shoulder, pursuing his researches in every direction, often amid pathless tracts and dreary solitudes, until he had crossed and recrossed the Al lished before his death. He was also a frequent contributor to the journal of the Academy and other similar periodicals. A list of his articles by Mr. E C. Herrick is published in the twenty-leghany mountains no less than fifty times. He seventh volume of the Am, Journal of Science. GERARD TROOST, the first President of the Academy, was born at Bois le Duc, Holland, March 15, 1776. He was educated in his native country, received the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Leyden, and practised for a short time at Amsterdam and the Hague. IIe then entered the army, where he served at first as a private soldier and afterwards as an officer of the first rank in the medical department. 1807 he was sent by Louis Buonaparte, then King of Holland, to Paris to pursue his favorite studies in natural science. He there translated into the Dutch language Humboldt's Aspects of Nature. In In 1809 he was sent by the King of Holland to Java, on a tour of scientific observation. He took passage from a northern port in an American vessel to escape the British cruisers, proposing to sail to New York and thence to his destination. The vessel was, however, captured by a French privateer, and carried into Dunkirk, where the naturalist was imprisoned until the French government was informed of his position. On his release, he proceeded to Paris, where he obtained a passport for America. He embarked at Rochelle, and arrived at Philadelphia in 1810. After the abdication of Louis Buonaparte, he determined to make the United States his permanent residence, and turned his chemical knowledge to good account by establishing a manufactory of alum in Maryland. Dr. Troost resigned the presidency of the Academy in 1817, and was succeeded by Mr. Maclure. He was afterwards, about 1821, appointed the first Professor of Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy at Philadelphia, but resigned in the following year. In 1825 he joined Owen's community at New Harmony, where he remained until 1827, when he removed to Nashville. In the following year he became professor of Chemistry, Geology, and Mineralogy in the University of that city, and in 1831 Geologist of the state of Tennessee, an office he retained until its abolition in 1849. Dr. Troost died at Nashville on the 14th of August, 1850. During his presidency the Academy removed, in 1815, to a hall built for its accommodation by Mr. Gilliams, in Gilliams court, Arch street, and placed at its disposal at an annual rent of two hundred dollars. WILLIAM MACLURE, the successor of Dr. Troost, was born in Scotland in 1763. After acquiring a large fortune by his commercial exertions in London, he established himself about the close of the century in the United States. In 1803 he returned to England as one of a commission appointed to settle claims of American merchants for spoliations committed by France during her revolution. On his return, he made a geological survey of the United States. "He went forth," says a writer in the Encyclopædia Americana,* "with his hammer in his hand, and his wallet on his * xiv. 407. encountered all the privations of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and exposure, month after month, and year after year, until his indomitable spirit had conquered every difficulty and crowned his enterprise with success." Mr. Maclure published an account of his researches, with a map and other illustrations, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, in 1817. It bears date January 20, 1809, and was the first work of the kind undertaken in the United States. Mr. Maclure became a member of the Academy on the sixth of June, 1812, and its president on the thirtieth of December, 1817. He was a munificent benefactor as well as valuable member of the association, his gifts amounting in the aggregate to $25,000. One of his favorite plans of public usefulness was the establishment of an University for the study of the natural sciences. Selecting Owen's settlement at New Harmony as the field of his operations, he persuaded Dr. Troost and Messrs. Say and Lesueur to accompany him in 1825 to that place. After the failure of the scheme Mr. Maclure visited Mexico, in the hope of restoring his impaired health, and died at the capital of that country during a second visit, on the 23d of March, 1840. Mr. Maclure presented over five thousand volumes to the library of the academy, and purchased in Paris the copperplates of several important and costly works on botany and ornithology, with a view to their reproduction in a cheap form in the United States. It is to his liberality thus exerted, that we owe the American edition of Michaux's Sylva by Thomas Nuttall. On the death of Mr. Maclure, Mr. William Ilembel became president of the Academy. Mr. Hembel was born at Philadelphia, September 24, 1764. He studied medicine, and served as a volunteer in the medical department of the army in Virginia during a portion of the Revolution, but owing to a deafness which he believed would incapacitate him for duty as a practitioner, refused to apply for the diploma which he was fully qualified to receive. He, however, practised for many years gratuitously among the poor of the city, and was in other respects conspicuous for benevolence. His favorite branch of study was chemistry. Mr. Hembel resigned his presidency in consequence of advancing infirmity, in December, 1849, and died on the 12th of June, 1851. He was succeeded by