444 Memorial of George Brouni 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 capal^le collector, and who contributed matter to God- 

 man's American Natural History. In 18 18 a society st}- led 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-da}' 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 entomology will be 

 thankfull}' received.' 



Major John Eatton LeConte, U. vS. 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 lyCpidoptera of North America.'' 



The elder brother. Doctor I,ewis L,eConte [b. 1782, d. 1838], was 

 equalh' eminent as an ob.server, and was for forty years one of the most 

 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 bitrning of Columbia 

 ju.st at the close of the civil war, but his okservations, which he was 

 averse to pu])lishing in his own name, were, we are told, embodied in 

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

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



vStephen P^lliott, of Charleston, vSouth Carolina [b. 171 1, d. 1830], was 

 a graduate of Yale in the class 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 Eiterar^^ and Philosophical Societ}^ of South 

 Carolina, and was its first president; and in 1829 was elected profes.sor 



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

 '^18, and signed by Elijah Slack, James Findlay, William Steele, Jesse Embrees, and 

 Daniel Drake, managers. 



^ Histoire Gcncrale et Iconographie dcs IvCpidoptercs et des Chenilles de I'Ameri- 

 quc Septentrionale, Paris, 1S30. 



3 I^oudon's Gardeners' Magazine. 



"•A.H. StephensinJohnson'sNew Universal Cyclopaedia, New York, 1876, II, p. 1702. 



5 The LeConte family deserves a place in Galton's Hereditary Genius. l'rofes.sor 

 John LeConte, the physici.st, and Profe.ssor Jo.seph LeConte, the geologist, were .sons 

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

 Eatton LeConte. 



