Sect. III.] United States of America. 263 



serve, among many others, to be mentioned witli 

 honour, as having contributed to the cultivation 

 of mathematical and astronomical science in Ame- 

 rica. 



Chemical Philosophij has also been cultivated in 

 the United States with a zeal and success worthy 

 of respectful notice. The first course of instruc- 

 tion in chemistry ever attempted in America was 

 in the year 1769, by Dr. Benjamin Rush, about 

 that time appointed professor of this branch of 

 science in the college of Philadelphia, lo Dr. 

 Samuel L. Mitchill, of New York, the honour is 

 due of having first publicly taught, in an Ameri- 

 can seminary, the system of chemistr}^ digested 

 and published by Lavoisier and his associates. This 

 was in a course of lectures delivered by him in 

 Columbia college, in the year 1792, as a profcs- 

 SOT in that institution : and his various publica- 

 tions and numerous experiments on the subject, 

 from that time to the. present, have doubtless con- 

 ti'ibuted to extend the taste for chemical inquiries. 

 Dr. Mitchill was soon followed by Dr. Woodhouse 

 of Philadelphia, Dr. Maclean of Princeton, Dr. 

 Dexter of Cambridge, and, in a few years after- 

 ward, by several others, in diifcrent parts of the 

 continent. This department of physical science 

 is much more studied in the middle and southern 

 states than in New England. 



The arrival of Dr. Priestley in the United States 

 gave a spring to the study of -chemistry on that 

 side of the Atlantic. This celebrated philosopher 

 possessed an ardour and activity of mind, which 

 were eminently fitted to influence those with 

 whom he had any intercourse, and to draw the 



