444 Memorial of George Brozvn Goode. 



The Western Museum, in Cincinnati, was founded about 1815, by- 

 Robert Best, M. D., afterwards of Lexington, Kentucky, who seems to 

 have been a capable collector, and who contributed matter to God- 

 man's American Natural History. In 18 18 a society styled the Western 

 Museum Society was organized among the citizens, which, though scarcely 

 a scientific organization, seems to have taken a somewhat liberal and 

 public-spirited view of what a museum should be. To the naturalists 

 of to-day there is something refreshing in such simple appeals as the 

 following: 



In collecting the fishes and reptiles of the Ohio the managers will need all the aid 

 which their fellow-citizens may feel disposed to give them. Although not a very 

 interesting department of zoology, no object of the society offers so great a prospect 

 of novelty as that which embraces these animals. 



The obscure and neglected race of insects will not be overlooked, and any speci- 

 men sufficiently perfect to be introduced into a cabinet of entomologj' will be 

 thankfully received.' 



Major John Eatton LeConte, U. S. A. [b. 1784, d. i860], was a very 

 successful student of botany and zoology. He published many botan- 

 ical papers and contributions to descriptive zoology, and also in Paris, 

 in conjunction with Boisduval, the first installment of a work, of which 

 he was really .sole author, upon the L,epidoptera of North America.'' 



The elder brother. Doctor Lewis LeConte [b. 1782, d. 1838], was 

 equall}^ eminent as an observer, and was for forty years one of the mo.st 

 prominent naturalists in the South. On his plantation in Liberty County, 

 Georgia, he established a botanical garden and a chemical laboratory. 

 His zoological manu.scripts were destroyed in the burning of Columbia 

 just at the close of the civil war, but his observations, which he was 

 averse to publi.shing in his own name, were, we are told, embodied in 

 the writings of his brother, of Stephen Elliott, of the Scotch botanist, 

 Gordon,^ of Doctor William Baldwin and others."^ 



Stephen Elliott, of Charleston, South Carolina [b. 171 1, d. 1830], was 

 a graduate of Yale in the cla.ss of 1791, and, while prominent in the 

 political and financial circles of his State, found time to cultivate science. 

 He founded in 18 13 the Literary and Philosophical Society of South 

 Carolina, and was its first president; and in 1829 was elected professor 



' An address to the people of the Western Country, dated Cincinnati, September 15, 

 ?i8, and signed by Elijah Slack, James Findlay, William Steele, Jesse Embrees, and 

 Daniel Drake, managers. 



^ Histoire Generale et Iconographie des IvCpidopteres et des Chenilles de I'Amdri- 

 que Septentrionale, Paris, 1830. 



3 Loudon's Gardeners' Magazine. 



■•A. H. Stephensin Johnson's New Universal Cyclopaedia, New York, 1876, II, p. 1702. 



5 The LeConte family deserves a place in Galton's Hereditary Genius. Professor 

 John LeConte, the physicist, and Professor Joseph LeConte, the geologist, were sons 

 of Doctor Lewis LeConte, while Doctor J. L. LeConte was the son of Major John 

 Eatton LeConte. 



