838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ited by liis brotlier Jolin, wlio took William into a partnership 

 which lasted many years. After this arrangement terminated, 

 William continued to assist his brother till the death of the latter, 

 in 1812. The garden then descended to John's daughter Anne, the 

 wife of Colonel Robert Carr, in whose family William resided 

 from that time until his death. He was never married. In 1782 

 William Bartram was elected Professor of Botany in the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania, but declined the position on account of ill 

 health. He became a member of the American Philosophical 

 Society in 178G, and was elected to other learned societies in both 

 Euroi)e and America. He was an ingenious mechanic, and, as 

 before intimated, was skillful in drawing and painting. Most of 

 the illustrations in Prof. Barton's Elements of Botany were from 

 his drawings. His botanical labors brought to light many inter- 

 esting plants not previously known. But this was not his only 

 field. He made the most complete and correct list of American 

 birds before Wilson's Ornithology, and, in fact, his encouragement 

 and assistance were largely instrumental in making that work 

 possible. Among William Bartram's scientific correspondents 

 were the Rev. Henry Muhlenberg and F. A. Michaux, to whom he 

 furnished seeds. A manuscript diary of William Bartram, pre- 

 sented to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1885, 

 by Mr. Thomas Meehan, is rich in ornithological and botanical 

 notes, and contains also weather notes and records of personal ex- 

 periences which are of great interest. His death occurred sud- 

 denly from the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, July 22, 

 1823, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. Besides his Travels, Will- 

 iam Bartram was the author of Anecdotes of a Crow, and Descrip- 

 tion of Certhia. In 1789 he wrote Observations on the Creek 

 and Cherokee Indians, which was published in 1851, in the Trans- 

 actions of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. III. 



In the old stone-house the great fireplace has been filled up, 

 but few other changes have been made. The building is full of 

 curious turns and cubby-holes. Connected with a cupboard in 

 the sitting-room is a recess running behind the chimney, which 

 furnished a safe depository in winter for si^ecimens that frost 

 could injure. Back of the sitting-room, in the wing of the build- 

 ing, is an aj)artment with large windows looking toward the 

 south which was the botanist's conservatory. Here were reared 

 such plants as could not stand a Pennsylvania winter — gathered 

 in Florida or the Carolinas, or sent from Europe. In the grounds 

 close to the river is a great imbedded rock, hewn flat, in which is 

 cut a wide, deep groove. This is the nether stone of John Bar- 

 tram's cider-mill. The Botanic Garden remained in the posses- 

 sion of Colonel Carr till about 1850, when it became the property 

 of Mr. A. M. Eastwick. This gentleman had derived much pleas- 



