WILLIAM COOPER 



under the patronage of President Jefferson, 

 and afterwards by many others, induced Mr. 

 Cooper to undertake a visit there in 1828, 

 chiefly at his own expense, traveling across 

 the Alleghanies, which were then as wild as 

 the Rocky Mountains are now, in so far as 

 the voice of the iron horse had not yet 

 startled nature in their recesses. 



With one assistant he made the journey in 

 his own conveyance, making collections and 

 observations of various kinds on the way, 

 and spending some weeks at Big-Bone Lick, 

 obtained much information and many speci- 

 mens. The chief part of these were after- 

 wards described in an article published in the 

 American Monthly Journal of Geology. 6 



His botanical collections were contributed 

 to Torrey and Gray's " Flora of North 

 America," and the other collections went to 

 the New York Lyceum of Natural History. 



Later on Mr. Cooper visited Albany and 



Troy, where active scientific workers were 



already forming societies under the patronage 



of the Van Rensselaer family, Gov. De Witt 



6 Observations on Big-Bone Lick, 1831. 



