366 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



spirit. I acquired the habit of looking on the characters and 

 capabilities of men as the result of their organism." 



Referring to the small collection of books in the possession of 

 his paternal grandfather he says: " Among those purely literary 

 were several volumes of the Spectator and Roderick Random. Of 

 the former I read a good deal. Three mathematical books were 

 in the collection, Hammond's Algebra, Simpson's Euclid, and 

 Moore's Navigator" These works were literally absorbed by 

 him, and he also mentions Mrs. Marcet's Conversations on Natural 

 Philosophy and Lardner's Popular Lectures on Science and Art, 

 as books that greatly interested him during this period of his 

 youth. 



His desire for learning had exhausted the slender resources of 

 his paternal home and so at the age of sixteen, while on a visit to 

 his grandparents, in Moncton, he went to study with one Doctor 

 Foshay, who lived in the village of Salisbury, fifteen miles on the 

 road to St. John. An agreement was made with the physician 

 which read as follows: 



"S. N. to live with the doctor, rendering him all the assistance in 

 his power in preparing medicines, attending to business, and doing 

 generally whatever might be required of him in the way of help. 

 The Doctor, on his part, to supply S. N.'s bodily needs in food and 

 clothing, and teach him medical botany and the botanic system 

 of medicine. The contract to terminate when the other party 

 should attain the age of twenty-one." 



This contract so gladly made soon became unsatisfactory and 

 young Newcomb found himself 



"Physician, apothecary, chemist and druggist, 

 Girl about house and boy in the barn." 



With greater exactness he says: "I cared for the horse, cut wood 

 for the fire, searched field and forest for medicinal herbs, ordered 

 other medicines from a druggist in St. John, kept the doctor's 

 accounts, made his pills, and mixed his powders." 



This unfortunately left little time for reading and study and 

 soon he began to realize that his growing years were being wasted. 



