PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 53 



chemistry ; Dr. Jacob Porter was making botanical observations 

 in central jNIassachusetts ; quaint old Caleb Atwater, at that time 

 almost the only scientific observer w^est of the Alleghanies, was 

 discussing the origin of prairies, meteorology, botany, geology, 

 mineralogy, and scenery of the Ohio country, and a little later 

 the remains of mammoths. 



Prof, J. W. Webster, of Boston, was making general studies 

 in oreoloo-v ; the Rev. Elias Cornelius and Mr. John Grammer 

 were writing of the geology of Virginia ; ]Mr. J. A. Kain, upon 

 that of Tennessee, I. P. Brace, that of Connecticut, and James 

 Pierce, that of New Jersey. 



To this period belonged the brilliant Constantine Rafinesque, 

 with Torrey, Silliman, Cleaveland, Gibbs, James, Schoolcraft, 

 Gage, Akerly, Mitchill, Dana, Beck, and Featherstonhaugh. 



Dr. Henry R. Schoolcraft, afterwards prominent in ethnology, 

 printed, in 1S19, his '"View of the Lead Mines of Missouri," 

 the first from American contributors to economic geology ; and 

 in the same year his '• Transallegania," a mineralogical poem, 

 probably the last as well as the first of its kind written in 

 America. In 1821 he published a scholarrly "Account of the 

 Native Copper on the Southern shore of Lake Superior."* 



Mineralogy and geology were the most popular of the sciences. 



American Geology dated its beginning from this previous 

 decade. Prof. S. L. Mitchill was one of the first to call 

 attention to the teachings of Kirwan and the pioneers of Eu- 

 ropean geology, and very early in the century began to 

 instruct the students of Columbia College in the principles 

 of geology as then understood. He published Observations 

 on the Geology of America, and also edited a New York edition 

 of Cuvier's " History of the Earth," contributing to this work 

 an appendix which was constantly quoted by early writers. 



The first geological explorer was William Maclure [b. in Ayr, 



*Amer. Jour. Science, iii, pp. 201-210. 



