310 Obituary. , 



Although Matthias Barton was but little known to the 

 world as a man of literature or science ; and may, 

 therefore, seem to have but a slender claim to comme- 

 moration in a work such as the present, yet he was the 

 means of considerably enlarging the stock of natural 

 knowledge in the United- States ; and as a man of exact 

 observation he was, perhaps, inferior to few of his 

 countrymen. 



In the course of his annual tours through many parts 

 of Pennsylvania, and the adjacent States, he indulged a 

 strong, almost innate, desire to inquire into the natural 

 history of his country : and the mass of original matter 

 which he thus collected, and which he always commu- 

 nicated to the Brother, who now endeavours, however 

 feebly or imperfectly, to commemorate his worth, was 

 very considerable. In particular, the facts which he col- 

 lected, often from his own immediate observation, rela- 

 tive to the manners and habits of the animals, especially the 

 viviparous Quadrupeds, the Birds, and the Fishes, are 

 some of the most curious and important that the Editor 

 has hitherto met with. He flatters himself, that they will 

 be considered as an important addition to the stock of 

 zoological history : they will, certainly, greatly inhance 



Company" at Lancaster ; and cultivated, with considerable success, 

 some of the branches of Natural History, at a time when these stu- 

 dies were almost entirely neglected in Pennsylvania. He formed a 

 considerable collection of the Mineral Productions of Pennsylvania. 

 See a " Discourse on some of the principal Desiderata in Natural 

 History," &c.j &c., page 86. 



