218 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



He was horn at Ayr, Scotland, in L763, and first came to America 

 at the age of nineteen, with a view to mercantile employment, subse- 

 quently returning to London, where he commenced his career of com- 

 mercial enterprise us a partner in the house of Miller, Hart & Co. He 

 seems to have been remarkably successful, and accumulated a consider 

 able fortune. In l7i>6 he again visited America and, it is stated, took 

 the necessary steps for becoming an American citizen. 



He was a liberal patron of science, and for twenty-two years, begin- 

 ning with December, 181 T, was president of the Philadelphia Academy 

 of Natural Sciences, to which institution he subsequently donated his 

 valuable private library and some $20,000 in money. 



After retiring from business, and prior to 1809, Maclure spent sev- 

 eral years in England and on the continent of Europe, traversing the 

 most interesting portions of the Old World from the Mediterranean 

 Sea to the Baltic and from the British Isles to Bohemia. On return- 

 ing to America he took up the important enterprise, noted above, of 

 preparing a geological map of the United States. To accomplish this, 

 in the language of his biographer: 



He went forth with his hammer in hand and his wallet on his shoulder, pursuing 

 his researches in every direction, often amid pathless tracts and dreary solitudes, 

 until he had crossed and recrossed the Allegheny Mountains no less than fifty times. 

 He encountered all the privations of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and exposure, month 

 after month and year after year, until his indomitable spirit had conquered every 

 difficulty and crowned his enterprise with success. 



Like several of the scientists of his time, Maclure in 182-1 became 

 interested in the communistic societ} 7 at New Harmony, Indiana, 

 founded by the elder Owen. He was, however, seriously disappointed 

 in the outcome and withdrew about 1827. 



It was, presumably, during his connection with this association that 

 he is quoted as refusing to invest money in real estate in the city of 

 Philadelphia, saying: 



Land in the cities can no longer rise in value. The communistic society must pre- 

 vail, and in the course of a few years Philadelphia must be deserted; those who live 

 long enough may come back here and see the foxes looking out of the windows. 



Opinions like this and those which follow are quoted here, not for 

 the purpose of belittling Maclure in the least, but as showing how 

 impossible it was at that time for any man to realize all that was in 

 store for the United States. 



The possibilities of railroad transportation were scarcely dreamed 

 of, and mountain barriers and desert plains were looked upon as natu- 

 ral boundaries between various peoples. From an examination of 

 maps of the United States, Maclure was inclined to divide the country 

 into three distinct and separate parts, differing materially from each 

 other in their relative situation and in their means of communication 



