The Begi)iniugs of American Science. 45^ 



1825 the first installment of his Fauna Americana, which treated exclu- 

 sively of mammals. This was followed, in 1826, hy a rival work on 

 mammals by Godman. Harlan's l)ook was a compilation, based largely 

 on translations of portions of Desmarest's Mammalogie, printed three 

 years before in Paris. It was so severely criticised that the second por- 

 tion, which was to have been devoted to re])tiles, was ne\'er published, 

 and its author turned his attention to medical literature. Oodman's 

 North American National History, or Mastology , contained much original 

 matter, and, though his contemporaries received it with faint praise, it is 

 the only separate, compact, illustrated treatise on the manunals of North 

 America ever published, and is useful to the present day. 



John D. Godman [b. in Annapolis, Maryland, December 20, 1794; d. in 

 Germantown, Pennsylvania, April 17, 1830] died an untimely death, biit 

 gave promise of a brilliant and useful career as a teacher and investigator. 

 His Rambles of a Naturalist is one of the best series of essays of the 

 Selborne type ever produced b}- an American, and his American Natural 

 History is a work of much importance, even to the present day, embody- 

 ing, as it does, a large number of original olxservations. 



]\Iichaux"s Sylva was, as we have seen, continued by Nuttall. Wil- 

 son's American Ornithology was, in like manner, continued by Charles 

 lyUcien Bonaparte [b. in Paris, May 24, 1803; d. in Paris, July 30, 1857], 

 Prince of Canino, and nephew of Napoleon I, a master in sy.stematic 

 zoolog}'. Bonaparte came to the United States about the year 1822 

 and returned to Ital}' in 1828. His contributions to zoological sci- 

 ence were of great importance. In 1827 he published in Pisa his Specchio 

 comparativo delle ornithologie di Roma e di Filadelfia, and from 1825 to 

 1833 his American Ornithology, containing descriptions of over one 

 hundred species of birds discovered b}' himself. 



The publication of Torrej^'s Flora of the Middle and Northern vSections 

 of the United States was an event of importance, as was also Doctor 

 W. J. Hooker's essay on the Botany of America,' the first general treat- 

 ise upon the America flora or fauna by a master abroad, is prett}' sure 

 evidence that the work of home naturalists was beginning to tell. 



So also, in a diflferent way, was the appearance in 1829 of the first edi- 

 tion of Mrs. Lincoln's Familiar Lectures on Botany, a work which did 

 nuicli toward swelling the army of amateur botanists. 



Important work was also in progress in geology. Ivaton and Beck 

 were carrying on the Van Rens.selaer .survey of New York, and in i8r8 

 the former published his Index to the Geology of the Northern States. 

 Professor Denison Olm.sted, of the University of North Carolina, was 

 completing the official survey of that State — the first ever authorized by 

 the government of a State. 



Professor Lardner Vanuxem, of North Carolina, in 1828, made au 



'David Brewster, Ivdiiiljurgli Journal of Science, TI, 1S25, j). loS. 



