420 Mei}iorial of Gcoj'ge Broivn Goode. 



of American natural history, but the propriety of this designation, is 

 questioned, since it is equall}' appHcable to Mitchill or Jefferson, and per- 

 haps still more so to Peter Collinson, of L,ondon. The praises of Barton 

 have been so well and so often sung that there can be no injustice in 

 passing him briefly by.' 



The most remarkable naturalist of those days was Rafinesque [b. 1784, 

 d. 1872], a Sicilian by birth, who came to Philadelphia in 1802. 



Nearly fifty years ago this man died, friendless and impoverished in 

 Philadelphia. His last words were these: Time renders justice to all 

 at last. Perhaps the day has not yet come when full justice can be 

 done to the memory of Constantine Rafinesque, but his name seems 

 yearly to grow more prominent in the history of American zoology. He 

 was in many respects the most gifted man who ever stood in our ranks. 

 When in his prime he far surpassed his American contemporaries in ver- 

 satility and comprehensiveness of grasp. He lived a century too soon. 

 His spirit was that of the present period. In the latter years of his life, 

 soured by disappointments, he seemed to become unsettled in mind, but as 

 I read the story of his life his eccentricities seem to me the outcome of a 

 boundless enthusiasm for the study of nature. The picturesque events 

 of his life have been so well described b}^ Jordan, "" Chase, ^ and Audubon" 

 that they need not be referred to here. The most satisfactory gauge of 

 his abilities is perhaps his masterl}^ Survey of the Progress and Actual 

 State of Natural Sciences in the United States of America, printed in 

 1817.^ His own sorrowful estimate of the outcome of his mournful 

 career is very touching: 



I have often been discouraged, but have never despaired long. I have lived to serve 

 mankind, but have often met with ungrateful returns. I have tried to enlarge the 

 limits of knowledge, but have ofted met with jealous rivals instead of friends. With 

 a greater fortune I might have imitated Humboldt or lyinnseus. 



Doctor Robert Hare [b. 1781, d. 1858] began his long career of use- 

 fulness in 1 801, at the age of twenty, by the invention of the oxj^iydro- 

 gen blowpipe. This was exhibited at a meeting of the Chemical Society 

 of Philadelphia in 1801.* 



This apparatus was perhaps the most remarkable of his original con- 

 tributions to science, which he continued without interruption for more 

 than fifty years. It belongs to the end of the post-Revolutionary period, 

 and is therefore noticed, although it is not the purpose of this essaj' to 

 consider in detail the work of the specialists of the present century. 



' William P. C. Barton, Biography of Benjamin S. Barton, Philadelphia, 1815. 

 = David Starr Jordan, Bulletin U. S. National Museum, No. IX; also see article in 

 Popular Science Monthly, XXIX, p. 212, reprinted in Jordan's Science Sketches, 



P- 143- 



3 Chase, Potter's American Monthly, VI, pp. 97-101. 



■*Ai:dubon, The Eccentric Naturalist, Ornithological Biography, p. 455. 



5 American Monthly Magazine, II, p. 81. 



^Ideni., I, p. 80. 



