!86 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



Island Sound, the pilot let her drift against one of the rocks 

 which lie outside the harbour of New London. The vessel 

 filled and sank, giving the passengers barely time to escape 

 with their lives. " I reached New London at midnight," says 

 Rafinesque, " in a most deplorable situation. I had lost every- 

 thing my fortune, my share in the cargo, my collections and 

 labours of twenty years past, my books, my manuscripts, and 

 even my clothes all I possessed, except some scattered funds 

 and some little insurance money. Some hearts of stone have 

 since dared to doubt of these facts, or rejoice at my losses. 

 Yes, I have found men vile enough to laugh without shame at 

 my misfortunes instead of condoling with me. But I have met 

 also with friends who have deplored my loss and helped me in 

 need." It was after this shipwreck that his wife deserted him, 

 preferring a comedian to a madman, and taking with her his 

 only daughter, Emily, who became a singer in a Sicilian opera. 



I shall pass rapidly over Rafinesque's career until his 

 settlement in Kentucky. He travelled widely in America in 

 the summer always on foot. " Horses were offered me," he 

 said, " but I never liked riding them, and dismounting for 

 every flower. Horses do not suit botanists." He now came 

 westward, following the course of the Ohio, and exploring for 

 the first time the botany of the country. He came to Indiana, 

 and for a short time was associated with the community then 

 lately established by Owen and Maclure at New Harmony, on 

 the Wabash. Though the New Harmony experiment was a 

 failure, as all communities must be in which the drone and the 

 worker alike have access to the honey cells, yet the debt due 

 it from American science is very great. Although far in the 

 backwoods, and in the long-notorious county of Posey, New 

 Harmony was for a time fairly to be called the centre of Amer- 

 ican science; and even after half a century has gone by, its 

 rolls bear few names brighter than those of Thomas Say, David 

 Dale Owen, and Charles Alexander Lesueur. 



Rafinesque soon left New Harmony, and became Professor 

 of Natural History and the Modern Languages in Transylvania 

 University at Lexington, Kentucky. He was, I believe, the 

 first teacher of natural history in the West, and his experiences 

 were those of most pioneers. They would not give him at 

 Lexington the degree of Master of Arts, he says, " because I 

 had not studied Greek in a college, although I knew more Ian- 



