As the country was explored and settled the unworked mine 

 of natural history was laid open, and the attention of almost all 

 the cultivators of science was turned toward the development of 

 its riches. 



" Descriptive natural history is the pursuit which emphatically 

 made that period. As its experiment may be taken the admira- 

 ble descriptive mineralogy of Cleaveland, which seemed to fill the 

 measures of that day and be, as it were, its chief embomment, 

 appearing just as the era was passing away."t 



The leading spirits of the day seem to have been Silliman, 

 Hare, Maclure, Mitchill, Gibbs, Cleaveland, DeWitt Clinton, 

 and Caspar Wistar. 



Names familiar to us of the present generation began now to 

 appear in scientific literature : Isaac Lea began to print his 

 memoirs on the Union idee ; Edward Hitchcock, principal of the 

 Deerfield Academy, was writing his first papers on the geology 

 of Massachusetts ; Prof. Chester Dewey, of Williams College, 

 [b. 1781, d. 1867], afterwards known to us all from his excellent 

 work upon the Carices, was discussing the mineralogy and geol- 

 ogy of Massachusetts ; Dr. John Torrey, also to be famous as a 

 botanist, was then devoting his attention to mineralogy and 



* The Troy Lyceum of Natural History was incorporated in tSig, and a 

 lectureship was created, filled by Mr. Eaton (^Sillima/i's yoiirnal, ii, 173). 

 In 1820 a similar association, " The Hudson Association for Improvement 

 in Science," was founded in the city of Hudson, and in 1821 the Delaware 

 Chemical and Geological Society. 



t Presidential Address Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1851, pp. vi, xlvi. 



