Schweinfurth, all lose the result of years of toil and privation. Humboldt makes three collections, travels with one, never losing sight of it, ships the other two, and both through the fortunes of war are in great part lost. Raffles staggered to his feet after this crushing blow and obtained a second collection with which he sailed to England. Upon his arrival he was not idle. He interested himself in establishing the Zoölogical Society of London and became its first president. He founded the Museum Rafflesianium, which is composed of specimens of natural history from the Malayan Archipelago. He died suddenly in 1826, at the comparatively early age of forty-five years.
The career of Raffles is thus briefly outlined. If any one is interested in the subject and looks it up in the Biographical Dictionary, the encyclopaedias, or in articles on Java, he will find nothing, or next to nothing, on Raffles's scientific labors. The interesting chapter in Chambers' Miscellany entitled Sir Stamford Raffles and the Spice Islands relates almost entirely to his work as a philanthropist and administrator. Yet his influence on the subject of topography, botany, zoölogy, ethnology, and archæology of the East is as great as are his political ideas. He undertook systematic investigations of Java, Sumatra, and the neighboring islands. He encouraged collections to be made by competent explorers,[1] instituted special expeditions for collecting antiquities by which the Hindu influence on the Javanese mythology, history, and literature was established. He wrote an elaborate history of the island. Some idea of the comprehensive plan of his labors and of its rich results can be obtained by the estimate of the cargo with which he stored his ship on his departure for England.
We acknowledge the justness of the tribute to Raffles as ex-
- ↑ The Americans who have made impressions in European affairs are naturally very few. The mind in this connection reverts to Ledyard and Count Rumford among scientists; to West, Copley, and Leslie among painters. I infer that few Philadelphians recall that a man trained in their city and a native of Bethlehem, Pa., should be added to the list. I allude to Dr. Thomas Horsfield, the most prominent of the naturalists encouraged by Raffles in the exploration of the Malayan Islands under his administration. Horsfield was born in 1773; he studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was graduated in 1708, writing on Rhus Poisoning, which appears as one of the Medical Theses, edited by Charles Caldwell, Philadelphia, 1805. In no other publication is there to be found so excellent an account of the properties of the American poison vine and poison oak. Immediately after graduation Horsfield went to Java, where he remained for twenty years in the service of the East India Company. At the end of this time he was recalled to London, where he spent the rest of his life as the curator of the museum of the company in Leadenhall Street. He was elected a correspondent of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1826. He was the author of the classical work on Zoölogical Researches in Java, a separate volume on the rare plants of Java, as well as a special report on the annelids of the same general region. Dr. Horsfield died in 1859.
