TJic Bcginiiiiigs of American Science. 425 



began in 1S06 a career of great usefulness. "For thirty years," wrote 

 Francis, ' ' he was the acknowledged head of all other teachers of chem- 

 istry among us ( in New York), and he kept jjace with the flood of light 

 which Davy, Murray, Gay I^ussac, and Thenard and others shed on the 

 progress of chemical philosophy at that day. ' ' About 1 820 he went abroad 

 to study scientific institutions, and his charming book, A Year in luirope, 

 .supplemented by his regular contril)utions to vSilliman's Journal, com- 

 menting on scientific affairs in other countries, did nmch to stimulate the 

 growth of scientific and educational institutions in America. 



Francis tells us that he was for thirty years the acknowledged head of 

 the teachers of chemistry in New York.' 



A zealous promoter of zoology in those days was F. Adrian Yander- 

 kemp, of Oldenbarnavelt, New York, who, in 1795, we are told, deliv- 

 ered an address before an agricultural .society in \Vhitesl)urg, New York, 

 in which he offered premiums for e.ssnys upon certain subjects, among 

 which was one for the best anatomical and historical account of the 

 moose, $50, or for bringing one in alive, $60. "' 



Having mentioned several American natiu'alists of foreign birth, it 

 may not be out of place to refer to the American origin of an Knglish 

 zoologist of high repute. Doctor Thomas Hoi'sfield, born in Philadelphia, 

 in 1773, and after many years in the Fast became, in 1S20, a resident of 

 lyondon, where he died in 1S59. His name is prominent among tho.se 

 of the entomologists, botanists, and ornithologists of this century, 

 especially in connection with Ja\-a. 



XL 



In New England science was more highl\' a])i)reciated than in New 

 York. Massachu.setts had in John Adams a man who, like Franklin and 

 Jeffer.son, realized that .scientific in.stitutions were the best protection for 

 a democratic government, and to his efforts America owes its .second 

 .scientific .society — the American Academy of Arts and sSciences, founded 

 in 1780. When Mr. Adams traveled from Boston to Philadelphia, in 

 the days just Ijefore the Revolution, he .several times visited at Norwalk, 

 we are told, a curious collection of American birds and insects made by 

 Mr. Arnold. This was afterwards sold to vSir A.shton Lever, in who.se 

 a]iartments in London Mr. Adams .saw it again, and felt a new regret at 

 our imperfect knowledge of the productions of the three kingdoms of 

 nature in our land. In France his visits to the museums and other 

 establishments, with the iiupiiries of academicians and other men of 

 science and letters respecting this country and their encomiums on the 

 Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, suggested to him the idea of engag- 



' John H. Gri.scom, Memoir of John Gri.sconi, New York, 1S59, p. 424. 

 -De Will Clinton, Tran.saclions of the Literary and Phih).sophi(-al vSociety, New 

 York, I, p. 59. 



