102 



Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



His name is to be commemorated as a munificent and untiring patron 

 of the science, who projected plans for investigation, and brought the 

 discoveries when made before the public. He, therefore, not only 

 stimulated its cultivation, but furnished material aid, and performed 

 an essential part in the labor of discovery and advancement. 



Mr. Wm. Maclure died at San Angel, in Mexico, on the 23d day of 

 March, 1840, in the 77th year of his age. He was born at Ayr, in 

 Scotland, in 1763, and for a time was engaged in commercial enter- 

 prises in London, where he made a fortune. He crossed the ocean 

 several times, and finally concluding to make America his future home, 

 he proposed to make a geological survey of the United States, and 

 as earl} 7 " as 1809 produced his observations on the Geology of the 

 United States, explanatory of a geological map which was the first 

 thing of the kind done in America. In 1817, a corrected edition was 

 issued. He wrote a number of geological papers for the American 

 Journal of Science and Arts, and also for other journals. He was 

 elected President of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, 

 on the 30th da) r of December, 1817, and was annually re-elected up to 

 the time of his death, thus filling the position for more than twenty- 

 two years. He contributed to that Academy a large library, a large 

 collection of specimens of Natural Histoiy, and many thousand 

 dollars. He contributed toward the establishment of museums in 

 nearly every State of the Union, one of which was in our city, and 

 did more to create an interest in geological matters and diffuse a 

 knowledge of the subject than an} r other man of his da}'. 



Const antine S. Rafinesque- Schmaltz, a Sicilian by birth, came to 

 America in 1802, and remained for three years. He returned again 

 in 1815, and remained until his death, in September, 1840. His 

 favorite pursuit was botany, though nothing in natural history escaped 

 his observation that came within his reach. He was remarkably 

 gifted, indefatigable in his labors, eccentric, and in literature a 

 prodigy. His geological work, however, did not extend beyond the 

 brief definition of a few species. 



Jacob Green was born at Philadelphia, July 26, 1799, and died 

 there February 1, 1841. He was a chemist and an author. He wrote 

 a Monograph of the Trilobites of North America, in 1832, and after- 

 ward contributed upon the same subject to the Transactions of the 

 Geological Society of Pennsylvania, Journal of the Acadanry of Natural 

 Sciences of Phila., and to the American Journal of Science and Arts- 



