points, the stone axes, and the fragments of pottery which marked the presence of this older and mysterious race. The study of McClintock's Antiquarian Researches, a now almost forgotten volume, fixed and expanded this taste. The work, however, to which he attributes beyond all others a formative influence on his youthful tastes was Humboldt's Cosmos, the English translation of which by Colonel Sabine was his favorite reading at the age of fifteen and sixteen. The poetic hues in which this great master knew how to garb the dry facts of science, and the wonderful skill with which he developed the intimate relationship of lower and inorganic existence to the thoughts, aspirations, and destiny of man, stimulate the imagination with the force of a great epic.
Dr. Brinton graduated at Yale College in 1858, and studied medicine in the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, where he took the degree of M. D. in 1860. After a year, spent chiefly at Paris and Heidelberg, he was recalled by the events of the war and entered the army as Surgeon of United States Volunteers. After serving in the field as Medical Director of the Eleventh Army Corps, he was sent to Quincy and Springfield, Ill., as superintendent of hospitals, where he remained until the close of the war. In 1867 he was tendered the position of editor of the Medical and Surgical Reporter, at that time the only weekly medical journal in Philadelphia. This position he held uninterruptedly until 1887.
In 1884 he was appointed Professor of Ethnology at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and in 1886 Professor of American Linguistics and Archaeology in the University of Pennsylvania. At both the institutions named he delivers a course of lectures every winter, which are highly appreciated by the public, as the numbers attending them attest. His subject-matter, being both ethnologic and archaeologic, necessarily covers an enormous field; but Brinton very successfully exercises the faculty of conciseness, yet never at the expense of lucidity.
Dr. Brinton's contributions to scientific literature began, as already stated, in 1859, when he published The Floridian Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities, the result of some months' travel in that State. His next work of importance was The Myths of the New World: a Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America (New York, 1868; second edition, 1876). Other volumes which have appeared from his pen are The Religious Sentiment, its Source and Aim: a Contribution to the Science of Religion (New York, 1876); American Hero Myths: a Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent (Philadelphia, 1882); Essays of an Americanist (Philadelphia, 1890); Races and Peoples; Lectures
