304 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
It has been stated that Audubon got nothing from Dr. 
Drake, but that “Mrs. Audubon afterwards received 
four hundred dollars, of the twelve hundred due,” and 
that the remainder was never paid. This matter can 
now be fully cleared up, and it will appear that the 
Cincinnati College was in no way involved; Dr. Drake 
was not its president, although he drew its charter and 
was one of its trustees; the Museum in which the nat- 
uralist worked was an independent foundation; and 
Mrs. Audubon was probably paid in full for the service 
which her husband had rendered. 
Audubon wrote in his journal in 1820, when this 
experience was fresh in his mind, that owing to his 
talent for stuffing fishes he entered the service of the 
Western Museum at a salary of $125 a month; he made 
no complaint at that time of any lack of pay. More- 
over, on the day before he started on his cruise down 
the Ohio River on the 11th of October of that year, 
the Rev. Elijah Slack gave him a letter of introduction 
in which he said that Audubon had “been engaged in 
our museum for 3 to 4 months, and that his perform- 
ances do honor to his pencil.” Since Mr. Slack, like 
Dr. Drake, was one of the managers of the Western 
Museum, he must have known of Audubon’s term of 
service. We are convinced that Dr. Daniel Drake,’ 
2 [bid., vol. i, p. 49. 
*Dr. Daniel Drake (1785-1852) was one of the most versatile and 
prolific writers on medicine which the West has ever produced, and 
Cincinnati owed to him much, for he was instrumental in organizing 
in that city a church, a literary society, a museum, a hospital, a college, 
and a school of medicine, while he enjoyed a large medical practice, lectured 
on botany, and was a partner in two mercantile establishments. We might 
also add that his “Notice concerning Cincinnati” (pp. 1-28, i-iv. Printed 
for the author at Cincinnati, 1810), of which only three copies are known 
to exist, is the earliest and rarest published record of that city. This 
little pamphlet included a “Flora” of the city for 1809, and from it we 
transcribe this interesting extract (p. 27): “May 10. Black locust in full 
flower. 
