400 Memorial of Geoj-ge Brozvii Goode. 



cerned in some of the earliest astronomical and mathematical work in 

 America; published papers upon comets and climatology, which were 

 favorably received, and secured his election to many foreign societies, 

 and in 1775 printed in the Philosophical Transactions his Experiments 

 and Observations on the Gymnotiis Eledriais, or Electrical Eel. 



Doctor Caspar Wistar [b. 1761, d. 18 18] was one of the early profes- 

 sors of chemistry [1789] and anatomy [1793] in the College of Philadel- 

 phia, He was the discoverer of some important points in the structure 

 of the ethmoid bone, a man of eminence as a teacher, and versed in all 

 the sciences of his day. 



Doctor James Woodhouse, of Philadelphia [b. 1770, d. 1809], made 

 investigations in chemistry, mineralogy, and vegetable physiology which 

 were considered of importance. 



The story of the origin of American scientific societies has been so often 

 told that it need not be repeated here. The only institutions of the kind 

 which were in existence at the end of the period under consideration 

 were the American Philosophical Society, an outgrowth primarily of the 

 American Society for the Advancement of Natural Knowledge, founded 

 in Philadelphia in 1743, and secondarily of Franklin's famous Junto, 

 whose origin dates back to 1727, and the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, founded in 1780. 



The relations of the colonial naturalists to the scientific societies of 

 England have not so often been referred to, and it does not seem to be 

 generally known that the early history of the Royal Society of Eondon 

 was intimately connected with the foundation of New England, and that 

 the first proposition for the establishment of a scientific society in America 

 was under consideration early in the seventeenth century. ' ' The great 

 Mr. Boyle," writes Ehot, "Bishop Wilkins, and several other learned 

 men, had proposed to leave England and establish a society for promoting 

 natural knowledge in the new colony, of which Mr. Winthrop, their 

 intimate friend and associate, was appointed governor. Such men were 

 too valuable to lose from Great Britain ; and Charles II having taken 

 them under his protection, the society was there established, and obtained 

 the title of the Royal Society of Eondon." ' 



For more than a hundred years the Royal Society was the chief resource 

 of naturalists in North America. The three Winthrops, Mitchell, Clay- 

 ton, Garden, Franklin, Byrd, Rittenhouse, and others were among its 

 fellows, and the Philosophical Transactions contained many American 

 papers. 



As at an early date the Society of Arts in Eondon began to offer prizes 

 for various industrial successes in the colonies, for instance, for the pro- 

 duction of potash and pearlash, for the culture of silk, and for the culture 

 of hemp, the vine, saflBower, olives, logwood, opium, scammony, burilla, 



'John Eliot, Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Characters in New England. 

 Boston, 1809. 



