AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. i^i^ 



out shame at my misfortunes, instead of condoling 

 with me. But I have met also with friends who 

 have deplored my loss and helped me in need." 



I shall pass rapidly over Rafinesque's career 

 until his settlement in Kentucky. He travelled 

 widely in America, in the summer, always on foot. 

 *' Horses were offered to me," he said, '' but I 

 never liked riding them, and dismounting for 

 every flower. Horses do not suit botanists." He 

 now came westward, following the course of the 

 Ohio, and exploring for the first time the botany 

 of the country. He came to Indiana, and for a 

 short time was associated with the community 

 then lately established by Owen and Maclure at 

 New Harmony on the Wabash. Though this 

 New Harmony experiment was a failure, as all 

 communities must be in which the drone and the 

 worker alike have access to the honey-cells, yet 

 the debt due it from American science is very 

 great. Although far in the backwoods, and in 

 the long notorious county of Posey, New Harmony 

 was for a time fairly to be called the centre of 

 American science; and even after half a century 

 has gone by its rolls bear few names brighter than 

 those of Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and 

 Charles Albert Le Sueur. 



Rafinesque soon left New Harmony, and became 

 Professor of Natural History and the Modern Lan- 

 guages in Transylvania University, at Lexington, 

 Kentucky. He was, I beHeve, the very first 

 teacher of natural history in the West, and his 

 experiences were not more cheerful than those 

 of most pioneers. They would not give him at 



