364 HENRY WHEATLAND. 



In order to carry on his scientific studies he followed the course 

 which seemed at that time almost essential to a student of natural his- 

 tory ; he entered the Harvard Medical School, attending lectures in 

 Boston in the winter and studying with Dr. Abel L. Pierson in Salem 

 during the remainder of the year. In 1837 he received the degree of 

 M. D. That it was not his intention to practise medicine, unless 

 forced by circumstances to earn a living in that way, I know from 

 frequent conversations with him and from his advice to me, when, 

 aroused by Agassiz' visit to Salem, in 1856, I wished to accept the 

 offer made to me to become his student. At that time Dr. Wheat- 

 land said, "You can go to Cambridge and study under Agassiz, 

 Wyman, and Gray, and prepare yourself to enter the Medical School 

 and become a doctor, as I did ; then you can get your living in that 

 way, if you have to, and study natural history too. That is the way 

 most naturalists have done. " In my early days, and still more in 

 his, to follow natural history as a profession and a means of liveli- 

 hood was hardly to be considered. It is evident that Dr. Wheatland 

 gave as much attention to the comparative anatomy of animals as he 

 did to the special anatomy of man, for during this time he prepared 

 many skulls and skeletons for the collection of the Essex County 

 Natural History Society, which, with others prepared at a later time, 

 are still preserved in the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem. 



The Doctor was always filled with a quiet enthusiasm for his work, 

 never demonstrative, and even painfully reserved in his manner in 

 public ; only those who knew him best and were by their work closely 

 associated with him found out his true nature, and realized how much 

 he accomplished in his quiet, j^ersistent way. Many a time I have 

 seen the face of this reserved and quiet man beam with delight on 

 obtaining some skull new to the collection, or when bringing up in his 

 little dredge a seaweed or shell new to him. Often when in a dory 

 dredging off the shore of AVinter Island, Marblehead, Swampscott, 

 or Manchester, his favorite localities for a half-day's outing, I have 

 seen him as enthusiastic and happy over the contents of the little 

 dredge as any naturalist of to-day could be on seeing for the first time 

 the animals brought up from great depths by the modern appliances. 

 I think it can be safely claimed for Dr. Wheatland, that he was the 

 first to dredge in our New England waters, and I believe he was the 

 first naturalist in America to adopt this means of collecting animals 

 and plants living on the ocean bottom at moderate depths. 



It was during the most active time of his natural history days that 

 the Geological, Botanical, and Zoological Survey of the State was car- 



