AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. 159 
out shame at my misfortunes, instead of condoling 
with me. But I have met also with friends who 
have deplored my loss and helped me in need.” 
I shall pass rapidly over Rafinesque’s career 
until his settlement in Kentucky. He travelled 
widely in America, in the summer, always on foot. 
““Horses were offered to me,” he said, “but I 
never liked riding them, and dismounting for 
every flower. Horses do not suit botanists.” He 
now came westward, following the course of the 
Ohio, and exploring for the first time the botany 
of the country. He came to Indiana, and for a 
short time was associated with the community 
then lately established by Owen and Maclure at 
New Harmony on the Wabash. Though this 
New Harmony experiment was a failure, as all 
communities must be in which the drone and the 
worker alike have access to the honey-cells, yet 
the debt due it from American science is very 
great. Although far in the backwoods, and in 
the long notorious county of Posey, New Harmony 
was for a time fairly to be called the centre of 
American science; and even after half'a century 
has gone by its rolls bear few names brighter than 
those of Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and 
Charles Albert Le Sueur. 
Rafinesque soon left New Harmony, and became 
Professor of Natural History and the Modern Lan- 
guages in Transylvania University, at Lexington, 
Kentucky. He was, I believe, the very first 
teacher of natural history in the West, and his 
experiences were not more cheerful than those 
of most pioneers. They would not give him at 
