54 A NOTICE OF THE 



The war between this country and Great Britain existed 

 through the same time, from 1812 to 1815, and influenced un- 

 favorably the progress of the Institution. Besides interrupting 

 to a considerable extent, intercourse with Europe, and thus al- 

 most entirely preventing the importation of scientific books 

 needed by the Society, some of its most zealous and active mem- 

 bers were drawn off from the peaceful pursuits of the Academy 

 to serve in the camp. Messrs. Say, Gilliams, and Sbinn were 

 among the volunteer troops assembled for the defence of the 

 city ;and Mr. Speakman and other members assisted in the labor 

 of constructing, in the neighborhood, military works then sup- 

 posed to be required for the protection of Philadelphia. 



Of the founders of the Academy I am able to state very little. 

 Dr. Camillus M. Mann, the first Secretary of the Society, was 

 a native of Ireland. He served in the Irish rebellion of 1798, 

 against the government, and was employed by the rebels to seek 

 aid in France, from which country he emigrated to the United 

 States. He was accompanied by a distinguished young German 

 artist, Mr. Krimmel, who was drowned near Germantown, in 

 1823. Dr. Mann removed to Baltimore, where he edited a 

 newspaper for some time. The period of his death I have not 

 been able to ascertain. 



Our first Curator, Mr. Thomas Say, whose knowledge, amia- 

 bility, and devotion to the interests of the Institution, were 

 almost indispensable to the continued existence of the Academy 

 in its early days, was born in Philadelphia, July 27, 1787 ; and, 

 when he became one of its founders, was in his twenty-fifth year. 

 Mr. Speakman, his partner in business, was ever ready to do all 

 the work of the shop, to enable Mr. Say to devote his whole 

 time to labor in the Academy. Through endorsement for unfor- 

 tunate friends, the firm and business of Speakman and Say were 

 at an end ; and it is related of these servants of science, that 

 they retained scarcely anything for themselves ; and that Mr. 

 Say gave to those to whom they had become creditors by en- 

 dorsement, the contents of his pocket-book, and even the loose 

 change in his purse. After this, he resided in the Hall of the 

 Academy, where he made his bed beneath a skeleton of a horse, 

 and fed himself on bread and milk ; occasionally he cooked a chop 

 or boiled an egg ; but he was wont to regard eating as an in- 

 convenient interruption to scientific pursuits, and often expressed 

 a wish that he had been made with a hole in his side, in which 



