without some prospect of employment beside that comprised in his immediate scientific aims.
In 1845, when his plans for a journey in the
, he might not have some chance as a public lecturer, hoping to make in that way additional provision for his scientific expenses
[
's answer, written by his wife, was very encouraging.
before the Lowell Institute.
A month or two before sailing he writes as follows to
.
introduced to the institution under whose auspices he first made acquaintance with his American audiences.
There he became a familiar presence during more than a quarter of a century.
The enthusiastic greeting accorded to him, as a stranger whose reputation had preceded him, ripened with years into an affectionate welcome from friends and fellow-citizens, whenever he appeared on the platform.
In the director of the institution,
, he found a friend upon whose sympathy and wise counsels he relied in all his after years.
The cordial reception he met from him and his large family circle made him at once at home in a strange land.
's power as a teacher, or the charm of his personal presence more evident than in his first course of Lowell Lectures.
He was unfamiliar with the language, to the easy use of which his two or three visits in
, had by no means accustomed him. He would often have been painfully embarrassed but for his own simplicity of character.
Thinking only of his subject and never of himself, when a critical pause came, he patiently waited for the missing word, and rarely failed to find a phrase which was expressive if not technically correct.
He often said afterward that his sole preparation for these lectures consisted in shutting himself up for hours and marshaling his vocabulary, passing in review, that is, all the
words he could recall.
As the Lyells had prophesied, his foreign accent rather added a charm to his address, and the pauses in which he seemed to ask the forbearance of the audience, while he sought to translate his thought for them, enlisted their sympathy.
Their courtesy never failed him. His skill in drawing with chalk on the blackboard was also a great help both to him and to them.
When his English was at fault he could nevertheless explain his meaning by illustrations so graphic that the spoken word was hardly missed.
He said of himself that he was no artist, and that his drawing was accurate simply because the object existed in his mind so clearly.
However this may be,
[
]
it was always pleasant to watch the effect of his drawings on the audience.
When showing, for instance, the correspondence of the articulate type, as a whole, with the metamorphoses of the higher insects, he would lead his listeners along the successive phases of insect development, talking as he drew and drawing as he talked, till suddenly the winged creature stood declared upon the blackboard, almost as if it had burst then and there from the chrysalis, and the growing interest of his hearers culminated in a burst of delighted applause.
there was no doubt of his success.
He carried his audience captive.
His treatment of the animal kingdom on the broad basis of the comparative method, in which the great types were shown in their relation to each other and to the physical history of the world, was new to his hearers.
had also the rare gift of divesting his subject of technicalities and superfluous details.
His special facts never obscured the comprehensive outline, which they were intended to fill in and illustrate.
This simplicity of form and language was especially adapted to the audience he had now to address, little instructed in the facts or the
[
]
nomenclature of science, though characterized by an eager curiosity.
A word respecting the quality of the Lowell Institute audience of those days, as new to the
professor as he to them, is in place here.
The institution was intended by its founder to fertilize the general mind rather than to instruct the selected few. It was liberally endowed, the entrance was free, and the tickets were drawn by lot. Consequently the working men and women had as good an opportunity for places as their employers.
As the remuneration, however, was generous, and the privilege of lecturing there was coveted by literary and scientific men of the first eminence, the instruction was of a high order, and the tickets, not to be had for money, were as much in demand with the more cultivated and even with the fashionable people of the community as with their poorer neighbors.
This audience, composed of strongly contrasted elements and based upon purely democratic principles, had, from the first, a marked attraction for
.
A teacher in the widest sense, he sought and found his pupils in every class.
But in
for the first time did he come into contact with the general mass of the people on this common ground, and it influenced strongly
[
]
his final resolve to remain in this country.
Indeed, the secret of his greatest power was to be found in the sympathetic, human side of his character.
Out of his broad humanity grew the genial personal influence, by which he awakened the enthusiasm of his audiences for unwonted themes, inspired his students to disinterested services like his own, delighted children in the school-room, and won the cordial interest as well as the cooperation in the higher aims of science, of all classes whether rich or poor.
