298 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



covering 178 closely written quarto or folio pages, now 

 in possession of the Linnsean Society of London. 

 "Rafinesque," continues this critic, "was a man deeply 

 to be commiserated, not merely on account of the un- 

 fortunate circumstances which left him in his youth to 

 himself, without teacher or guide, but still more on the 

 ground of that natural disposition by which his uni- 

 versal failure in life was brought about. He was pos- 

 sessed of a feverish restlessness which entirely disquali- 

 fied him from serious study of any of the multitudinous 

 subjects which attracted his mind in rapid succession." 



Rafinesque, bereft of friends and fortune, unknown 

 even to his neighbors, by whom he seems to have been 

 regarded as a harmless herb doctor, was left to struggle 

 on alone, without recognition and without sympathy or 

 support. Reduced finally to abject poverty, he con- 

 cocted and sold medicines which were advertised much 

 like quack remedies at the present day, especially his 

 "Pulmel," which without a doubt he thought had cured 

 him of the pulmonary consumption. To advertise this 

 he wrote a little treatise, hoping to realize something 

 from its sale and at the same time to avoid any undue 

 appearance of empyricism. 



Toward the very end of his life, Rafinesque pro- 

 jected a savings bank, and, strangely enough, this seems 

 to have been a success, though just how is not clear, 

 since it both borrowed and loaned money at six per 

 cent. He had already attempted to secure rights on a 

 "steam-plough," a "submarine boat," "incombustible 

 houses," and similar novelties which abler inventors have 

 later perfected. For a long time he led the life of a 

 perfect recluse in a garret in a poor quarter of Phila- 

 delphia, in the midst of his collections, his books and 

 his manuscripts, never the world forgetting but ever by 



