CONST ANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. jgg 



About this time Rafinesque turned his mind again toward 

 invention. He invented the present arrangement of coupon 

 bonds, or, as he called it, " the divitial invention." Savings 

 banks were projected by him, as well as " steam ploughs," 

 "aquatic railroads," " artificial leather," fireproof houses, and 

 other contrivances which he was unable to perfect. He took 

 much delight in the study of the customs and languages of the 

 Indians. In so doing, if the stories are true, he became, in a 

 way, associated with the origin of Mormonism ; for it is said 

 that his theory that the Indians came from Asia by way of 

 Siberia, and were perhaps the descendants of the ten lost 

 tribes of Israel, gave the first suggestion to Solomon Spaulding 

 for his book of the prophet Mormon. In any case, whether 

 this be true or not, it is certain that Rafinesque is still cited as 

 high authority by the Latter-Day Saints when the genuineness 

 of the Book of Mormon is questioned. 



Rafinesque now returned to Philadelphia, and published 

 The Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge, Annals of 

 Nature, and other serials, of which he was editor, publisher, 

 and usually sole contributor. After a time he became sole 

 subscriber also a condition of affairs which greatly exas- 

 perated him against the Americans and their want of apprecia- 

 tion of science. He published several historical treatises, and 

 contemplated a Complete History of the Globe, with all its 

 contents. An elaborate poem of his, dreary enough, is en- 

 titled The World; or, Instability. He made many enemies 

 among the American botanists of his time by his overbearing 

 ways, his scorn of their customs and traditions, and especially 

 by his advocacy of crude and undigested though necessary 

 reforms, so that at last most of them decided to ignore his 

 very existence. In the words of Dr. Baldwin, "these bota- 

 nists possessed independence enough to reject the wild effusions 

 of a literary madman." In those days, in matters of classifi- 

 cation, the rule of Linnaeus was supreme, and any effort to 

 recast his artificial groupings was looked at as heretical be- 

 yond all toleration. The attempt at a natural classification 

 of plants, which has made the fame of Jussieu, had the full 

 sympathy of Rafinesque ; but to his American contemporaries 

 such work could lead only to confusion. Then, again, in 

 some few of its phases, Rafinesque anticipated the modern 

 doctrine of the origin of species. That the related species of 



