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published anonymously numerous poems, which were collected and printed privately under the title of “Text and Context” (Hartford, 1853). He also gathered material for a “History of New England,” which was not completed. RAFF, George Wertz, author, b. in Tuscarawas, Stark co., Ohio, 24 March, 1825; d. in Canton, Ohio, 14 April, 1888. He was chiefly self-educated. From 1848 till 1850 he was clerk of the supreme court, Stark county, and he was judge of the probate court in 1852-'5, and was a member of the city council and board of education in Canton, Ohio. He founded, in 1887, the Central savings-bank of Canton, of which he was president until his death. His publications are “Guide to Executors and Administrators in Ohio” (Cleveland, 1859); “Manual of Pensions, Bounty and Pay” (Cincinnati, 1862); “The Law relating to Roads and Highways in Ohio” (1863); and the “War Claimant's Guide” (1866). RAFFENEAU-DELILE, Alyre (raf-no-deh-leel). French physician, b. in Versailles, 23 Jan., 1778; d. in Montpellier, 5 July, 1850. He engaged in the study of plants under Jean Lemonnier, was in the Paris medical school in 1796, and, being attached in 1798-1801 to the scientific expedition that was sent to Egypt, became manager of the agricultural garden at Cairo. In 1802 he was appointed French vice-consul at Wilmington, N. C., and also asked to form an herbarium of all American plants that could be naturalized in France. He sent to Paris several cases of seeds and grains, and discovered some new graminea and presented them to Palissot de Beauvois (q. v.), who described them in his “Agrostographie.” Raffeneau made extensive explorations through the neighboring states, and, resigning in 1805, began the study of medicine in New York. During an epidemic of scarlet fever he was active in visiting the tenements of the poor, and in 1807 he obtained the degree of M. D. Returning to France, he was graduated as doctor in medicine at the University of Paris in 1809, and in 1819 appointed professor of botany in the University of Montpellier, which post he held till his death. His works include, besides those already cited, “Sur les effets d'un poison de Java appelé l'upas tieuté, et sur les differentes espèces de strychnos” (Paris, 1809); “Mémoire sur quelques espèces de graminées propres à la Caroline du Nord” (Versailles, 1815); “Centurie des plantes de l'Amérique du Nord” (Montpellier, 1820); “Flore d'Égypte” (5 vols., Paris, 1824); “Centurie des plantes d'Afrique” (Paris, 1827); and “De la culture de la patate douce, du crambe maritima et de l'oxalis crenata” (Montpellier, 1836). RAFINESQUE, Constantine Samuel, botanist, b. in Galata, a suburb of Constantinople, 22 Oct., 1783; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 18 Sept., 1842. He was of French parentage, and his father, a merchant, died in Philadelphia about 1791. The son came to Philadelphia with his brother in 1802, and, after travelling through Pennsylvania and Delaware, returned with a collection of botanical specimens in 1805, and went to Sicily, where he spent ten years as a merchant and in the study of botany. In 1815 he sailed for New York, but was shipwrecked on the Long Island coast, and lost his valuable books, collections, manuscripts, and drawings. In 1818 he went to the west and became professor of botany in Transylvania university, Lexington, Ky. Subsequently he travelled and lectured in various places, endeavored to establish a magazine and a botanic garden, but without success, and finally settled in Philadelphia, where he resided until his death, and where he |
published “The Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge, a Cyclopædic Journal and Review,” of which only eight numbers appeared (1832-'3). The number of genera and species that he introduced into his works produced great confusion. A gradual deterioration is found in Rafinesque's botanical writings from 1819 till 1830, when the passion for establishing new genera and species seems to have become a monomania with him. He assumed thirty to one hundred years as the average time required for the production of a new species, and five hundred to a thousand years for a new genus. It is said that he wrote a paper describing “twelve new species of thunder and lightning.” In addition to translations and unfinished botanical and zoölogical works, he was the author of numerous books and pamphlets, including “Caratteri di alcuni nuovi generi e nuove specie di animali e piante della Sicilia” (Palermo, 1810); “Précis de découvertes et travaux somiologiques entre 1800 et 1814” (1814); “Principes fondamentaux de somiologie” (1814): “Analyse de la nature” (Palermo, 1815); “Antikon Botanikon” (Philadelphia, 1815-'40); “Ichthyologia Ohioensis” (Lexington, 1820); “Ancient History, or Annals of Kentucky” (Frankfort, 1824); “Medical Flora, etc., of the United States” (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1828-'30); “American Manual of the Grape-Vines” (1830); “American Florist” (1832); “The American Nations, or the Outlines of a National History” (2 vols., 1836); “A Life of Travels and Researches in North America and South Europe” (1836); “New Flora and Botany of America” (4 parts, 1836); “Flora Telluriana” (4 parts, 1836-'8); “The World,” a poem (1836); “Safe Banking” (1837); notes to Thomas Wright's “Original Theory, or New Hypothesis of the Universe” (1837); “Sylvia Telluriana” (1838); “Alsographia Americana” (1838); “The American Monuments of North and South America” (1838); “Genius and Spirit of the Hebrew Bible” (1838); “Celestial Wonders and Philosophy of the Visible Heavens” (1839); “Pleasure and Duties of Wealth” (1840); and a “Dissertation on Water-Snakes,” published in the London “Literary Gazette” (1819). “The Complete Writings of C. S. Rafinesque on Recent and Fossil Conchology” have been edited by William G. Binney and George W. Tryon, Jr. (Philadelphia, 1864). See a review of the “Botanical Writings of Rafinesque,” by Asa Gray, in “Silliman's Journal” (1841).
RAFN, or RAVN, Karl Christian (rown), Danish archaeologist, b. in Brahesborg, Funen island, 16 Jan., 1795; d. in Copenhagen, 20 Oct., 1864. His father, a man of education and refinement, cultivated a farm on his ancestral estate, and sent his son to Odense, and in 1814 to the University of Copenhagen, where he was graduated in jurisprudence and then served as lieutenant in the light dragoons at Funen, devoting his leisure to the study of Norse literature, and engaging in researches on the ancient history and literature of the Scandinavian countries. He taught Latin in the Military school in 1820, became in 1821 deputy librarian of the Royal library of Copenhagen, and was one of the founders in 1825 of the Society for northern antiquities, having for its object the collection and publication of ancient manuscripts throwing light on the history of the Scandinavian peoples, of which he was the secretary till his death. While assistant in the library of the university, he undertook a critical revision of all the inedited Norwegian and Icelandic manuscripts in the collection. He studied especially the ancient Sagas and the expeditions of the Icelanders to North America. Gov. Arnold's “Old Mill” |
