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Dr. G. Brown Goode's Paper, [504 
Philadelphia, and his interest culminated in the foundation 
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.' In 1790 
Dr. Hosack brought to America from Europe the first 
cabinet of minerals ever seen on this continent. 
The earliest public establishment, however, was the “ Phila- 
delphia Museum,” established by Charles Wilson Peale in 
1785, which had for a nucleus a stuffed paddle-fish and the 
bones of a mammoth, and which was for a time housed in 
the building of the American Philosophical Society. In 
1800 it was full of popular attractions. 
“ There were a mammoth’s tooth from the Ohio, and a woman’s shoe from 
Canton ; nests of the kind used to make soup of, and a Chinese fan six feet 
long ; bits of asbestos, belts of wampum, stuffed birds and feathers from the 
Friendly Islands, scalps, tomahawks, and long lines of portraits of great men of 
the Revolutionary War. To visit the museum, to wander through the rooms, 
play upon the organ, examine the rude electrical machine, and have a profile 
drawn by the physiognomitian, were pleasures from which no stranger to the 
city ever refrained.” 
Dr. Hare’s oxyhydrogen blow-pipe was shown in this 
museum by Mr. Rubens Peale as early as 1810. 
The Baltimore Museum was managed by Rembrandt 
Peale, and was in existence as early as 1815 and as late as 
1830. 
Earlier efforts were made, however, in Philadelphia. Dr. 
Chovet, of that city, had a collection of wax anatomical 
models made by him in Europe, and Prof. John Morgan, of 
the University of Pennsylvania, who learned his methods 
from the Hunters in London and Su^ in Paris, was also 
forming such a collection before the Revolution. 
The Columbian Museum and Turrell’s Museum, in Boston, 
are spoken of in the annals of the day, and there was a 
small collection in the attic of the State House in Hartford. 
^ “This collection,” we are told, “was sold to Sir Ashton Lever, in whose 
apartments in London Mr. Adams saw it again, and felt a new regret at our 
imperfect knowledge of the productions of the three kingdoms of nature in our 
land. In France his visits to the museums and other establishments, with the 
inquiries of Academicians and other men of science and letters respecting this 
country, and their encomiums on the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 
suggested to him the idea of engaging his native State to do something in the 
same good but neglected cause.” — Kirtland, Mem. American Academy of 
Sciences, Boston, I., xxii. 
