SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL. 



73 



Edward Miller and Elihu H. Smith, and continued by Dr. 

 Mitchill for more than sixteen years. 



After his marriage, in 1799, to Mrs. Catharine Cock, which 

 brought him the enjoyment of an ample fortune, Dr. Mitchill 

 was able to devote himself entirely to scientific and public 

 occupations. Among the scientific works with which he ac- 

 credits himself during the few years succeeding this event is 

 the publication of a chart of chemical nomenclature, with an 

 explanatory memoir, in which he contended that metals in their 

 malleable and ductile state are compounds of a base with hydro- 

 gen (phlogiston), as in their calciform state they consist of a 

 base with oxygen ; and that in several there is an intermediate 

 condition in which there is no union either with hydrogen or 

 oxygen. And he extended the same doctrine to the greater 

 part of inflammable bodies. In 1802 he records a correspond- 

 ence with Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, on a 

 project for illuminating the lighthouses of the United States 

 with inflammable air. In 1806 he wrote the introduction to 

 the American edition of Assalini's Observations on the Plague, 

 Dysentery, and Ophthalmy of Egypt ; and in the ensuing win- 

 ter translated from the Latin Lancisi's book on the noxious 

 exhalations of marshes at Washington a work which was 

 afterward printed in the Medical Repository. As a member 

 of the Legislature, he supported, in the face of ridicule and 

 opposition, the act of 1798 giving Livingston and Fulton the 

 exclusive right to navigate the waters of New York by steam. 

 He performed, with Fulton, in August, 1807, the first voyage 

 in a steamboat. He was again chosen to the Assembly in 1797 

 as one of the representatives from the city and county of New 

 York for a term of service which he marked as distinguished 

 by his introduction of a motion relative to the fourth command- 

 ment, requiring citizens to labour on the six days as well as to 

 refrain from labour on the seventh day. In 1801 he was elected 

 to the national House of Representatives, as member from the 

 district consisting of the counties of Kings and Richmond and 

 the city and county of New York. He was appointed to the 

 Senate in 1804, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of 

 John Armstrong, and after the expiration of his term there, in 

 1809, served in the House again till 1813. A bright picture of 

 his life in Washington is given in the letters written by him to 

 his wife during his term of service. They are full of the life, 

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