His first course was to be given in December.
Having, therefore, a few weeks to spare, he made a short journey, stopping at New Haven to see the elder
he had written him, ‘I can hardly tell you with what pleasure I look forward to seeing you, and making the personal acquaintance of the distinguished savans of your country, whose works I have lately been studying with especial care.
There is something captivating in the prodigious activity of the
, and the thought of contact with the superior men of your young and glorious republic renews my own youth.’
Some account of this journey, including his
[
]
first impressions of the scientific men as well as the scientific societies and collections of the
, is given in the following letter.
It is addressed to his mother, and with her to a social club of intimate friends and neighbors in
, at whose meetings he had been for years an honored guest.
. . . Having no time to write out a complete account of my journey of last month, I will only transcribe for you some fugitive notes scribbled along the road in stages or railroad carriages.
They bear the stamp of hurry and constant interruption.
Leaving
Boston the 16th of October, I went by railroad to New Haven, passing through
Springfield.
The rapidity of the locomotion is frightful to those who are unused to it, but you adapt yourself to the speed, and soon become, like all the rest of the world, impatient of the slightest delay.
I well understand that an antipathy for this mode of travel is possible.
There is something infernal in the irresistible power of steam, carrying such heavy masses along with the swiftness of lightning.
The habits growing out of continued contact with railroads,
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410]
and the influence they exert on a portion of the community, are far from agreeable until one is familiar with them.
You would cry out in dismay did you see your baggage flung about pell-mell like logs of wood, trunks, chests,
traveling-bags, hat-boxes, all in the same mill, and if here and there something goes to pieces no one is astonished; never mind!
we go fast,—we gain time,—that is the essential thing.
The manners of the country differ so greatly from ours that it seems to me impossible to form a just estimate regarding them, or, indeed, to pronounce judgment at all upon a population so active and mobile as that of the
Northern States of the
Union, without having lived among them for a long time.
I do not therefore attempt any such estimate.
I can only say that the educated
Americans are very accessible and very pleasant.
They are obliging to the utmost degree; indeed, their cordiality toward strangers exceeds any that I have met elsewhere.
I might even add that if I could complain of anything it would be of an excess, rather than a lack, of attention.
I have often found it difficult to make it understood that the hotel, where I can work at my ease, suits me better than the proffered hospitality. . . .
[
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But what a country is this!
all along the road between
Boston and
Springfield are ancient moraines and polished rocks.
No one who had seen them upon the track of our present glaciers could hesitate as to the real agency by which all these erratic masses, literally covering the country, have been transported.
I have had the pleasure of converting already several of the most distinguished American geologists to my way of thinking; among others,
Professor Rogers, who will deliver a public lecture upon the subject next Tuesday before a large audience.
A characteristic feature of American life is to be found in the frequent public meetings where addresses are delivered.
Shortly after my arrival in
Boston I was present at a meeting of some three thousand workmen, foremen of workshops, clerks, and the like.
No meeting could have been more respectable and well-conducted.
All were neatly dressed; even the simplest laborer had a clean shirt.
It was a strange sight to see such an assemblage, brought together for the purpose of forming a library, and listening attentively in perfect quiet for two hours to an address on the advantages of education, of reading, and the means of employing usefully the leisure moments
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412]
of a workman's life.
The most eminent men vie with each other in instructing and forming the education of the population at large.
I have not yet seen a man out of employment or a beggar, except in New York, which is a sink for the emptyings of
Europe.
Yet do not think that I forget the advantages of our old civilization.
Far from it. I feel more than ever the value of a past which belongs to you and in which you have grown up. Generations must pass before
America will have the collections of art and science which adorn our cities, or the establishments for public instruction, sanctuaries as it were, consecrated by the devotion of those who give themselves wholly to study.
Here all the world works to gain a livelihood or to make a fortune.
Few establishments (of learning) are old enough, or have taken sufficiently deep root in the habits of the people, to be safe from innovation; very few institutions offer a combination of studies such as, in its ensemble, meets the demands of modern civilization.