Dr. Morton. SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON was born at Philadelphia in 1799. His father died when he was quite young, and he was placed at a Quaker school by his mother, a member of that society. From this he was removed to a counting-house, but manifesting a distaste for business was allowed to follow the bent of his inclination and study for a profession. That of medicine was the one selected-Quaker tenets tolerating neither priest nor lawyer. After passing through the usual course of preliminary study under the able guidance of the celebrated Dr. Joseph Parrish, he received a diploma, and soon after sailed for Europe, cal History. It is prefaced by a memoir of Dr. Morton, to which we are indebted for the materials of this notice. JOSIAH C. NOTT, the son of the Hon. Abraham Nott, was born in Union District, South Carolina, March 31, 1801. His father removed with his family in the following year to Columbia. After his graduation at the college of South Carolina in 1824, Mr. Nott commenced the study of medicine in Philadelphia, where he received his diploma in 1828. After officiating as demonstrator of Anatomy to Drs. Physick and Hosack for two years, he returned to Columbia, where he remained, en on a visit to his uncle. He passed two winters in attendance on the medical lectures of the Edinburgh school, and one in a similar manner at Paris, travelling on the Continent during the summer. He returned in 1824, and commenced practice. He had before his departure been inade a member of the Academy, and now tock an active part in its proceedings. Geology was his favorite pursuit. In 1827 he published an Analysis of Tabular Spar from Bucks County; in 1834 A Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States; in the same year a medical work, Illustrations of Palmonary Consumption, its Anatomical Cha-gaged in practice, until 1835. A portion of the racters, Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment, with twelve colored plates; and in 1849, An Illustrated Eystem of Human Anatomy, Special, General, and Microscopic. During this period he was actively engaged in the duties of his profession, having, in addition to a large private practice, filled the professorship of Anatomy in Pennsylvania College, from 1839 to 1843, and served for several years as one of the physicians and clinical teachers of the Alms-House Hospital. He commenced in 1830 his celebrated collection of skulls, one of the most important labors of his life. He thus relates its origin: Having had occasion, in the summer of 1830, to deliver an introductory lecture to a course of Anatomy, I chose for my subject The different Forms of the Skull, as exhibited in the five Races of Men. Strange to say, I could neither buy nor borrow a cranium of each of these races, and I finished my discourse without showing either the Mongolian or the Malay. Forcibly impressed with this great deficiency in a most important branch of science, I at once resolved to make a collection for myself." His friends warmly seconded his endeavors, and the collection, increased by the exertions of over one hundred contributors in all parts of the world, soon became large and valuable. At the time of his death it numbered 918 human specimens. It has been purchased by subscription for, and is now deposited in, the Academy, and is by far the finest collection of its kind in existence. The first use made of the collection by Morton was the preparation of the Crania Americana, published in 1839, with finely executed lithographic illustrations. It was during the progress of this work that he became acquainted with George R. Gliddon, of Cairo, in consequence of an application to him for Egyptian skulls. It was followed after the arrival of Mr. Gliddon, in 1842, by an intimate acquaintance, and the publication in 1844 of a large and valuable work, the Crania Egyptiaca. Morton finally adopted the theory of a diverse origin of the human race, and maintained a controversy on the subject with the Rev. Dr. John Bachman of Charleston. Dr. Morton died at Philadelphia, after an illness of five days, on the 15th of May, 1851. A selection of his inedited papers was published, with additional contributions from Dr. J. C. Nott and George R. Gliddon, under the title of Types of Mankind: or Ethnological Researches, based upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and upon their Natural, Geographical, Philological, and Bibli | two succeeding years was passed in professional study abroad. In 1838 he removed to Mobile, Alabama, and in 1868 to New York. In 1848 he published his chief work-The Biblical and Physical History of Man. He has also written much on Medical Science, the Natural History of Man, Life Insurance, and kindred topics, for the American Journal of Medical Science, the Charleston Medical Journal, New Orleans Medical Journal, De Bow's Commercial Review, etc. He died at Mobile, March 31, 1873. MR. GEORGE ORD, the friend, assistant, and biographer of Wilson, himself a distinguished ornithologist, succeeded Dr. Morton. In 1826 the Academy purchased a building, originally erected as a Swedenborgian place of worship, to which its collections were removed. Their increase, after a few years, rendered enlarged accommodations necessary, and on the 25th of May, 1839, the corner-stone of the building in Broad street, now occupied by the institution, was laid. The first meeting was held in the new hall on the 7th of February, 1840. In 1847 an enlargement became necessary, and was effected. In 1817 the Society commenced the publication of The Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences. It was published at first monthly, and afterwards continued at irregular intervals until 1842. In March, 1841, the publication of the Proceedings of the Academy was commenced. It is still continued; and up to 1872, twenty-two volumes were published. A second series of the Journal was commenced in December, 1847, of which seven volumes have since appeared. These periodicals are supported by subscriptions, and by the interest on a legacy of two thousand dollars, bequeathed by Mrs. Elizabeth Stott.