CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE. ^3 



energy, his work does not deserve a high place in the records 

 of science. And his failure seems due to two things : first, his 

 lack of attention to details, a defect which has vitiated all of 

 his work ; and, second, his versatility, which led him to attempt 

 work in every field of learning. As to this, he says him- 

 self:* 



" It is a positive fact that in knowledge I have been a bota- 

 nist, naturalist, geologist, geographer, historian, poet, philoso- 

 pher, philologist, economist, philanthropist ; by profession a 

 traveller, merchant, manufacturer, brewer, collector, improver, 

 teacher, surveyor, draughtsman, architect, engineer, pulmist, 

 author, editor, bookseller, librarian, secretary, and I hardly 

 know what I may not become as yet, since, whenever I apply 

 myself to anything which I like, I never fail to succeed, if de- 

 pending on myself alone, unless impeded or prevented by the 

 lack of means, or the hostility of the foes of mankind." 



But a traveller Rafinesque chiefly considered himself ; and 

 to him all his pursuits, scientific, linguistic, historical, were but 

 episodes in a life of travel. Two lines of doggerel French were 

 his motto : 



" Un voyageur des le berceau, 

 Je le serai jusqu'au tombeau." 



" A traveller from the cradle, 

 I'm a traveller to the tomb." 



On the medal granted him by the French Geographical So- 

 ciety is another motto, evidently original with him : 



" De Linne 

 Le Ge*nie 

 II a choise pour guide." 



" The spirit of Linnaeus he chose as his guide." 



From this medal, which he hoped would remain as the pride 

 of his family and successors, long since turned as old gold into 

 the United States Mint, the only known portrait of Rafinesque 

 has been taken. 



Long before the invention of railroads and steamboats he 

 had travelled on foot tens of thousands of miles over most of 

 southern Europe and eastern North America, when eastern 

 North America was as new as Zululand is now. Without money, 



* American Naturalist, 1876. 