All is done by the single efforts of individuals or of corporations, too often guided by the needs of the moment.
Thus American science lacks the scope which is characteristic of higher instruction in our old
Europe.
Objects
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of art are curiosities but little appreciated and usually still less understood.
On the other hand, the whole population shares in the advanced education provided for all. . . . From
Springfield the railroad follows the course of the
Connecticut as far as
Hartford, turning then directly toward the sea-coast.
The valley strikingly resembles that of the
Rhine between
Carlsruhe and
Heidelberg.
The same rock, the same aspect of country, and gres bigarre
1 everywhere.
The forest reminds one of Odenwald and of
Baden-Baden.
Nearer the coast are cones of basalt like those of Brissac and the Kaiserstuhl.
The erratic phenomena are also very marked in this region; polished rocks everywhere, magnificent furrows on the sandstone and on the basalt, and parallel moraines defining themselves like ramparts upon the plain.
At New Haven I passed several days at the house of
Professor Silliman, with whom I have been in correspondence for several years.
The
University (Yale) owes to the efforts of the
Professor a fine collection of minerals and extensive physical and chemical apparatus.
Silliman is the patriarch of science in
America.
For thirty years he has edited
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414]
an important scientific journal, the channel through which, ever since its foundation,
European scientific researches have reached
America.
His son is now professor of chemistry at Yale.
One of his sons-in-law,
Mr. Shepard, is also chemical professor in the
University of
South Carolina.
Another,
Mr. Dana, still a very young man, strikes me as likely to be the most distinguished naturalist of the
United States.
He was a member of the expedition around the world under the command of
Captain Wilkes, and has just published a magnificent volume containing monographs of all the species of polyps and corals, with curious observations on their mode of growth and on the coral islands.
I was surprised to find in the collection at New Haven a fine specimen of the great fossil salamander of Oeningen, the
Homo diluvii testis of Scheuchzer.
From New Haven I went to New York by steamboat.
The
Sound, between
Long Island and the coast of
Connecticut, presents a succession of cheerful towns and villages, with single houses scattered over the country, while magnificent trees overhang the sea; we constantly disturbed numbers of aquatic birds which, at our approach, fluttered up around
[
415]
the steamer, only to alight farther on. I have never seen such flocks of ducks and gulls.
At New York I hastened to see
Auguste Mayor, of whom my uncle will no doubt have given you news, since I wrote to him. Obliged to continue my road in order to join
Mr. Gray at
Princeton I stopped but one day in New York, the greater part of which I passed with
Mr. Redfield, author of a paper on the fossil fishes of
Connecticut.
His collection, which he has placed at my disposal, has great interest for me; it contains a large number of fossil fishes of different kinds, from a formation in which but one species has been found in
Europe.
The new red sandstone of
Connecticut will also fill a gap in the history of fossil fishes, and this acquisition is so much the more important, because, at the epoch of the gres bigarre, a marked change took place in the anatomical character of fishes.
It presents an intermediate type between the primitive fishes of the ancient deposits and the more regular forms of the jurassic deposits.
Mr. Asa Gray, professor of botany at
Cambridge, near
Boston, had offered to accompany me on my journey to
Washington.
We were to meet at the house of
Professor Torrey,
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at
Princeton, a small town half a day's journey from New York, and the seat of a considerable university, one of the oldest in the
United States.
The physical department, under the direction of
Professor Henry, is remarkably rich in models of machinery and in electrical apparatus, to which the professor especially devotes himself.
The museum contains a collection of animals and fossil remains.
In the environs of the town, in the ditches, is found a rare kind of turtle, remarkable for the form of the jaws and the length of the tail.
I wish very much to procure one, were it only to oblige
Professor Johannes Muller, of
Berlin, who especially desires one for investigation.
But I have failed thus far; the turtles are already withdrawn into their winter quarters.
Mr. Torrey promises me some, however, in the spring.
It is not easy to get them because their bite is dreaded.
After this I passed four days in
Philadelphia.
