280 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891. 



The National Institution beuan its career at a time wLeii tlie country 

 was chafing under the irritation of the delays of Congress in organizing 

 the institution of learning provided by Sinithson, whose legacy had for 

 some years been deposited in the Treasury.* 



which position ht- hchl until 1820, when he was appointerl post sni'geon and chief 

 ineilical officer of the Military Academy at West Point. In November, 1821, he was 

 made assistant surgeon and acting professor of chemistry and miueralogy in the 

 academy, in whicii capacity he served until his death, which occurred on Decemher 

 15, 1823. 



His most important work, A System of Pyrotechny (Svo, Philadelphia, 182.^), i-xliv, 

 1-612), was published in Philadelphia after his death by his widow, aided liy a sub- 

 scription from the cadets of the Military Academy. 



Another work, entitled "The Philosophy of Experimental Chemistry," in two 

 volumes (Philadelphia, 1813, 12mo, (1) pp-xii, 1-356(2) i-viii, 1-3,S9) ay.iiears to have 

 been the earliest general work or text b<»ok on chemistry written in America, 

 although Benjamin Rush had printed a syllabus of his lectures which gave him the 

 title to be considered •'the fatlu'V of chemistry in America," and James C'utbush 

 himself had, as early as 1807 or 1808, pre]>ared an Epitome of Chemistry, ior the use 

 of St. John's College, in which he was a teacher, of the publication ol' which, how- 

 ever, I have found no record. 



In 1812 he delivered an " Oration on Education" (Philadelphia, 1812, 8vo, pp. 1-50), 

 before the Society for the Promotion of a Rational System of Education, of whicli 

 he was vice-president — an enlightened and eloquent address full of historical infor- 

 mation. He also pnldished in 1808 a book called " The Useful Cabinet," a treatise 

 "On Hydrostatics and Specitic Gravity," and also certain papers in the American 

 Joui'ual of Science. 



Besides holding a corresponding membership in the Columbian Institute at Wash- 

 ington, which was founded by his bi'other, he was president of the Columbian Chem- 

 ical Society and member of the Liuna'an and Agricultural Societies of Philadeljihia. 

 Rafinesque, enumerating in 1817 those of the American scientific men whom he con- 

 sidered entitled to rank as philosophers, mentions the name of Cutbush along with 

 his own and those of Jeft'erson. Clinton, Vauglian, Bentley, Winthrop, Patterson, 

 Williamson, Griscom, Wood, Dupout, Woodward, Rush, Mitchell, Ramsay, and 

 Priestly. 



Edward Cutbush, after his graduation at the Philadelphia Medical School in 1794, 

 became attached to the militia of Pennsylvania, first as hospital surgetm and sub- 

 se([ueut]y as surgeon-general. On the 24th of .June, 1799, he was appointed a sur- 

 geon in the U. S. Navy, in which capacity he served until June 20, 1829, when he 

 resigned. In the years 1816 and 1817 he appears to have been stationed in Wash- 

 ington, and at this time participated in the foundation of the Columbian Institute 

 for the Promotion of Science. I can find no record of his whereabouts after 1829 

 until 1835, when he was a resident of Geneva, N. Y., and participated in the estab- 

 lishment of the medical institute of Geneva College, in which he became professor 

 of chemistry. On the occasion of its formal opening, on February 10, 1835, he deliv- 

 ered a discourse "On the history and methods of medical instruction" (Geneva, 

 1835, 8vo, pp. 1-24). In 1842 he appears to have been still at Geneva, and at this 

 time was probably a man seventy or eighty years of age. His Washington addiess 

 and his Geneva address appear to be his only literary remains, with the exception ot 

 a book which was published in Philadelphia in 1808 entitled "Observations on the 

 Means of Preserving the Health of Soldiers and Sailors," etc. (Philadelphia, 1808, 

 Svo, pp. i-xvi, 1-316, 1-14). 



""Smithson had died in 1829, but the legacy did not become availalde until after 

 the death of his nephew, the residuary legatee, in 1835, after which, in August or 

 September of that year, the Government of the United States was first apprised of 



