380 Memorial of George Broivn Goodc. 



New France bounded New England on the north, and the French 

 were pushing their niihtary posts and missionar}^ stations down into the 

 Mississippi Valley. 



The Dutch were established on Manhattan Island and elsewhere in 

 the surrounding country, and the Dutch West India Company had 

 already a foothold in Brazil and Guiana. A colony of Scandinavians 

 had been planted by the Swedish West India Company near the present 

 site of Philadelphia, and the forsaken Danish colonies of Greenland were 

 soon to be reestablished. The Portuguese had flourishing settlements in 

 Brazil, for the possession of which they were contending with the Dutch. 



Every European nation was represented in the great struggle for ter- 

 ritory save Ital}' and Germany, Switzerland and Russia; but the Italians 

 and Germans, the Swiss and the Russians were to hold their own in the 

 more generous emulation of scientific exploration which was to follow. 



During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries numerous explora- 

 tions were made both in North and South America by Spanish, French, 

 Dutch, German, and Scandinavian explorers. Although these men 

 have been studied in the preparation of this address, I do not intend to 

 speak of them at any length, 1)ut to confine my attention in the main to 

 the growth of scientific opinions and institutions in the English colonies. 



The number of volumes of reports and narratives, often sumptuously 

 printed and expensively illustrated, which were published during the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, impresses upon one most pow- 

 erfully the idea of the earnestness, diligence, and intelligence of their 

 writers. 



The Spaniards. — Even as early as the beginning of the century, Span- 

 ish influence was less prominent in the affairs of the New World; in no 

 respect more strikingly so than in explorations. The political supremacy 

 of Spain was gone, her intellectual activity was waning, and the mighty 

 storm of energ3% by which her domain in America had been so sud- 

 denly and widely established, seemed to have completely exhausted the 

 energy of her people, depleted as it had been by wars without and reli- 

 gious prosecution within. 



From this time forward the record of Spanish achievements in the 

 fields of science and discovery is very meager. Between the day of 

 Hernandez and that of Azara and Mutis, who explored South America 

 in the latter part of the eighteenth century, I find but two names worthy 

 of mention, and these seem properly to belong with- the naturalists who 

 lived a hundred years before them. I refer to Jose Gumilla, who pub- 

 lished, in 1 74 1, a work on the natural history of the Orinoco region, 

 and Miguel Venegas, whose Noticia de la California appeared in 1757. 



The French. — One of the first French explorers who left a record of 

 his observations was Samuel de Cham plain, who made a voyage to the 

 West Indies and Mexico, 1 599-1 602, and began his travels in New 

 France in 1603. He was the founder of Quebec, where he died in 1635, 



