446 Memoyial of George Brote'u Goode. 



peninsula. The part}' consisted of Maclure, Say, Ord, and Titian R. 

 Peale, and the results, though not embodied in a formal report, may be 

 detected in the scientific literature of the succeeding years. This was 

 early in 18 18, while Florida was still under the dominion of Spain, and 

 the expedition was finally abandoned, owing to the hostile attitude of the 

 Seminole Indians in that territory. 



XIV. 



The third decade of the century, beginning with 1820, was marked by 

 a continuation of the activities of that which preceded. In 1826 there 

 were in existence twenty-five scientific societies, more than half of them 

 especially devoted to natural history' and nearly all of very recent origin. 



The leading spirits were Mitchill, Maclure, Webster, Torrej', Silliman, 

 Gibbs, LeConte, Dewey, Hare, Hitchcock, Olmsted, Eliot, andT- R. Beck. 



Nathaniel Bowditch [b. 1773, d. 1838], in 1829, began the publication 

 of his magnificent translation of the Mecanique Celeste of L,a Place, 

 with those scholarl}^ commentations wdiich secured him so lofty a place 

 among the mathematicians of the world. 



Still more important was the lesson of his noble devotion of his life and 

 fortune to science. The greater part of his monumental work was com- 

 pleted, we are told, in 18 17, but he found that to print it would cost 

 $12,000, a sum far beyond his means. A few years later, however, he 

 began its publication from his own limited means, and the work was 

 continued, after his death, by his wife. The dedication is to his wife, 

 and tells us that ' ' without her approbation the work would not have 

 been undertaken." 



Another person was W. C Redfield [b. 1789, d. 1857], who, in 1827, 

 promulgated the essential portions of the theory of storms, which is 

 now pretty generall}^ accepted, and which was subsequently extended 

 by Sir William Reid in Barbados and Bernuida, and greatly modified by 

 Professor lyoomis, of New Haven. An eloquent eulogy of Redfield was 

 pronounced by Professor Denison Olmsted at the Montreal meeting of 

 the American Association in 1857.^ 



Among the rising young investigators of this period were Joseph 

 Henry, A. D. Bache, C. U. vShepard, the younger Silliman, Henry Sey- 

 1)ert, William Mather, Ebenezer Knunons, Percival, the poet geologist, 

 DeKay, Godman, and Harlan. 



The organization, in 1824, of the Rensselaer School, afterwards the 

 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at Troy, marked the beginning of a 

 new era in scientific and technological education. Its principal professors 

 were Amos Katon and Doctor Lewis C. Beck. 



In 1820 an expedition was sent by the General Government to explore 



' American Journal of Science, X, 1826, p. 369. 



= See History of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1887, p. 76. 



