80 The American Geologist. February, 1892: 
Co., Ala., he presented his botanical collection, numbering 1,000) 
plants mounted and labeled, to Amenia Seminary, and set out 
with his wife, October 5, 1850, for his destination in the then 
distant south. 
Here, with the expectation of a larger field for observation and 
study, he found the ‘‘Academy” was located in the woods, in a 
small settlement, in the heart of the richest cotton lands in the 
state. It was materially unlike the situation which his imagina-- 
tion had pictured, but with the cobperation of his wife, and with 
the calculation of eclipses for an amusement, he entered upon the: 
work of ‘building up” an institution-—and not without some suc- 
cess, but the beginning was too small to suit him; and, having: 
visited Kutaw, in the same county, for the purpose of purchasing 
some unused apparatus from an inanimate institution, he was 
induced to change his plans so far as to use the apparatus where 
it was, and attempt the resuscitation of the institution. Aecord-- 
ingly in the spring of 1851 he opened the ‘:Mesopotamia Female 
Seminary, with a full corps of assistant teachers, and the usual 
paraphernalia, accompanied by the seductive announcements suited 
to the occasion and the latitude. 
1851-52. There had always been an unrealized vision floating 
before his mind, of a course of scientific investigation. Here he 
entered with zest upon its execution. He fitted up a chemical 
laboratory, and, making some quantitative analyses, they were 
published in the Kutaw papers. He had already communicated 
to the American Journal of Science and Arts notes on the cold of: 
January at Kutaw, Ala., and on the aurora borealis of September 
29, 1851. He also opened correspondence with the Smithsonian 
Institution, and, kindly encouraged by Prof. 8. F. Baird, assist- 
ant secretary, busied himself in making collections of plants, ani- 
mals and fossils. During 1852 he transmitted to the Institution 
a large collection of plants and a considerable number of alcoholie 
specimens and preserved skins. Among the fishes was a new 
species, afterward described by Girard as Hybopsis winchelli. 
The Cretaceous formation of his vicinity interested him exceed- 
ingly and he made a faithful study of Choctaw Bluff, on the 
Black Warrior river, the results of which he communicated, 
through Prof. Baird, to the Cleveland meeting of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1853. This was 
the first scientific description of the locality. Some of the 