* Another periodical was added in 1865, the American Journal of Conchology, which has reached its seventh volume. These publications are exchanged with those of two hundred scientific and philosophical institutions throughout the world. GEORGE ROBINS GLIDDON, who was brought into considerable notice in the United States by his Lectures on Egypt, and his devotion to ethnological studies, was a native of Devonshire, in England. He was born in 1809; was early in life with his father, who held the rank *Notice of the Origin, Progress, and Present Condition of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. By W. J, W. Ruschenberger, M. D., Phila. 1852. courses of United States Consul at Alexandria; passed twenty-three years in Egypt, part of the time United States Vice-Consul at Cairo, and from that country came to America, where he began a literary career as a lecturer on Egyptian antiquities. His works published in England and the United States are: An Appeal to the Antiquaries of Europe on the Destruction of the Monuments of Egypt (1841); Dison Egyptian Archæology (the same year); Otia Egyptiaca (in 1849); Ancient Egypt, her Monuments, Hieroglyphics, History, and Archæology, the substance of his lectures, a volume which passed through numerous editions. His ethnological researches were published in conjunction with the labors of Dr. Nott of Alabama, in the two works published at Philadelphia, in 1854 and 1859, bearing the comprehensive titles, Types of Mankind and Indigenous Races of the Earth, the flippant tone of which in reference to the Sacred Scriptures called forth the strong animadversions of the Right Rev. Dr. Potter, Bishop of Pennsylvania, in the introduction to his lectures on the "Evidences of Christianity." Mr. Gliddon, at the time of his death, was agent, in Central America, of the Honduras Interoceanic Railway Company. He died at Panama, November 16, 1857. **In 1872 the Academy of Natural Sciences obtained an acre of ground at Nineteenth and Race Streets, and on the 30th of October laid the corner-stone of a more commodious building. The new structure is to be built in the collegiate-gothic style, and the northern wing will be the first completed. The vast extent to which its famous collections have grown, and the needs of scientific investigators at this day, were thus sketched in the address of Dr. Ruschenberger on that occasion: Seeking the truths of nature demands an extensive workshop, in which to collect and arrange conveniently for use the numerous implements employed in the work. The implements consist in collections of all those natural objects which have been described, properly classified and labelled, ready for study and comparison with those supposed to be new or not yet described. And also an extensive collection of books, in which are recorded the results of investigations made by naturalists in all parts of the world; for, he who would add to the stock of knowledge in any department of science needs to be acquainted with what is known already in it, or he may find himself laboring to discover what has been ascertained. A museum and library, chemical apparatus, and microscopes constitute the machinery necessary to facilitate and guide his labors. Such a museum and library and laboratory, in such condition as to be utilized by the naturalist, require large space. And this demand for space increases with the progress of our knowledge. The academy now possesses more than 6000 minerals, 700 rocks, 65,000 fossils, 70,000 species of plants, 1000 species of zoophytes, 2000 species of crustaceans, 500 species of myriapods and arachnidans, 25,000 species of insects, 20,000 species of shell-bearing mollusks, 2000 species of fishes, 800 species of reptiles, 31,000 birds, with the nests of 200 and the eggs of 1500 species, 1000 mammals, and nearly 900 skeletons and pieces of osteology. Most of the species are represented by four or five specimens, so that, including the archæological and ethnological cabinets, space is required now for the arrangement of not less than 400,000 objects, besides the library of more than 22,500 volumes. Besides space enough in our workshop to appropriately arrange the vast number of implements, room is desired for a separate and distinct arrangement of all objects necessary to illustrate the natural history of the State of Pennsylvania, as well as a suitable room in which lectures on the natural sciences may be delivered. JOHN H. SHEPPARD. His parents MR. JOHN H. SHEPPARD, librarian from 1861-8, of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, is a native of England, born at Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in 1789. emigrated to America about 1793, settled in Hallowell, Maine, where the son was prepared for Harvard by Samuel Moody, the faithful preceptor of the town academy. His collegiate course was cut short in the junior year by lack of pecuniary means, when he eagerly engaged in the study of the law, was admitted to the bar in Maine, in 1810, and in 1817 was appointed Register of