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NOTES OF A VISIT
TO
SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS iND lUllSEllMS
IN THE
UNITED STATES
By Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., &c.
I
_
(It( printed from the Canadian Naturalist.)
NOTES OF A VISIT
TO
SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS AND MUSEUMS
IN THE
UNITED STATES
By Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.ll.S., &c.
Away from snow and frost, on the rail, rapidly sweeping
through New England villages with their snug homes and
busy factories, we approach the great western emporium, the
lesser London, the commercial capital of the '' greater Britain" of
the western world — already numbering its million and a half
of people, and rivalling old London in all the higher and lower
phases of a city life. Our business is not with either its trade or
its gaiety. We have first to tell to such of its people as care
to know of such old world things, our story about " Primeval
Forests," and then to scrutinise, under the guidance of our friend
Dr. Newberry, the class-rooms, laboratories and museums of
Columbia college, a workshop of mind, aiming to train young
men to that practical grasp of science which shall enable tliem to
apply its principles to the better extraction and working into
useful purposes of the dark treasures of mother earth. Columbia
College is a brick building in a quaint old fashioned square,
once out of town, but overgrown by the rapid increase of the
great city, which swallows up farms, estates, and country houses
as if they were mere morsels to its voracious appetite. The
building, which was intended for an asylum, forms three sides of a
quadrangle, and has many long narrow rooms well lighted by
windows in the sides. It is regarded as merely a temporary
reHidence for the college, whose large endowment of nearly
$1,500,000 is being in great part retained by its trustees as a
basis for more extended operations than those of the present
" School of Mines." Still it is well adapted to its use, and has
been admirably arranged. Three of its long rooms, like the wards
of a hospital, but with tables and shelves instead of beds, are
fitted up as working laboratories in which a hundred and
twenty students may at once pursue qualitative and quantita-
tive analysis. Another room in the basement is furnished
with furnaces and other appliaaces for assaying in the dry way.
Another is arranged for drawing, and there are several plainly
furnished but commodious class rooms. One of the rooms is
devoted to the collection of minerals, which is very neatly
arranged in flat cases, with abundant illustrations of crystalline
forms interspersed. Another contains the collections of geology
and palaeontology, in great part consisting of the private cabinet
of Professor Newberry, and especially rich in the flora of the coal
period, and in illustrations of the ores and other economic pro-
ducts of America.
The staff of Columbia College consists of eighteen Professors,
lecturers, and assistants, representing the subjects of mineralogy,
metallurgy, chemistry, botany, mathematics, mechanics, physics,
geology and palasontology, assaying and drawing. Its course
extends over three years, and embraces the work necessary to
qualify for practical operations in mineral surveying, mining,
metallurgy and practical chemistry. Students are required on
entrance to pass an examination in algebra, geometry and trigono-
metry. Though it has been in operation on its present basis only
for a few years, it had in its last catalogue 109 students, the
greater part of whom, on attaining to the degree of " Engineer of
Mines " or " Bachelor of Philosophy," will go out as practical
workers in mines and manufactories. An important feature of
the course is that students are expected in the vacation to visit
mines and metallurgical and chemical establishments, and to
report thereon and make illustrative collections ; while during the
session short excursions are made to machine shops and metal-
lurgical establishments in and near the city. It is probable that
Columbia College is little cared for or thought of by the greater
part of the busy multitudes of New York ; yet if a map of the
city were made on the principle of the missionary maps, but
illustrating the places where true induBtrial progress is being pro-
.
vided for, it would be a very white spot, though but a very small
one, in the great Babel.
From New York to New Haven is from a great city with
small science to a small city in which science bulks relntivcly
larger. On Christmas Day we looked in upon l*rotl'ssor Marsh,
almost buried among all that is richest and rarest in new scien-
tific literature and choice specimens, and enjoyed again the
genial look and kindly greeting of our friend Silliman, and
chatted for a little with the keen philosophic Dana, shattered
indeed in health, but still growing inwardly in spirit. Tl e
Sheffield Scientific School is a modern outgrowth of tlie old
University of Yale College ; and originated in 1847 in tl e
organization of tl.e " Department of Philosophy and Arts,"
under Professors Silliman and Norton, representing respectively
the subjects of Applied Chemistry and Agriculture. The
scheme seems to have been devised by the elder Silliman, and to
have had its birth in his private efforts in previous years to givo
practical instruction to special students. This department wa.s
maintained with moderate success for several years ; but at
length in 1860 Mr. Sheffield, a wealthy citizen of New Haven,
came forward to its aid with the handsome gift of a building and
apparatus valued at over $50,000 and a fund of $50,000 more to
endow Professorships of Engineering, Metallurgy and Chemistry.
