JAMES BLYTHE ROGERS. 371 



From this time on Dr. Rogers made pure and applied 

 chemistry his chief concern. The professorship of Chemistry 

 in the Washington Medical College being offered to him, he 

 hesitated to accept it, thinking he was not sufficiently ready 

 of speech for a lecturer. He finally undertook the work, and, 

 although it was not remunerative, it served to discover the 

 fact that he shared the gift of eloquence which distinguished 

 his brothers. The ice being thus broken, he found it easy to 

 give chemical lectures before the Mechanics' Institute, in 

 Baltimore, and later he lectured also on physics. 



Dr. Joseph Carson states in his memoir of Dr. Rogers that 

 it was William B. Rogers who induced his brother to venture 

 upon the career of a college lecturer, and thus relates how it 

 was accomplished : " To convince him that he had nothing to 

 apprehend on that score [lack of fluency], his brother William 

 prevailed upon him to accompany him to the lecture room, and 

 there, placing the future professor behind the desk, consti- 

 tuted himself the audience. The theme was named, which 

 being instantly taken up and amplified upon, the ease and full- 

 ness with which he spoke relieved him of his diffidence and 

 apprehension. This was his first effort to lecture, and, like 

 this, all his future performances were without notes or facilities 

 of recollection, except those incident to the arrangement of the 

 topic." 



In September, 1830, being then twenty-eight years of age, 

 he married Rachel Smith, of Baltimore, a birthright member 

 of the Society of Friends. 



Cincinnati was the residence of Dr. J. B. Rogers from 1835 

 to 1839, this period being the whole term of existence of the 

 Medical Department of Cincinnati College, in which he had 

 accepted the professorship of Chemistry. The summer vaca- 

 tions of these four years he spent as an assistant to his 

 brother William in fieldwork and chemical investigations on 

 the Geological Survey of Virginia. While in Cincinnati he 

 declined the office of melter and refiner in the branch mint at 

 New Orleans, offered to him by the President of the United 

 States. 



Dr. Rogers now, 1840, removed to Philadelphia and be- 

 came an assistant to his brother Henry, who was the State 

 geologist of Pennsylvania. He also turned his knowledge of 

 chemistry to account in various other occupations. He was 