Probate for Lincoln County, Maine, an office which he held for seventeen years. In 1842 he removed to Boston, where he has since resided. In 1867, the University placed his name among the graduates of 1808. Mr. Sheppard, whose legal official duties were distinguished himself by his contributions to the a useful training for antiquarian pursuits, has New England Historical and Genealogical Register, the valuable journal of the Society of which he is the librarian. An address, with an accompanying ode, which he delivered at the recent Tercentenary Celebration of the Birthday of Shakspeare by the Society at Boston, has been published. It displays his taste and reading; for the author is an accomplished belles-lettres student, and a proficient in the ancient and modern languages. He is a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, and has delivered various orations before the lodges of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont-including a Defence of Masonry in 1831-several of which have been published. **Mr. Sheppard has recently published two works which exhibit his antiquarian tastes and thoroughness of research. These are: Reminiscences of the Vaughan Family, and more particularly of Benjamin Vaughan, LL. D., read before the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, Boston, and published in 1865 (8vo., pp. 40); and The Life of Samuel Tucker, Commodore in the American Revolution, (12mo., pp. 384, 1868). Of Commodore Tucker, his hero, it has been said that he took more guns from the enemy during the Revolutionary war than any other commander. The work exhibits wide research, while its descriptions are graphic and picturesque. He died in Boston, June 25, 1873. JOHN C. FREMONT. JOHN CHARLES FREMONT is the son of a French emigrant gentleman, who married a Virginia lady. He was born in South Carolina, January, 1813. His father dying when he was four years old, the care of his education devolved upon his mother. He advanced so rapidly in his studies that he was graduated at the Charleston College at the age of seventeen. After passing a short time in teaching mathematics, by which he was enabled to contribute to the support of his mother and family, he devoted himself to civil engineering with such success that he obtained an appointment in the government expedition for the survey of the head waters of the Mississippi, and was afterwards employed at Washington in drawing maps of the country visited. He next proposed to the Secretary of War to make an exploration across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. The plan was approved, and in 1842, with a small company of men, he explored and opened to commerce and emigration the great South Pass. In his Report, published by government on his return, he portrayed the natural features, climate, and productions of the region through which he had passed, with great fulness and clearness. His adventures were also described in a graphic and animated style; and the book, though a government report, was very widely circulated, and has since been reprinted by publishers in this country and England, and translated into various foreign languages. Stimulated by his success and love of adventure, he soon after planned an expedition to Oregon. Not satisfied with his discoveries in approaching the mountains by a new route, crossing their summits below the South Pass, visiting the Great Salt Lake and effecting a junction with the surveying party of the Exploring Expedition, he determined to change his course on his return. With but twenty-five companions, without a guide, and in the face of approaching winter, he entered a vast unknown region. The exploration was one of peril, and was carried through with great hardship and suffering, and some loss of life. No tidings were received from the party for nine months, while, travelling thirty-five hundred miles in view of, or over perpetual snows, they made known the region of Alta California, including the Sierra Nevada, the valleys of San Joaquin and Sacramento, the gold region, and almost the whole surface of the country. Fremont returned to Washington in August, 1844. He wrote a Report of his second expedition, which he left as soon as completed in the printer's hands, to depart on a third, the object of which was, the examination in detail of the Pacific coast, and the result, the acquisition of California by the United States. He took part in some of the events of the Mexican war, and at its close, owing to a difficulty with two American commanders, was deprived of his commission by a court-martial, and sent home a prisoner. His commission was restored on his arrival at Washington, by the President, and he soon after again started for California on a private exploration, to determine the best route to the Pacific. On the Sierra San Juan one third of his force of thirty-three men, with a number of mules, was frozen to death; and their brave leader, after great hardships, arrived at Santa Fe on foot, and destitute of everything. The expedition was fitted and reinforced, and Fremont started again, re | and in a hundred days, after penetrating through and sustaining conflicts with Indian tribes, reached the Sacramento. The judgment of the military court was reversed, the valuable property acquired during his former residence secured, and the State of California returned her pioneer explorer to Washington as her first senator in 1850. Colonel Fremont married a daughter of the Hon. Thomas H. Benton. He has, during the recesses of Congress, continued his explorations at his private cost and