CASSINIA 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE DELAWARE 

 VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 



No. XII. PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1908. 



George Ord 



BY SAMUEL N. RHOADS 



Science owes much to men almost unknown to fame and 

 whose names but rarely appear upon the page of the historian 

 or biographer. It is indeed strange that we must place in this 

 class one who accomplished so much, in a quiet, unassuming 

 way, as did George Ord, the companion, patron and literary 

 executor of Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist. The seeker 

 after materials for even a brief memoir of this once honored 

 and respected savant, who, between the years 1815 and 1858 

 was accorded nearly all the highest offices of trust within the 

 gift of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and 

 the American Philosophical Society, is puzzled at the scarcity 

 of recorded data. When he died, in 1866, the Philosophical 

 Society appointed Isaac Lea to prepare an obituary notice of 

 him, but no such tribute can now be traced either in print or 

 manuscript. By the Academy of Natural Sciences no action 

 whatever was taken. 



Consequently, in the brief space of time and pages alloted 

 for this article, only a few facts not already stereotyped in 

 some of the biographical dictionaries can be presented regard- 



