debe tone Ool Ss (AYU DIU. BON’ 18.0 CLE TY | 5 
ance to Professor Agassiz in obtaining collections and informa- 
tion for his “Natural History of the United States.” About this ° 
time he concluded to take up the study of medicine as a more 
lucrative practice but after two terms at the Rush Medical 
School, ill-health showed that he could not stand the close con- 
finement. In 1856 he was again active in building up a Chicago 
Museum of Natural History. The same year he accepted a 
proposition from the United States Commissioner of Patents 
to write an account of the mammals of the northwest injurious 
to farming interests. This-was published in the report for 1856. 
In 1857 he made collections to start a Museum of Natural History 
for Northwestern University and collected from Cairo, Illinois 
to the Red River of the North. In 1859 he collected in the region 
north of Lake Superior and from Hudson Bay to Behring Straits. 
In 1862 he explored the valley of the McKenzie River from its 
mouth to Fort Simpson. In 1865 he was selected to head an 
expedition organized by the Western Union Telegraph Company 
to Alaska and to collect objects of natural history for the Chicago 
Academy. 
The party sailed from San Francisco March 21, 1865, and, 
later, was divided into two expeditions, Kennicott and his party 
going up the Yukon River. He arrived at St. Michael’s, Morton’s 
Sound, in September, and this spot was destined to be the base of 
his future operations in the Yukon Valley. In this country he 
had many disappointments and delays, and was weakened by 
extreme hardships and exposures which undermined his none 
too rugged constitution. Death overtook him when he reached 









“THE GROVE”, DESPLAINES 
