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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE LATE THOMAS 

 NUTTALL. 



Thomas Nuttall, an Englishman by birth, but an Ame- 

 rican by his scientific labors and reputation, was born in 1786, 

 in the market-town of Settle, in the West-Riding of York- 

 shire, of parents apparently in humble circumstances. At an 

 early age, and scarcely possessing anything more than the 

 rudiments of education, he was apprenticed to the printing 

 business, either in his native town or in the city of Liverpool, 

 where he had an uncle engaged in the same occupation. 



Nuttall resided several years in Liverpool, working as a 

 mere journeyman printer. A misunderstanding with his rela- 

 tive, upon whom he was somewhat dependent, induced him to 

 leave that city and go to London in search of employment. 

 There he met with troubles and pecuniary embarrassments, 

 being sometimes, as he has related himself, so destitute of 

 money as to be uncertain, on going to bed, where he would 

 get his breakfast next morning. A love of the natural 

 sciences, he said, — and perhaps also a hope to improve his 

 position in the world, — brought him to the United States in 

 1808, when only twenty-two years of age. 



Young Nuttall was endowed with a strong, clear intellect ; 

 his mind was of a meditative cast, and his thoughts were more 

 particularly bent towards the contemplation of the great works 

 of Nature, which became the objects of his investigations for 

 the remainder of his life. Those who remember him, at the 

 period of his arrival in Philadelphia, speak of him as being 

 already a well-informed young man, possessing the language 

 and history of his country, and somewhat familiar with some 

 branches of natural history, and even with Latin and Greek. 

 Such an acquisition of knowledge in a youth of twenty-two, 

 who, at a tender age, had been removed from the benches of 

 a village school to be apprenticed to a mechanical occupation, 



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