Here, notwithstanding my great desire to see the beautiful country along the shores of the rich bay of
Delaware and the banks of the
Schuylkill, between which the city lies, I was entirely occupied with the magnificent collections of the Academy of Science and
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of the Philosophical Society.
The zoological collections of the Academy of Science are the oldest in the
United States, the only ones, except those of the
Wilkes Expedition, which can equal in interest those of
Europe.
There are the collections of Say, the earliest naturalist of distinction in the
United States; there are also the fossil remains and the animals described by
Harlan, by
Godman, and by
Hayes, and the fossils described by
Conrad and
Morton.
Dr. Morton's unique collection of human skulls is also to be found in
Philadelphia.
Imagine a series of six hundred skulls, mostly Indian, of all the tribes who now inhabit or formerly inhabited America.
Nothing like it exists elsewhere.
This collection alone is worth a journey to
America.
Dr. Morton has had the kindness to give me a copy of his great illustrated work representing all the types of his collection.
Quite recently a generous citizen of
Philadelphia has enriched this museum with the fine collection of birds belonging to the
Duke of
Rivoli.
He bought it for 37,000 francs, and presented it to his native city.
The number of fossil remains comprised in these collections is very considerable; mastodons especially, and fossils of the cretaceous
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and jurassic deposits. . . . Imagine that all this is at my full disposal for description and illustration, and you will understand my pleasure.
The liberality of the
American naturalists toward me is unparalleled.
I must not omit to mention
Mr. Lea's collection of fresh-water shells,—a series of the magnificent
Unios of the rivers and lakes of
America, comprising four hundred species, represented by some thirty specimens of each.
Mr. Lea has promised me specimens of all the species.
Had I not been bound by an engagement at
Washington, and could I have remained three or four days longer in order to label and pack them, I might have taken at once these valuable objects, which will be of great importance in verifying and rectifying the synonyms of
European conchologists.
After having seen the astonishing variations undergone by these shells in their growth, I am satisfied that all which
European naturalists have written on this subject must be revised.
Only with the help of a very full series of individuals can one fully understand these animals, and we have only single specimens in our collections.
If I had time and means to have drawings made of all these forms, the collection of
Mr. Lea would be at
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my command for the purpose, and the work would be a very useful one for science.
There are several other private and public collections at
Philadelphia, which I have only seen cursorily; that of the Medical School, for instance, and that of the older
Peale, who discovered the first mastodon found in the
United States, now mounted in his museum.
Beside these, there is the collection of
Dr. Griffith, rich in skulls from the
Gulf of Mexico; that of
Mr. Ord, and others.
During my stay in
Philadelphia, there was also an exhibition of industrial products at the Franklin Institute, where I especially remarked the chemical department.
There are no less than three professors of chemistry in
Philadelphia, —
Mr. Hare,
Mr. Booth, and
Mr. Frazer.
The first is, I think, the best known in
Europe.
How a nearer view changes the aspect of things!
I thought myself tolerably familiar with all that is doing in science in the
United States, but I was far from anticipating so much that is interesting and important.
What is wanting to all these men is neither zeal nor knowledge.
In both, they seem to compete with us, and in ardor and activity they even surpass most of our savans.
What they need
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is leisure.
I have never felt more forcibly what I owe to the king for enabling me to live for science alone, undisturbed by anxieties and distractions.
Here, I do not lose a moment, and when I receive invitations outside the circle of men whom I care particularly to know, I decline, on the ground that I am not free to dispose for my pleasure of time which does not belong to me. For this no one can quarrel with me, and so far as I myself am concerned, it is much better.
I stopped at
Baltimore only long enough to see the city.
It was Sunday, and as I could make no visits, and was anxious to arrive in good time at
Washington, I took advantage of the first train.
The capital of the
United States is laid out upon a gigantic scale, and, consequently, portions of the different quarters are often to be traced only by isolated houses here and there,—a condition which has caused it to be called the ‘City of Magnificent Distances.’
Some of the streets are very handsome, and the
capitol itself is really imposing.
Their profound veneration for the founder of their liberty and their republic is a noble trait of the
American people.
The evidences of this are to be seen everywhere.
