592 PROCEEDINGS OF BOSTON MEETING. 



into oblivion amidst the restless scientific energy of the succeeding century. For 

 more than fifty years America was far behind Europe in scientific spirit and dis- 

 covery, and it is now worth remembering that many of the localities which we are 

 now busy in investigating were appreciated and described before either the Master 

 of Freiberg or the Founder of Uniformitarianism had begun to make their influence 

 felt. 



The man to whom we owe this early contribution to our eastern geology was 

 Johann David Schoepf, the son of a well-to-do merchant of Wunsiedel in the Fich- 

 telgebirge. He was born March 8, 1752 and left the gymnasium at Hof at the age 

 of eighteen to pursue the study of medicine, mineralogy and mining at the TJni- 

 versitv of Erlangen. Here the influence of Hofrath Schreber, who first introduced 

 the results of Linnaeus into Germany, awakened in him an equal interest in botany 

 and zoology. His father's means enabled the young man to satisfy his longing for 

 travel, and before taking his doctor's degree at Erlangen in 1776, he had visited 

 Berlin and made an extensive tour through Bohemia, Austria, Italy and Switzer- 

 land. After finishing his studies Schoepf decided on a voyage to India, but his 

 activity was turned into another channel by an oflfer of a position as surgeon to one 

 of the Bavarian regiments hired by England to suppress the rebellious colonies in 

 America. In this capacity he reached New York June 4, 1777, where he remained 

 with no chance to explore the surrounding country until the close of the war. 

 After the return of the German mercenaries in 1783, Schoepf devoted a year to 

 travel and to the collection of material which, with what he had gathered during 

 the six years of his service as surgeon, was sufficient to occupy his attention until 

 his death in 1800. He visited New Jersey, Philadelphia, the German settlemei^^ts 

 near Bethlehem and the remoter parts of Pennsylvania. He also crossed into 

 Maryland and stopped at Baltimore, Annapolis and Wilmington before his return 

 to Philadelphia in October, 1783. The following month he entered upon a still 

 more extensive journey through Virginia, the Carolinas and Florida. He spent 

 January 1784 in Charleston and some weeks at Saint Johns and Saint Augustine. 

 Thence he crossed to the Bahamas and arrived in London July 30, 1784. England 

 and France were then slowly traversed and Bayreuth reached the following October. 

 Although his quiet was interrupted by an occasionaV journey, Schoepf devoted 

 most of his remaining years to the elaboration and publication of his scientific 

 data relative to eastern North America. 



His interests were broad and his material was varied and new. He wrote on 

 medicine, climatology, zoology, mineralogy and geology, besides interesting descrip- 

 tions of manners, life and politics in the newly established states. His work on 

 the Climate and Diseases of North America was translated by James Reed Chad- 

 wick.* His most elaborate work appeared in Latin as the '^Hlstoria Testudinum ,' ^ 

 with many beautiful colored plates, and remained unfinished at the time of his 

 death. The fishes, frogs and jellyfishes of American waters were also made the 

 subjects of separate memoirs. His best known work is his "Eeise durch einige der 

 mittlern und slldlicheri vereiniglen Nordamer'ikanischen Staaten, nach Ost Florida und 

 den Bahama Inseln,'' in two volumes, 1788. In this he discusses climate, sea cur- 

 rents, sea fauna and many questions of a social and political character, especially 

 the planter barons of the south and their relation to slavery. He was perhaps the 

 first to clearly formulate Dov^e's law of the winds. He also tells many good stories 

 and incidents which graphically portray the general status of the remoter parts of 

 the country and the difficulties of travel in these times. 



* Boston, 1825, 



