LARDNER VANUXEM. 



tricts of France investigating the rock formations, collecting 

 specimens, etc., he returned to this country and his native city, 

 " charged with all the improvements of recent chemical dis- 

 coveries, and the advancement in all its kindred arts." But 

 he preferred the more abstract pursuit of his studies to the 

 application of his knowledge to the practical arts. 



Almost immediately after his return home, he was invited 

 by President Cooper, of Columbia College, in South Carolina, 

 to take the chair of Chemistry and Mineralogy in that insti- 

 tution. Becoming a member of the president's family, a 

 warm friendship was formed between him and each member 

 thereof, which ended only with their lives. 



In 1826 he retired from the college and devoted his atten- 

 tion exclusively to geology as a profession. During that year 

 he published in the newspapers and in Robert Mill's Statistics 

 of South Carolina reports on the geology of the State, of 

 which he made a survey or assisted in making one, having pre- 

 viously made one of North Carolina. "He also made quite 

 a collection of minerals and rocks of the State, which were 

 deposited in the University of South Carolina." 



He then visited Mexico to examine gold-mining property, 

 of which he had been solicited to take charge. His inspection 

 soon convinced him that no profitable results could accrue to 

 the owners, and he advised that it be abandoned. 



In i827- J 28 he studied the geological features of the States 

 of New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, under 

 the auspices of the State of New York, and made his report to 

 its Legislature. 



It was either at this time or immediately after his return 

 from France that he spent much time in geological investiga- 

 tions in the vicinity of Philadelphia in company with Dr. Isaac 

 Lea, who was his chosen and most intimate friend and associ- 

 ate from his early days to the end of his life. Subsequently 

 Dr. Lea honoured him by naming after him a class of fresh- 

 water shells which he had been the first to discover and make 

 known. It is from Dr. Isaac Lea's record of him that much of 

 the information in connection with science, contained in the 

 first part of this sketch, is derived. He also made at times ex- 

 tensive and careful investigations in the franklinite districts 

 and marl beds of New Jersey. 



In 1830, having returned to Philadelphia, he purchased a 



