ber, and "honorary," sixty-nine in number, of which thirty-one were Europeans; the home list included most of those chemists whose labors contributed largely to the foundations of the science in the New World. Brief notices of the prominent ones are here given:
Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), who has been called by his admirers "the father of American natural history," held the chair of medicine, natural history, and botany in the University of Pennsylvania; he was an agreeable writer on natural history topics.
Dr. Archibald Bruce (1777-1818) was one of the pioneers of mineralogical science in America, and published one volume of the American Mineralogical Journal in 1810; he held the chair of mineralogy in Columbia College, New York.
Thomas Cooper (1759-1840), born in London, accompanied his friend Priestley to America in 1793, sharing his radical views in politics and religion. He held the chair of chemistry at the college in Columbia, S. C, of which he afterward became president.
Dr. Edward Cutbush (1772-1843) was surgeon in the United States Navy and Professor of Chemistry in the medical school of the Columbian University from 1825–‘27.
Dr. John Griscom and Dr. David Hosack were both citizens of New York; the former had the honor of being regarded as the head of all teachers of chemistry in New York for thirty years; the latter was Professor of Botany and Materia Medica in Columbia College, but is best known as the founder of the first public botanic garden in the United States in 1801. He died under tragic circumstances—of shock at the disastrous conflagration in New York city which swept away his property to the value of $300,000.
Dr. John Maclean (1771-1840) was the first Professor of Chemistry in the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, to which chair he was elected in 1797.
The Hon. Samuel L. Mitchill, M. D., F. R S. E. (1764-1831), was not only an active Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in Columbia College, New York, and editor of the New York Medical Repository, but he was Senator of the United States from 1804.
Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) was undoubtedly the first professor of chemistry in America, his appointment dating August 1, 1769. In his busy life he was Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, besides acting as Surgeon General of the United States Army, Treasurer of the Mint, President of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery, and Vice-President of the Bible Society of Philadelphia, in which city he also conducted a large medical practice.
