324 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. X. 



ment was thus made in teaching these sciences in the higher 

 schools. As the result of these influences the number of persons 

 interested in mineralogy was largely increased, and an active 

 search for minerals was initiated throughout all of the older 

 United States and to a considerable extent also in Canada. So 

 energetically were these explorations followed up that in 1 825 a 

 Catalogue of American minerals was published by Dr. Samuel 

 Robinson, with their localities arranged geographically, and giv 

 ing only such as were known to exist in the United States and 

 the British Provinces. It formed an octavo volume of over three 

 hundred pages. That much credit was due to many workers 

 during this period, both in the field and in the laboratory, there 

 can be no question, but among them all I find four men standing 

 forth so prominently as leaders that I have thought that it would 

 be well for us to recall briefly something of the character of these 

 men and their labors for the advancement of mineralogy in this 

 country. First among these I will mention Dr. Archibald 

 Bruce. He was the son of Dr. William Bruce, a surs-eon in the 

 British army, and was born in New York in 1777. He was 

 graduated at Columbia College, subsequently studied medicine, 

 and in 1798 went to Edinburgh, where, in 1800, he obtained 

 his doctor's degree from that University. He was early 

 interested in natural science, and while still in college found, his 

 biographer says, " the collection and examination of minerals — 

 a pursuit not then at all attended to in this country — was his 

 particular relief from other studies; for even during his recrea- 

 tion he was ever on the lookout for something new or instructing 

 in mineralogy." 



When he went to Europe he took with him a large number of 

 American minerals, and through exchanges with institutions and 

 prominent mineralogists abroad, he established friendly relations 

 with those most interested in his favorite science. .After the 

 completion of his medical studies, he travelled for two years on 

 the continent of Europe, making the acquaintance of the Abbe 

 Haiiy, and other eminent mineralogists, and collecting an exten- 

 sive cabinet of valuable minerals, which on his return to this 

 country in 1803, he brought with him to New York. This col- 

 lection, with another brought to New York about the same time 

 by Mr. B. D. Perkins — both being made fully accessible to all 

 interested in seeing them — contributed, it was said, more than any 

 agencies had ever done before, to excite in the public an active 