No less than two hundred towns, villages, and
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421]
counties bear his name, rather to the inconvenience of the postal administration.
After having visited the
capitol and the presidential mansion, and delivered my letters for the
Prussian Minister, I went to the Museum of the National Institute.
I was impatient to satisfy myself as to the scientific value of the results obtained in the field of my own studies by the voyage of
Captain Wilkes around the world,—this voyage having been the object of equally exaggerated praise and criticism.
I confess that I was agreeably surprised by the richness of the zoological and geological collections; I do not think any
European expedition has done more or better; and in some departments, in that of the Crustacea, for example, the collection at
Washington surpasses in beauty and number of specimens all that I have seen.
It is especially to
Dr. Pickering and
Mr. Dana that these collections are due. As the expedition did not penetrate to the interior of the continents in tropical regions, the collections of birds and mammals, which fell to the charge of
Mr. Peale, are less considerable.
Mr. Gray tells me, however, that the botanical collections are very large.
More precious, perhaps, than all the collections are the magnificent drawings
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of mollusks, zoophytes, fishes, and reptiles, painted from life by
Mr. Drayton.
All these plates, to the number of about six hundred, are to be engraved, and indeed are already, in part, executed.
I can only compare them to those of the Astrolabe, although they are very superior in variety of position and naturalness of attitude to those of the
French Expedition.
This is particularly true of the mollusks and fishes.
The zoophytes are to be published; they are admirable in detail.
The hydrographic portion and the account of the voyage, edited by
Captain Wilkes (unhappily he was absent and I did not see him), has been published for some time, and comprises an enormous mass of information, its chief feature being charts to the number of two hundred.
It is amazing; the number of soundings extraordinarily large.
2
At
Washington are also to be seen the headquarters of the Coast Survey, where the fine charts of the coasts and harbors now making under direction of
Dr. Bache are executed.
These charts are admirably finished.
Dr. Bache, the superintendent, was in camp, so
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that I could not deliver my letters for him. I saw, however,
Colonel Abert, the head of the topographic office, who gave me important information about the
West for the very season when I am likely to be there.
I am indebted to him also for a series of documents concerning the
upper Missouri and
Mississippi,
California and
Oregon, printed by order of the government, and for a collection of freshwater shells from those regions.
I should like to offer him, in return, such sheets of the
Federal Map as have appeared.
I beg
Guyot to send them to me by the first occasion.
As I was due in
Boston on an appointed day I was obliged to defer my visit to
Richmond,
Charleston, and other places in the
South.
I had, beside, gathered so much material that I had need of a few quiet weeks to consider and digest it all. Returning therefore to
Philadelphia, I made there the acquaintance of
Mr. Haldeman, author of a monograph on the fresh-water shells of the
United States.
I had made an appointment to meet him at
Philadelphia, being unable to make a detour of fifty leagues in order to visit him at his own home, which is situated beyond the lines of rapid transit.
He is a distinguished naturalist, equally well versed in
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several branches of our science.
He has made me acquainted, also, with a young naturalist from the interior of
Pennsylvania,
Mr. Baird, professor at Dickinson College, in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who offered me duplicates from his collections of birds and other animals.
In order to avail myself more promptly of this and like acquisitions, I wish that
M. Coulon would send me at the close of the winter all that he can procure of the common
European birds, of our small mammalia, and some chamois skins, adding also the fish that Charles put aside for me before his departure.
It would be safest to send them to the care of
Auguste Mayor.
At
Philadelphia I separated from my traveling companion,
Mr. Gray, who was obliged to return to his home.
From
Philadelphia,
Mr. Haldeman and
Mr. Lea accompanied me to
Bristol, where
Mr. Vanuxem possesses an important collection of fossils from ancient deposits, duplicates of which he promises me.
Mr. Vanuxem is one of the official geologists of the
State of New York, and author of one of a series of volumes upon the geology of the
State, about which I shall presently have something to say. To gain time I took the night train from
Bristol to New York, and
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425]
arrived at
Mayor's at midnight, having written him to expect me.