toil, in search of the best railway route to the Pacific. The Reports to Government of his expeditions, and the superb edition of Fremont's Explorations (1859), have been the only publications of Col. Fremont; but these, from the exciting nature, public interest, and national importance of their contents, combined with the clear and animated mode of their presentation, have sufficed to give him a place as author as well as traveller. ** In 1856, Col. Fremont was defeated for the Presidency by the late James Buchanan. During the war for the Union, he repeatedly placed his sword at the service of his country, and held the rank of major-general in the regular army. In recent years, he has advocated the claims of a southern railroad to the Pacific. JAMES NACK. JAMES NACK holds a well nigh solitary position in literature, as one, who deprived from childhood of the faculties of hearing and speech, has yet been able not only to acquire by education a full enjoyment of the intellectual riches of the race, but to add his own contribution to the vast treasury. He was born in the city of New York, the son of a merchant, who by the loss of his fortune in business was unable to afford him many educational advantages. The want was, however, supplied by the care of a sister, who taught the child to read before he was four years old. The activity of his mind and ardent thirst for knowledge carried him rapidly forward from this point, until in his ninth year an accident entailed upon him a life-long misfortune. As he was carrying a little playfellow in his arms down a flight of steps his foot slipped; to recover himself he caught hold of a heavy piece of furniture, which falling upon him injured his head so severely, that he lay for several hours without sign of life, and for several weeks mentally unconscious. When he recovered it was found that the organs of sound were irrevocably destroyed. The loss of hearing was gradually followed by that of speech. He was placed as soon as possible in the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, where the interrupted course of his mental training was soon resumed. He showed great aptitude for the acquirement of knowledge, and an especial facility in the mastery of foreign languages. After leaving the institution he continued, with the aid of the few books he possessed, a private course of study. He had for some time before this written occasional poems, of one of which, The Blue Eyed Maid, he had given a copy to a friend, who handed it to his father, Mr. Abraham Asten. That gentleman was so much struck by its pro mise, that he sought other specimens of the author's skill. These confirming his favorable impressions, he introduced the young poet to several literary gentlemen of New York, under whose auspices a volume of his poems, written between his fourteenth and seventeenth years, was published. It was received with favor by critics and the public. Mr. Nack soon after became an assistant in the office of Mr. Asten, then clerk of the city and county. In 1838 he married, and in 1839 published his second volume, Earl Rupert and other Tales and Poems, with a memoir of the author, by Mr. Prosper M. Wetmore. **In 1859 appeared his Romance of the Ring, and other Poems, chiefly on domestic topics, and with an introductory memoir by the late George P. Morris. THE OLD CLOCK, Two Yankee wags, one summer day, The breakfast over, Tom and Will Will looked it over; Very right But hold! what wonder meets my sight! Tom! the surprise is quite a shock!' "What wonder? where ?"-"The clock! the clock !" Tom and the landlord in amaze Stared at the clock with stupid gaze, "You mean the clock that's ticking there? "Tom; don't you recollect," said Will, With which I won the wager pleasant?" Will ended with a knowing wink- Tom scratched his head and tried to think. Sir, begging pardon for inquiring," The landlord said, with grin admiring, "What wager was it?" "Hold!" said the Yankee, "plank the ready!". “Here she goes—and there she goes !" “Here?—where?"--the lady in surprise His finger followed with her eyes; "Son, why that steady gaze and sad? Those words-that motion--are you mad? But here's your wife--perhaps she knows And" Here she goes-and there she goes !" His wife surveyed him with alarm, And rushed to him and seized his arm; He shook her off, and to and fro His fingers persevered to go, While curled his very nose with ire, And with more furious tone arose The, “here she goes—and there she goes!" "Lawks!" screamed the wife, "I'm in a whirl!" Run down and bring the little girl; She is his darling, and who knows “Here she goes-and there she goes !" "Lawks! he is mad! what made him thus? Good Lord! what will become of us? Run for a doctor-run-run-runFor Doctor Brown and Doctor Dun, And Doctor Black, and Doctor White, And Doctor Grey, with all your might." The doctors came and looked and wondered, And shook their heads, and paused and pondere 'Till one proposed he should be bled, "No--leeched you mean"--the other said Clap on a blister," roared another, No-cup him". -“no-trepan him, brother!" The eighth, just come from a dissection, His verdict gave for an injection; A certain cure for earthly ills; "I had a patient yesternight," Quoth he, "and wretched was her plight, “Here she goes-and there she goes " "You all are fools," the lady said, "The way is, just to shave his head. Run, bid the barber come anon" "Thanks, mother," thought her clever son, "You help the knaves that would have bit me, But all creation shan't outwit me!" Thus to himself, while to and fro His finger perseveres to go, |