208 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



turned his early trade to account by setting the type for the 

 greater part of his book. 



In 1817 Mr. Nuttall, already a Fellow of the Linnsean Society 

 of London, was elected a member of the American Philosoph- 

 ical Society at the same meeting with Say and Schweinitz. He 

 was made a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia in the same year, and began to pub- 

 lish essays in the journal of the academy. Among his earliest 

 contributions was a description of Collinsia, a new genus of 

 plants, named in honour of his friend and patron, Z. Collins. 



Nuttall had long desired to visit the Arkansas country, and 

 soon after his American Plants was published Messrs. Correa 

 de Serra, Z. Collins, William Maclure, and John Vaughan pro- 

 cured him the means of performing this long journey. Start- 

 ing from Philadelphia on October 2, 1818, he reached the 

 mouth of the Arkansas River about the middle of January and 

 Port Bellepoint on April 24th. Thence he made expeditions 

 in several directions, returning with abundant collections. He 

 was on one of these trips in the middle of August, when, ex- 

 hausted by long and difficult marches, made under the rays of 

 a burning sun and in constant dread of the Indians, having 

 suffered from thirst, insufficient food, and exposure to the 

 night dews, he was seized with a violent fever among the 

 Osage tribe. The Indians robbed him of his effects and even 

 threatened his life, but he finally reached the garrison at Belle- 

 point, where he remained sick until the middle of October. 

 He made one more trip and then set out for home, reaching 

 New Orleans February 18, 1820. He had then in sixteen 

 months made a journey of more than five thousand miles, 

 mainly over a country never visited before by scientific ex- 

 plorers, and still in the undisputed possession of the Indians. 



Getting back to Philadelphia early in the spring of 1820, he 

 immediately set about arranging his Arkansas collections and 

 preparing his Journey into the Interior of Arkansas in 1818 

 and 1819, which he published in the following year. In the 

 course of the years 1820 to 1822 he contributed several 

 memoirs to the Journal of the Academy of Natural Science, 

 among them being one On the Serpentine Rocks of Hoboken 

 and the Minerals which they Contain, for he was giving some 

 attention to mineralogy at this time. He also lectured on 

 botany to classes of young men. His lecturing was not re- 



