344 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



largely on him ; many died on his hands ; some were buried 

 from his own house ; and their expenses and the responsibilities 

 of their affairs forced upon him, helped to bring on his finan- 

 cial ruin. Richly he repaid the hospitalities that the Indian 

 at home had extended to him. 



Mrs. Catlin accompanied her husband on his expeditions of 

 1834 and the three following years, and aided him enthusi- 

 astically in his researches and work. She joined him with two 

 of their children in London in 1840, was with him during his 

 English travels, and proceeded with him to Paris, where she 

 died in 1845. She had borne him three daughters, Elizabeth 

 Wing, Clara Gregory, and Louise Victoria ; also a son, George, 

 who died at the age of three years. 



His visit to France, from 1845 to 1848, led to pecuniary 

 disaster, and was saddened by the loss of his wife and son ; 

 and in 1852 he suffered a financial wreck in London, from 

 which he never recovered. His collection was seized for debt, 

 but Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia, advanced the 

 funds necessary to release it, and took it as security himself. 

 It was brought back to this country and stored until 1879, 

 when so much of it as had escaped the ravages of time was pre- 

 sented by Mr. Harrison's widow to the Smithsonian Institution. 



Mr. Catlin then started anew. Between 1852 and 1857 he 

 made three voyages from Paris to South and Central America. 

 He found great difficulty in getting the Indians of the Amazon 

 to sit for their pictures, but by catching them unawares and 

 sketching from his boat while they were detained on the shore 

 by some pretext of entertainment, he was able to make sketches 

 among thirty different tribes, on the Amazon, the Uruguay, the 

 Yucayali, and in the open air of the pampas and llanos, con- 

 taining many thousand people, in their canoes, at their fishing 

 occupations, and in groups on the river's shore. These voy- 

 ages had also another object, having been suggested by his 

 friend von Humboldt, who wished him to pursue some of the 

 questions relative to the origin of the Gulf Stream which the 

 great geographer was then too old to investigate personally. 



After he returned from his South American campaigns, Mr. 

 Catlin lived in Brussels for about ten years upon the proceeds 

 of his brush, and working at the same time upon a new gallery 

 of paintings to be known as his "cartoon collection." This 

 was not a replica of the other collection. Instead of being 



