DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 333 



Missouri River Expedition in 1843. Edward Harris 

 became a patron of science through his friendship with 

 scientific men, and many besides Audubon were indebted 

 to him for judicious advice as well as more substantial 

 benefits. 



The Academy of Natural Sciences, founded in 1812, 

 was well established at this time, and its rapidly grow r - 

 ing Museum was already the largest and most valuable 

 in the New World; ornithology was a favored subject, 

 and the Academy's roll embraced every American pio- 

 neer worker of note in the entire field of the natural 

 sciences. The following account of a meeting of the 

 Academy, held on October 11, 1825, when Ord presided, 

 has been preserved in a letter of the period : 



10 



A few evenings since I was associated with a society of gen- 

 tlemen, members of the Academy of Natural Sciences. There 

 were present fifteen or twenty. Among the number were Le 

 Sueur, Rafinesque, Say, Peale, Pattison, Harlan, and Charles 

 Lucien Bonaparte. 



Among this collection life was most strikingly exemplified: 

 Le Sueur, with a countenance weather-beaten and worn, looked 

 on, for the muscles of his ironbound visage seemed as incapable 

 of motion, as those on the medals struck in the age of Julius 

 Caesar. Rafinesque has a fine black eye, rather bald and black 

 hair, and withal is rather corpulent. I was informed that he 

 was a native of Constantinople ; at present he lives in Ken- 

 tucky. Dr. Harlan is a spruce young man. . . . Peale is 

 the son of the original proprietor of the Philadelphia Museum, 

 and one who visited the Rocky Mountains with Major Long; 

 he is a young man, and has no remarkable indications of 

 countenance to distinguish him. Say, who was his companion 



10 Written by Dr. Edmund Porter of Frenchtown, New Jersey, to 

 Dr. Thomas Miner of Haddam, Connecticut, on October 25, 1825. See 

 Witmer Stone, "Some Philadelphia Ornithological Collections and Col- 

 lectors, 1784-1850," The Auk, vol. xvi (New York, 1899). 



