ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 45 



cation of the American Ornithology ; the first volume appeared 

 in September, 1808, the second in January, 1810, the fifth and 

 sixth in 1812, and the seventh in April, 1813 : the author died 

 in August, 1813, leaving his great work incomplete. 



The Natural Sciences attracted very little attention from the 

 public ; and the very few persons who cultivated them, contended 

 with many difficulties. There were neither cabinets to awaken, 

 nor libraries to gratify a desire to become acquainted with the 

 wonders of the creation. There were in the city two or three 

 collections of minerals in the possession of gentlemen who had 

 brought them from Europe ; but they were not accessible to the 

 public. There was no book on mineralogy for sale in this 

 country ; and a gentleman who was then a young mineralogist, 

 assures me that he gathered minerals, and submitted them to Dr. 

 Seybert, who kindly named them for him. That vulgar and 

 ephemeral curiosity which manifests itself in a desire to see what 

 is not commonly beheld in nature, or in art, expended itself at 

 the Philadelphia Museum, in which were collections of implements 

 used by the aborigenes of the country in war and peace, speci- 

 mens of natural history, pictures, and whatever in the arts was 

 calculated to excite the wonder of the ignorant or admiration of 

 the instructed. The acquisition of a monster was more valuable, 

 in the estimation of the director of the museum, than a normal 

 specimen ; a chicken with three legs, or a calf with two heads, 

 attracted more attention than the rarest bird or beast of true 

 proportions. A cajoling fiction, the "perpetual motion," excited 

 more astonishment than the proof of antediluvian life exhibited 

 in the skeleton of a mastodon. This was among the most valua- 

 ble specimens in the museum, which, according to Dr. Mease, 

 contained in 1811, about 200 mammals, and about 1,000 birds. 

 But, meagre as it was, this collection was not freely accessible to 

 students of natural history ; for the purposes of study it was un- 

 available. 



There were some young persons, however, disposed to study 

 the laws of the creation. Though possessed of little information, 

 they were prone to fall into discussions upon natural phenomena, 

 and it is probable, they not unfrequently dealt in abstractions 

 and wild speculations. All of them were occupied during the 

 day, in those vocations upon which they respectively depended 

 for support; in the evening, they met without appointment at such 