The next day I visited the market, and in five days I had filled a great barrel with different kinds of fish and fresh-water turtles, beside making several skeletons and various dissections of mollusks.
Wishing to employ my time as usefully as possible, I postponed my visits to the savans of the city, and the delivery of my letters, till I was on the eve of departure, that I might avoid all invitations.
I had especial pleasure in making the acquaintance of the two Le Contes, father and son, who own the finest collection of insects in the
United States.
I can easily make some thousand exchanges with them when I receive those that
M. Coulon has put aside for me, with a view to exchange. . . . Every morning
Auguste Mayor went with me to the market before going to his office and helped me to carry my basket when it was too heavy.
One day I brought back no less than twenty-four turtles, taken in one draught of the net. I made four skeletons, and dissected several others.
Under such conditions the day ought to have thirty-six working hours.
Were I an artist, instead of describing my voyage from New York to
Albany, I would
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426]
draw you a panorama of the shores of the
Hudson.
I know nothing except the banks of the
Rhine to compare with those of this magnificent river.
The resemblance between them is striking; the sites, the nature of the rocks, the appearance of the towns and villages, the form of the
Albany bridges, even the look of the inhabitants, of whom the greater number are of
Dutch or German origin,—all are similar.
I stopped at
West Point to make the acquaintance of
Professor Bailey of the
Military School there.
I already knew him by reputation.
He is the author of very detailed and interesting researches upon the microscopic animalcules of
America.
I had a pamphlet to deliver to him from
Ehrenberg, who has received from him a great deal of material for his large work on fossil Infusoria.
I spent three most delightful days with him, passed chiefly in examining his collections, from which he gave me many specimens.
We also made several excursions in the neighborhood, in order to study the erratic phenomena and the traces of glaciers, which everywhere cover the surface of the country.
Polished rocks, as distinct as possible; moraines continuous over large spaces; stratified drift, as on
[
427]
the borders of the glacier of
Grindelwald; in short, all the usual accompaniments of the glaciers are there, and one may follow the ‘roches moutonees’ with the eye to a great distance.
Albany is the seat of government of the
State of New York.
It has a medical school, an agricultural society, a geological museum, an anatomical museum, and a museum of natural history.
The government has just completed the publication of a work, unique of its kind, a natural history of the
State in sixteen volumes, quarto, with plates; twenty-five hundred copies have been printed, only five hundred of which are for sale, the rest being distributed throughout the
State.
Four volumes are devoted to geology and mining alone, the others to zoology, botany, and agriculture.
Yes, twenty-five hundred copies of a work in sixteen volumes, quarto, scattered throughout the
State of New York alone!
When I think that I began my studies in natural history by copying hundreds of pages from a Lamarck which some one had lent me, and that to-day there is a State in which the smallest farmer may have access to a costly work, worth a library to him in itself, I bless the efforts of those who devote themselves to public instruction.
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. . . I have not neglected the opportunity offered by the
North River (the
Hudson) for the study of the fresh-water fishes of this country.
I have filled a barrel with them.
The species differ greatly from ours, with the exception of the perch, the eel, the pike, and the sucker, in which only a practiced eye could detect the difference; all the rest belong to genera unknown in
Europe, or, at least, in
Switzerland. . . .
I was fortunate enough to procure also, in the few days of my stay, all the species taken in the lakes and rivers around
Albany.
Several others have been given me from
Lake Superior.
Since my return to
Boston I have been collecting birds and comparing them with those of
Europe.
If
M. Coulon could obtain for me a collection of
European eggs, even the most common, I could exchange them for an admirable series of the native species here.
I have also procured several interesting mammals; among others, two species of hares different from those I brought from
Halifax, striped squirrels, etc.
I will tell you another time something of the collections of
Boston and
Cambridge, the only ones in the
United States which can rival those of
Philadelphia.
To-day I have made
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my first attempt at lecturing.
Of that, also, I will tell you more in my next letter, when I know how it has been liked.
It is no small matter to satisfy an audience of three thousand people in a language with which you are but little familiar. . .