This enlightened benefaction at once placed the school on a
respectable footing, and in 1863 it was further enlarged by the
application to its use of the share of the State of Connecticut in
the large grants of land made by Congress in that year for
purposes of scientific education, —grants which have borne
similar good fruit in many other States. The Sheffield School
will also be a large sharer in the benefits which the University
will derive from the great Museum founded by Mr. Peabody, and
endowed by him with the sum of $150,000. The present
extremely valuable collections of Yale College are stored in
rooms of quite inadecjuate dimensions, and are being rapidly
augmented and improved. Prof. Marsh and Prof. Verrill alone
have vast stores of fossils, corals and other specimens, in base-
ments and cellars ; and when the whole shall be arranged in Mr.
Peabody 's Museum, Yale College will be inferior to few Academic
institutions in the world in regard to its facilities for teaching the
science of nature through the eye. A special collection in the
Sheffield School, very valuable and well worthy of Study, is that
of economic geology. It is admirably arranged, and gives at one
view an idea of nearly all tlie sources of the mineral wealth of
the United States from the Atlantic border to the Pacific.
The building of tlie Sheffield School is better than that of
Columbia College, though it is an old medical school adapted to
its present use ; and the scope of tlie institution is wider, includ-
ing six distinct courses, any of which may be followed by the
student. These are: 1st, Chemistty and Mineralogy; 2nd, En-
gineering and 3Iechanics ; lird. Mining and Metallurgy ; 4th,
Agriculture ; bih, Natural History and Geology ; 6th, A Select
Scientific and Literary Course. The class-rooms and laboratories
struck me as remarkably ingenious and neat in all their arrange-
ments, and combining in a great degree all possible contrivances
for the convenience of Professors and students. The bungling
and uncomfortable arrangements too often seen in Academic
rooms had evidently here been replaced by the exercise of some
engineering and mechanical skill and contrivance, and by a com-
bination of lecture room and cabinet the means of illustration
had been rendered extremely accessible. In token that the
Sheffield School is not altogether a school of mines looking down
into the bowels of the earth, its liberal founder has presented it
with an Equatorial Telescope, made by Clark, with an object
glass having an aperture of nine inches. It is placed in a tower
constructed for it ; and with a meridian circle and other instru-
ments, enables students to learn all the work of a regular
observatory, as well as the operations of astrononiical geodesy.
Any one interested in the training of the young men of Canada
can scarcely avoid a feeling of envy in visiting such an institution
as this, furnished with so many facilities for enabling the active
mind of youth to grasp all that is of practical utility or pro-
vocative of liigh and noble thought in the heaven above and in
the earth beneath. At tliis moment a Canadian Sheffield,
judiciously aiding any University having an adequate and per-
manent basis, would do more to promote the trade and manufac-
tures of this country, and its scientific reputation, than can be
done by any other agency.
The faculty of the Sheffield School includes twenty-three
names, and its roll of students numbers one hundred and forty.
It is scarcely necessary to say that several of the Professors at
Yale are active and successful original workers, and that the
place is not only an efiective scientific school, sending out each
year a large corps of trained men into the higher practical
pursuits connected with science, but also an important centre of
discovery and original investigation, further materials for wliieh
are being constantly accumulated. More especially in geology,
mineralogy, palaeontology, zoology and chemistry, are such men as
Dana, Silliman, Marsh, Brush iind Verrill adding to the stock of
knowledge for the wliole world, as well as training their students.
And this one of the results in all cases of a well appointed and
efficient school of science.
