Ihginnifios of A'atiii al History in . l/i/crica. 401 



aloes, sarsaparilla, ciiitianion, myrtle wax, the production of saltpeter, 

 cobalt, cochineal, the manufacture of wine, raisins, and olive oil, the col- 

 lection of j;um from the persinunon tree, and the acclimation of silk grass. 

 A medal was given in 1S61 to Doctor Jared Eliot, of Coimecticut, for the 

 extraction of iron from "black sand." ' In 1757 we find their secretary 

 endeavoring to establish branch societies in the colonial cities, especially 

 in Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York, and Garden seems to have 

 tried to carry out the enterprise in Charleston. After two 3'ears he wrote 

 that the society organized had become "a mere society of drawing, 

 painting, and sculpture." 



In a subsequent letter he utters a pitiful plaint. He has often won- 

 dered, he says, "that there should be a country abounding with almost 

 every .sort of plant, and almost every .species of the animal kind, and yet 

 that it .should not have pleased God to raise up one botani-st.'"" 



The American Acadeni}^ of Arts and Sciences was founded by the 

 legislature of Massachu.setts in 1780, and its first volume of memoirs 

 appeared in 1785. 



In 1788 an effort was made by the Chevalier Quesnay de Beaurepaire 

 to found in Richmond, Virginia, the Academy of Arts and vSciences of 

 the United States of America, upon the model of the French Academy. 

 The plan was submitted to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, and 

 received its unqualified indonsement, signed, among others, by L,avoi.sier. 

 A large subscription was made by the Virginians and a large jjuilding 

 erected, but an academy of sciences needs members as well as a president, 

 and the enterprise was soon abandoned.^ 



In 1799 was organized the Connecticut Academy of Arts and vSciences, 

 which, after publishing one volume of Transactions, went into a state 

 of inactivity from which it did not arou.se itself until 1866. 



This sketch would not be complete without some reference also to the 

 history of scientific instruction in America during the last century. 



The first regular lectures upon a special natural history topic appear to 

 have been upon comparative anatomy. A cour.se upon this topic was 

 delivered at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1754, by Doctor William Hunter, 

 a native of Scotland [b. about 1729], a kinsman of the famous English 

 anatomists, William and John Hunter, and a pupil of Munro. His course 

 upon comparative anatomy was given in connection with others upon 

 human anatomy and the history of anatomy, the first medical lectures in 

 America.'* 



■See Dossie, Memoirs of Agriculture. London, I, 1768, pp. 24-26; also Brock in 

 Richmond Standard; April 26, 1879, P- 4- 



^Smith, Correspondence of Linnaeus, I, p. 477. 



3 Samuel Mordecai, Richmond in By-gone Days. Richmond, 1856. A copy of 

 the original pamphlet of proposals is still preserved in the Virginia vState Library. 



" One of the original tickets to these courses is in the Library of the Surgeon-Gen- 

 eral's Office in Washington. 



NAT MUS 97, PT 2 26 



