National Scientific and Iidncationa/ Institntions. 28 1 



the routine duties of lil'e, we find him yieldini^ to that subtle native 

 force which all through life was constantly drawing him awa}- from 

 politics to science." 



Thus, during these exciting weeks in February, iSoi, when Congress 

 was vainly trying to untangle the difficulties arising from the tie vote 

 between Jefferson and Ihu'r, when every ])olitician at the capital was 

 busy with schemes and counterschemes, this man, whose ])olitical fate 

 was balanced on a razor's edge, was corresponding with Doctor Wistar 

 in regard to some bones of the nunnmoth which he had just prociu'cd 

 from Shawangunk, in New York. Again, in 1808, when the excitement 

 over the Embargo was highest, and when ever\' da\' brought fresh 

 denunciations of him and his ]x)licy, he was carrying on his geological 

 studies in the White House itself. Under his direction U])ward of 300 

 specimens of fossil bones had been brought from the famous Big Bone 

 Lick and sjM'ead in one of the large unfinished rooms of the Presidential 

 Mansion. Doctor Wistar was asked to come to Philadelphia and select 

 such as were needed to complete the collection of the Philosophical 

 Society. The exploration of the lick was made at the private expense 

 of Jefferson through the agency of General William Clarke, the western 

 explorer, and this ma}- fairly be regarded as the beginning of American 

 governmental work in paleontology. 



His scientific tendencies led to nuich criticism, of which the well- 

 known lines by William Cullen Bryant, in The Embargo, afford a 

 very mild example.' He cast all calumny aside with the remark "that 

 he who had nothing to conceal from the press had nothing to fear from 

 it," and calmly w^ent on his way. The senior members of his Cabinet 

 were James Madison, a man of the most enlightened sympathy with sci- 

 ence, and Gallatin, one of the earliest American philologists; while one of 

 his strongest supporters in Congress was Sanuiel Latham Mitchill, a 

 mighty promoter of scientific interests in his native vState, whom Adams 

 wdttily describes as "chemist, botanist, naturali.st, phy.sician, and poli- 

 tician, wdio supported the Republican j)art\- Ijecause Jefferson was its 

 leader, and Jefferson because he was a philosopher. ' ' 



During this admini.stration the project for a great national in.stitutiou 

 of learning w-as revived by Joel Barlow. In 1800, when Barlow was the 

 American minister in Paris, he said in a letter to Senator Baldwin : 



I have been writing a long letter to Jefferson on quite another subject. . . . It is 

 about learned societies, universities, puljlic instruction, and the advantages you now 

 have for doing something great and good if you will take it up on proper principles. 

 If you will put nie at the head of the Institution there proposed, and give it that 



Go, wretch, resign the Presidential chair; 

 Disclose thy secret measures, foul or fair. 

 Go, .search with curious eyes for horned frogs 

 'Mid the wild wastes of Louisianian bogs. 

 Or where the Ohio rolls his turbid .stream 

 Dig for huge l)ones, thy glory and thy theme. 



