The Beginnings of A)}icricnn Science. 439 



Doctor Henry R. vSchoolcraft, afterwards prominent in ethnology, 

 printed, in 18 19, his View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, the first from 

 American contributors to economic geology; and in the same year his 

 Transallegania, a mineralogical poem, probably the last as well as the 

 first of its kind written in America. In 182 1 he published a scholarly 

 Account of the Native Copper on the Southern Shore of Lake Superior.' 



Mineralogy and geology were the most popular of the sciences. 



American geology dated its beginning from this previous decade. Pro- 

 fessor S. L. Mitchill was one of the first to call attention to the teachings 

 of Kirwan and the pioneers of European geology, and very early in the 

 century began to instruct the students of Columbia College in the prin- 

 ciples of geology as then understood. He published Observations on the 

 Geology of America, and also edited a New York edition of Cuvier's His- 

 tory of the Earth, contributing to this work an appendix which was 

 constantly quoted by early writers. 



The first, geological explorer was William Maclure [b. in Ayr, Scot- 

 land, 1763; d. in San Angel, Mexico, March 23, 1840] , a Scotch merchant 

 who amassed a large fortune by commercial connections with this country, 

 and became a citizen of the United States about 1796. His most impor- 

 tant service to American science was that of a patron, for he was a liberal 

 supporter of the infant Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia, and for 

 twenty-tw^o years its president, besides being an upholder of other 

 important enterprises. 



The publication, in 1809, of his Observations on the Geology of the 

 United States marks the beginning of American geographical geology 

 and the first attempt at a geological survey of the United States. This 

 had long been the object of his ambition, and in order to prepare himself 

 for the task he had spent several years in travel throughout Europe, 

 making observations and collecting objects in natural history, which he 

 forwarded to the country of his adoption. 



His undertaking was undoubtedly a remarkable one. ' ' He \vent forth 

 w'ith his hammer in his hand and his wallet on his shoulder, pursuing 

 his researches in every direction, visiting almost every State and Terri- 

 tory, wandering often amidst pathless tracts and dreary solitudes until 

 he had crossed and recrossed the Allegheny Mountains not less than fifty 

 times. He encountered all the privations of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and 

 exposure, month after month and year after year, until his indomitable 

 spirit had conquered every difficulty, and crowned his enterprise with suc- 

 cess,"^ and after the publication of his memoir he devoted eight years 

 more to collecting materials for a second and revised edition. 



The geological map of the United States, pulilished in 1809, appears 

 to have been the first of the kind ever attempted for an entire country. 



'American Journal of Science, III, 1821, pp. 201-216. 

 ^Martin, Memoir of William Maclure, p. 11. 



