386 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



them all there was no one more eager in the quest and more 

 popular with his fellows than Solomon White Conrad, the 

 father of the subject of the present sketch. That the elder 

 Conrad was a remarkable man all who remember him assert 

 without reserve. That he was a popular one, the fact that 

 his house was a favourite gathering place for all the scientific 

 notables of the city clearly proves. His was the first natural 

 history salon opened in Philadelphia, and, being a matter of six 

 days in the week, instead of at stated intervals, was fully as 

 popular as the celebrated Wistar parties. 



A descendant of Thones Kunders (subsequently anglicized 

 to Dennis Conrad), who left Crefeld, Germany, July 24, 1683, 

 and settled at Germantown, then nine miles from Philadelphia, 

 but now in the city limits, like his American ancestry, Solomon 

 W. Conrad was a strict Quaker and an approved minister of 

 that faith. His father was John Conrad, a blacksmith, and 

 Solomon was born July 31, 1779, an ^ died October 2, 1831. 

 Of his early life nothing is positively known, but it is probable 

 that he was apprenticed to a printer or bookseller. It is 

 known that a strong fancy for scientific study was early de- 

 veloped, and the fears of his friends were realized that he 

 would not be successful in business, because of attention 

 divided between his shop and his cherished specimens at 

 home. His partner ruined him financially. His herbarium is 

 now in the possession of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Sciences. As evidence that the country was more attractive 

 than the shop on Market Street, I quote the following from 

 the manuscript journal of a nephew : " My father, . . . with 

 Solomon Conrad, would take long walks in search of new 

 specimens. I went with them once on a stroll along the banks 

 of the Schuylkill, when they saw at the same time, in the 

 shallow bed of the river, a fine lot of mussels. Both rushed 

 to the spot, regardless of the rough stones and splashing of 

 the muddy water, the broad tails of their plain coats standing 

 out behind and their arms reaching out in front, eager to se- 

 cure the prize." In the spring of 1829 Solomon Conrad, 

 who at that time had acquired a wide reputation as a mineral- 

 ogist and botanist, was elected Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Pennsylvania, and delivered, May ist, his intro- 

 ductory address. In The Friend of fifth month, 9, 1829, the 

 late Roberts Vaux, of Philadelphia, gives the following es- 



