Life of David Dale Owen, M. D. 67 
and, after serving nearly three years as colonel in the federal 
army, occupied for 15 years a similar chair in the Indiana 
State University) had never heen separated a single day; and 
it is from the latter reliable source that the chief details of the 
early life of Dr. Owen have been derived. 
In 1828, Dr. Owen on arrival in the United States declared 
his intention of becoming a citizen; but in 1831, in order to 
further qualify himself in chemistry and geology, he again 
sailed for Europe and, in company with the late Prof. Henry 
D. Rogers, both of them making their home at the house of 
Robert Owen, attended the lectures of Dr. Turner, at the Lon- 
don University. Returning in the Autumn of 1832, Dr. Owen 
narrowly escaped falling a victim to Asiatic cholera, which at 
that period had reached the western portions of the United 
States. After his recovery, he commenced the study of medi- 
cine at the Ohio Medical College, in Cincinnati, with a view of 
improving himself especially in anatomy and physiology, as 
essential aids in the study of paleontology. 
During the summers of these years, Alexander Maclure 
brother of the noted geologist, William Maclure, having ad- 
ministered on that estate, engaged Dr. Owen to arrange the 
very extensive collection of minerals and fossils made by hie 
brother during his exploratory travels, in Europe, the United 
States and West Indies. From this collection. Dr. Owen was 
to distribute specific suites to the indicated schools and col- 
leges. This duty he performed. He was to retain the residue, 
as the nucleus of a museum. To this latter Dr. Owen subse- 
quently added largely, by purchase from Dr. Krantz of Ger- 
many, illustrative fossils of every period ; among others an 
Ichthyosaurus, from the Lias of Wurtemberg, larger than the 
one in the British museum. Another interesting and valua- 
ble specimen was a nearly complete skeleton of a gigantic raeg- 
atheroid animal (the Megalonyx) which he exhumed near 
Henderson, Kentucky. The entire collection some years after 
Dr. Owen's death was purchased by the Indiana University 
and unfortunately nearly all consumed by fire, when the 
new university building, including the Museum, Laboratory 
and Library, was destroyed. 
Dr. Owen, after graduating M. D. in the spring of 1836, spent 
one summer in accompanying on a state survey. Dr. Gerard 
Troost, state geologist of Tennessee, a former resident of New 
