58 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOlSr. 



The American Monthly Magazine^ established in 1S14 by 

 Charles Brockden Brown, was fully as much devoted to science 

 as to literature, and an examination of this and other journals 

 of the early portion of the century will, I think, satisfy the student 

 tliat scientific subjects were more seriously considered by our 

 ancestors than by the Americans of to-day. The American 

 Monthly published elaborate reviews of technical works, sucli as 

 Cleaveland's Mineralogy, and summaries of the world's progress 

 in science, as well as the monthly proceedings of all the scientific 

 societies in New York, and papers on systematic zoology and 

 botany by Rafinesque. 



In 181 2 the American Antiquarian vSociety was established at 

 Worcester, and before 1820, when its first volume of transactions 

 appeared, had collected 6,000 books and ''a respectable cabinet." 

 This was a pioneer effort in ethnological science. Archceologia 

 Americana contained papers by Mitchill, Atwater, and others, 

 chiefly relating to the aboriginal population of America. The 

 name of Isaiah Thomas, LL. D. [b. in Boston 1749, d. in Wor- 

 cester 1831], the founder and first president of the society, who 

 at his own expense erected a building for its accommodation and 

 endowed its first researches, should be remembered with grati- 

 tude by American naturalists. He was one of the most eminent 

 of American printers, and styled by DeWarville ^' the Didot of 

 America." 



In 181 2 the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 

 W3S founded, the outgrowth of a social club, whose members, 

 we are told, had no conception of the importance of the work 

 they were undertaking when, in a spirit of burlesque, they 

 assumed the title of an academy of learning. 



In 1 81 6 the Coast Survey, after years of discussion, was placed 

 in action under the supervision of Hassler (who had been ap- 

 pointed its head as early as 181 1), but, two years later, the work 

 going on too slowly to please tli? Government, it was stopped. 



