CURRENT LITERATURE. 
A life of Rafinesque. 
The Filson Club of Louisville has pubtished in sumptuous form! an 
account of the life and writings of Rafinesque, prepared by Dr. R. 
Ellsworth Call. This Club is devoted to the history of Kentucky, and 
its interest in Rafinesque arises from the fact that he was the first 
“resident professor-naturalist” in the state. Dr. Call is a student of 
our fresh-water shells, especially the Unionide, and the devious trail 
of synonymy led him into the papers of Rafinesque, with the publica- 
tion of the present memoir as a result. The figure presented to us 
has always been a picturesque one in the annals of American science, 
whose work and character have always been a puzzle, possibly because 
too little is known of either. The Botanica, GazETTE (8: 149) once 
published a sketch of him, ina series of early botanists, but it was 
merely a compilation of current opinions, and while recognizing his 
ability did scant justice to his work and spirit. Dr. Call has done well 
with the material at his command, and seems to have spared no pains 
in collecting and verifying it. The current notion as to the personal- 
ity of Rafinesque has been largely drawn, doubtless, from the carica- 
ture for which Audubon was responsible. We are very glad to have 
this corrected by letters, published here for the first time, of persons 
who had personal relations with Rafinesque as students or friends. 
He stands forth as eccentric in every testimony, but not as the be- 
draggled figure in yellow nankeen, with neglected hair and beard, that 
has been our only description. “Small and slender, with delicate and 
refined hands and small feet; good features and handsome dark eyes, 
with long hair, dark and silky; going into society, and a good dancer,” 
is the description of one who knew him while a professor at Transyl- 
vania University, Lexington, Ky. Other descriptions accord with this, 
and add touches which go to show that Rafinesque, although a very 
absorbed and absent-minded man, was a gentleman in appearance and 
deportment. 
The explanation of his wide and restless roving through almost 
every department of human activity, culminating as it did in the mon- 
omania of his later years, is offered in his early lack of any master to 
guide him and to direct his impetuous genius into habits of concen 
1CaLi, RICHARD Nate) aa —The life and writings of Rafinesque: Filson 
Club Publications No. 10. 4to pp. 227, with two portraits erp rtain repto- 
duced pages. John P. Mita & Co., Louisville, Ky. 1895. $ 
[120] 
