14 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



' " On October 4, 1818, the faculty of natural history was 

 instituted, and the following professorships created : First, 

 botany and horticulture ; second, natural history, including 

 geology, zoology, and comparative anatomy ; third, miner- 

 alogy, and chemistry, as applied to agriculture and the arts." 

 " The only signs of life in 1820 in the department of 

 science were now the appointment of a committee to con- 

 sider the propriety and the cost of erecting a greenhouse, 

 and the request from the janitor that he be allowed the use 

 of Prof. Cooper's room for the winter, to preserve the plants 

 ' he had collected to adorn the grounds and to encourage 

 the love of botany.' The request w^as granted. The report 

 of the committee on the greenhouse was laid on the table." 

 Prof Barton, in 1822, writes to the board that he had 

 lectured in the winters of 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, 

 1821, and further, that he had refused to receive the fees 

 from the students. The botanical instruction in 1821 was 

 discontinued because a class could not be formed. The 

 crisis in the school of natural history, however, was reached 

 in March, 1827. It appears that no lectures had been given 

 for several years by the professor of natural history, 

 including geology, or by the professor of comparative 

 anatomy, and that the professor of botany was then hold- 

 ing the professorship of materia medica in the newly- 

 started Jefferson Medical College. Early in 1828 the 

 faculty of natural history was abolished. 



" Now, however, it appears that the medical faculty, 

 which would have no botany while Dr. Barton occupied 

 the chair, had become suddenly solicitous aljout that science, 

 and, as a result, the trustees re-establislied the chair of 

 botany in 1829, placing it on the same footing as it was 



