CHAELES WILLSON PEALE. 



of porcelain teeth, not only for himself, but for his friends 

 and others, at a time when no other person in the United 

 States had succeeded in the attempt. 



About the period when the Museum was commenced, 

 Loutherbourg in London had got up an exhibition of trans- 

 parent paintings with moveable effects. A description of 

 these excited an irresistible desire to effect the same pur- 

 poses. Here was a vast field opened for his taste and in- 

 vention; for his labour day and night, and his morning 

 dreams. At length, the public in crowds witnessed, at the 

 end of his long gallery of portraits, these magic pictures. 

 A perspective view of Market street, gradually darkening 

 into the gloom of night. The street lamps are successively 

 lighted and sparkle in>sthe diminishing perspective; the 

 clouds disperse and the pale moon rises. Another picture 

 represented a prospect in the country, dimly seen at night; 



— the cock crows, the horizon brightens gradually into the 

 glow of sunrise, gay with the chirping of birds which fly 

 from tree to tree; — presently the clouds arise, thick and 

 dark, till brightened on their varying edges by the light- 

 ning's flash, accompanied by the roll of thunder; — the rain 

 begins to fall, increasing to a heavy shower; but it clears 

 away and exhibits a splendid rainbow which commences 

 and dies away gradually. Other pieces admirably repre- 

 sented the battle between the Bon Homme Richard, com- 

 manded by Paul Jones and the British frigate Serapis; and 

 the gorgeous display of the temple of Pandemonium. 



Many years before this, an attempt was made to found an 

 Academy of the Fine Arts by the few artists who found oc- 

 cupation in Philadelphia, chiefly engravers, with Mr. Rush 

 the carver, and some foreign artists then sojourning with 

 us. Landscape and miniature painters, and with them the 



solemnity of the approach to this venerable spot, which was surrounded by 

 a fence of safety to the cattle without. Here we fastened our horses, and 

 followed our guide into the centre of the morass, or rather marshy forest, 

 where every step was taken on rotten timber and tlie spreading roots of tall 

 trees, the luxuriant growth of a few years, half of which were tottering over 

 our heads. Breathless silence had here taken her reign amid unhealthy 

 fogs, and nothing was heard but the fearful crash of some mouldering branch 

 or towering beach. It was almost a dead level, and the holes dug for the 

 purpose of obtaining manure, out of which a few bones had been taken six or 

 seven years before, were full of water, and connected with others containing 

 a vast quantity; so that to empty one was to empty them all ; yet a last effort 

 might be crowned with success ; and, since so many diiEculties had been 

 conquered, it was resolved to embrace the only opportunity that now offered 

 for any farther discovery. Machinery was accordingly erected, pumps and 

 buckets were employed, and a long course of troughs conducted the water 

 among the distant roots to a fall of a few inches, by which the men were en- 

 abled, unmolested, unless by the caving in of the banks, to dig on every 

 side from the spot where the tirst discovery of the bones had been made. 



Here alternate success and disappointment amused and fatigued us for a 

 long while ; until, with empty pockets, low spirits, and languid workmen, 

 we were about to quit the morass with but a small collection, though in good 

 preservation, of ribs, toe, and leg bones, &c. In the meanwhile, to leave no 

 means untried, the ground was searched in various directions witli long- 

 pointed rods and cross-handles : after some practice we were able to distin- 

 guish by feeling, whatever substances we touched harder than the eoU ; and 

 by this means, in a very unexpected direction, though not more than twenty 

 feet from the first bones that were discovered, struck upon a large collection 

 of bones which were dug to and taken up, with every possible care. They 

 proved to be a humerus, or large bone of the right leg, with the radius and 

 ulna of the left, the right scapula, the atlas, several toe-bones, and the great 

 object of our pursuit, a complete under jaw ! 



After such a variety of labour and length of fruitless expectation, this 

 success was extreme]}' grateful to all parties, and the unconscious woods 

 echoed with the repeated huzzas, which could not have been more animated 

 if every tree had participated in the joy. "Gracious God, what a jaw ! how 

 many animals have been crushed by it ! " was the exclamation of all ; a 

 fresh supply of grog went around, and the hearty fellows, covered with mud, 

 continued the search with increasing vigour. The upper part of the head 

 was found twelve feet distant, but so extremely rotten that we could only 

 preserve the teeth and a few fragments. In its form it exactly resembled the 

 head found at Masten's ; but, as that was much injured by rough usage, 

 this, from its small depth beneath the surface, had the cranium so rotted 

 2 



away as only to show the form around the teeth, and thence extending to the 

 condyles of the neck ; tlie rotten bone formed a black and greasy mould 

 above that part which was stUl entire, yet so tender as to break to pieces on 

 lifting it from its bed. 



This collection was rendered still more complete by the addition of those 

 formerly taken up, and presented to us by Drs. Graham and Post. They 

 were a rib, the sternum, a femur, tibia and fibula, and a patella or knee-pan. 

 One of the ribs had found its way into an obscure farmhouse, ten miles 

 disiant, to which we fortunately traced it. 



Thus terminated this strange and laborious campaign of three months, 

 during which we were wonderfully favoured, although vegetation suffered, 

 by the driest season which had occurred within eight years. Our venerable 

 relics were carefully packed up in distinct cases ; and, loading two wagons 

 with them, we bade adieu to the vallies and stupendous mountains of Slia- 

 wangunk : so called by their former inhabitants, the Indians of the Lenape 

 tribe. The three sets of bones were kept distinct : with the two collections 

 which were most numerous it was intended to form two skeletons, by still 

 keeping them separate, and filling up the deficiencies in each by artificial imi- 

 tations from the otlier, and from counterparts in themselves. For instance, 

 in order to complete the first skeleton, which was found at Masten's, the un- 

 der jaw was to be modelled from this, which is the only entire one that has 

 yet been discovered, although we have seen considerable fragments of at 

 least ten different jaws ; while, on the other hand, in the skeleton just dis- 

 covered at Barber's, the upper jaw, which was found in the extreme of decay, 

 was to be completed, so far as it goes, from the more solid fragment of the 

 head belonging to the skeleton found at Masten's. Several feet-bones in this 

 skeleton were to be made from that ; and a few in that were to be made firom 

 this. In this the right humerus being real, the imitation for the left one 

 could be made with the utmost certainty ; and the radius and ulna of the 

 lefl leg being real, tliose on the right side would follow, of course, <fcc. The 

 collection of ribs in both cases was almost entire ; therefore, having discov- 

 ered from a correspondence between the number of vertebrcB and ribs in both 

 animals, that there were nineteen pair of the latter, it was necessary in only 

 four or five instances to supply the counterparts, by correct models from the 

 real bones. In this manner the two skeletons were formed, and are in both 

 instances composed of the appropriate bones of the animal, or exact imitations 

 from the real bones in the same skeleton, or from those of the same propor- 

 tion in the other. Nothing in either skeleton is imaginary; and what we 

 have not unquestionable authority for, we leave deficient ; which happens in 

 only two instances, the summit of the head, and the end of the tail. — God- 

 man^ s Nat. Hist, by Rembrandt Peale. 



