834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Franklin then suggested engraving. But William iDecanie nei- 

 ther printer nor engraver. At the age of eighteen he was placed 

 with a Philadelphia merchant, Mr. Child, where he remained 

 about four years. 



Bartram's science was largely practical. He wrote to Dr. 

 Alexander Garden, of Charleston, in 1755, suggesting a series of 

 borings on a large scale, to search for valuable mineral products. 

 He gives as another reason the satisfaction to be derived from 

 knowing the composition of the earth, and adds, " By this method 

 we may compose a curious subterranean map.'"* " This scheme of 

 John Bartram's," says Darlington—" if original with him— would 

 indicate that he had formed a pretty good notion of the nature 

 and importance of a geological survey and map, more than half a 

 century before such undertakings were attempted in our country, 

 or even thought of by those whose province it was to authorize 

 them." 



Bartram was evidently much interested in geological subjects ; 

 thus, in 1756 he writes, " My dear worthy friend, thee can't bang 

 me out of the notion that limestone and marble were originally 

 mud, impregnated by a marine salt, which I take to be the origi- 

 nal of all our terrestrial soils." 



In 1760 he makes a trip through the Carolinas, his Journal of 

 which he wrote out and sent to England. The following sum- 

 mer, William, then twenty-two years old, went to North Carolina 

 and set up as a trader at Cape Fear, where his uncle William had 

 settled when a young man. That year John Bartram makes a 

 journey to Pittsburg and some way down the Ohio River, keep- 

 ing a journal, as usual, which is sent to his English friends. 

 Nearly all of these trips were made in autumn, so as to get ripe 

 seeds of desirable trees and plants. 



Bartram had too tender a feeling toward animal life to be 

 much of a zoologist. He says on this score : " As for the animals 

 and insects, it is very few that I touch of choice, and most with 

 uneasiness. Neither can I behold any of them, that have not 

 done me a manifest injury, in their agonizing mortal pains with- 

 out pity. I also am of opinion that the creatures commonly 

 called brutes possess higher qualifications, and more exalted 

 ideas, than our traditional mystery-mongers are willing to allow 

 them." His ideas concerning animal psychology were thus clear- 

 ly in advance of his time. 



The war with France, known to Americans as the French and 

 Indian War, resulted in extending the British possessions in 

 America as far west as the Mississippi River. Immediately a de- 

 sire was expressed in England for a thorough exploration of this 

 great accession of territory. Bartram writes in 1763 that this 

 could not be made without great danger from the Indians. His 



