INTRODUCTION. 33 
in organizing and establishing new political institutions. 
The people, thinly spread over a vast territory, were 
busied in developing its resources, or were engrossed by 
the excitements resulting from the unsettled condition of 
public affairs, and the frequent collisions with foreign 
powers, which disturbed the peace of the country for 
twenty-five years, until the termination of the war with 
England, in 1815. At the close of that conflict, which 
finally established for the country a rank among nations, 
and left it in repose, the movement which had sometime 
before been communicated from Europe, began to pro- 
duce sensible effects here. 
The state of society was not, at that time, suited to 
the favorable reception, much less to the rapid diffusion 
of science. Wealth was so equally distributed, that few 
were rich ; and, although a respectable degree of intel- 
ligence was common, all the energies of the people 
were spent in pursuits immediately connected with the 
practical utilities of business. As a consequence of this 
condition of things, few were willing to cultivate science 
for its own sake, and most of these were persons who 
had not yet become engaged in the serious labors of 
life. It was by the young men of that period, therefore, 
that the Zoology of the modern school was welcomed to 
North America, and the earliest efforts made to promote 
its study. Their exertions were at first of the most 
unpretending character, but they sufficed to attract the 
attention of those possessing similar tastes, and led to 
the establishment of institutions in our principal cities, 
VOL. 1. 10 