Crossing the dark harbour of New York, cumbered with
cakes of ice ; and rapidly rolling over flat New Jersey, interest-
ing for its curious deposits of the green-sand of the old Cretaceous
Sea, now quarried as a manure, and to be seen in heaps green
almost as grass, by the roadside, wc reach pleasant, quiet Phila-
delphia, in which among chief objects of interest to a scientific
traveller, are the collections of its old and u.seful Academy of
Sciences, a scientific workshop as vigorous in its age as any of its
more youthful rivals, though sadly in want of enlarged apart-
ments for its collections. Hawkins had just been setting up here
the skeleton of the TTadrosaurus of the New Jersey green-sand, one
of the most portentous of those old reptiles of that Mesozoic
age, when the giant "tanninim" were the lords vi jreation. It
must have been a creature four-filths reptile and the rest bird,
standing upright twenty feet in height, on two enormous legs
with three-toed feet, and an immense pil!ar-like tail, while its
small fore feet were used as hands to 'lid it in obtaining the
fruits or other vegetable substances c i which it fed. It might
be described as a gigantic reptilian kangaroo with the toes of
a bird ; and were it not for the actual bones proving that it had
existed, a zoologist would scarcely have the hardihood to
imagine such a creature in his dreams. We stard amazed
beside the skeleton of the Mastodon or the Megatherium, but
not with the feeling almost of disbelief in our senses excited by
the strange combination of characters in this wonderful animal,
which among other things shows how the apparent bird-tracks of the
Mesozoic rocks, or some of them, may have been made by biped
reptiles, strange and gigantic anticipations of the attitude of man
himself. As a companion, or rather a formidable enemy, to this
animal, Mr. Cope, who is studying these remains, showed me
portions of the skeleton of a gigantic carnivorous reptile of the
same age, with formidable teeth like those of Megalosaurus, and
8
hooked c;i<i,lc-like claw.s whicli imi8t have been ten inches in
Icnj^th. The collections of the Academy are of immense value,
and its Scientific Library is very complete, but it greatly lacks
room and light. Efforts are now btjing made to secure a better
building. Among other things it possesses an extremely valuable
and very complete collection of American skulls, which have
afforded materials to Morton, Wilson and Meigs for elaborate
i'lvestigiitions on the cranial characters of races, and which are
scarcely yet exhausted as sources of inlbrmation on this very
important subject.
Two works are now in progress in Philadelphia, which will be
of great value to students of American Paheoutology. One is a
monograph on American fossil manuuals, by Leidy ; the other a
monograph on American foswil reptiles, by Cope. One of these
is to be published in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society;
the other in those of the Academy, — both active Societies and
fellow-workers in the cause of science.
Baltimore, though a ([ueenly city, does not stand so high as
Philadelphia in scientific work. It has, however, its Academy
with a band of zealous naturalists, of whom Tyson, JMorris and
D.ilrymple were old friends, and others I was glad to meet for the
first time. The vicinity of the city presents a strange association
of old and new rocks, characteristic of that line of junction of the
more recent formations of the coast with old metamorphic rocks,
on which so many American cities have been placed. In the
quarries near the town are gneiss, hornblende schist and granite,
which have much of the aspect of Laureutian rocks, and accord-
ing to 31 r, Tyson's sections may be of that age. To a northern
visitor they are remarkable for the depth to which they have been
decomposed by the weather. Similar rocks in Canada usually
present a hard polished surface, as if incapable of decomposition ;
here there are many feet of " rotten rock " at the surface. The
causes may be: 1st, the more rapid waste of felspathic rocks
under a warmer climate and a larger rain-full ; 2nd, the want of a
tenacious clay covering ; 3rd, the absence of the great Northern
drift and its ice-striation and polishing. There does not seem to
be any evident difference in the composition of the rocks to
account for it. Another point of interest is the extremely red
colour of the sand formed from the decomposition of the horn-
blendic portions of the rock. The oxide of iron resembles
a ibydrous peroxide in its colour ; and the sand formed from it
i
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'■
9
i
11
would give a very good red sandstone. Many ages of subaerial
deconipoHition of* rocks like tiiese, followed by rapid denudation,
would give red sandstone rocks like those which appear in so
many geological periods.
Among the.se ancient rocks, there appear beds of white, red and
dark gray clay. In the latter there are numerous trunks of trees
converted into lignite, and layers of nodules of carbonate of iron,
which are extracted in large (|uantities as an ore of the metal. It
appears that in the lower beds of this formation well preserved
trunks of Cycads are found, and the whole are regarded by
Mr. Tyson as possible representatives of tlie Wealden. In one of
the fossil trunks I observed a portion of charcoal perfectly repre-
senting the mineral charcoal which occurs under .'similar con
ditions in the coal formation ; and in this comparatively modern
formation, deposited probably in a lagoon or estuary, the conditions
of deposition of the clay-ironstones of the coal-measures are per-
fectly reproduced.
The Peabody Institute at Baltimore is a remarkable monument
of the generosity of a man celebrated for his princely munificence.
Mr. Peabody resided for some time in Baltimore, and, as an evi-
dence of his regard for its welfare, he has presented to it the sum
of one million of dollars, for the establishment of an Institute, the
primary objects of which are stated to be — 1st, an extensive
library; 2nd, the delivery of lectures in science and literature,
and in connection with this the provision of prizes and medals for
competition in the liigh schools in the city ; 3rd, an Academy of
Music, and 4th, a Gallery of Art. In pursuance of these objects
a plain but substantial and commodious building of white marble
has been erected, and a library of the greatest possible excellence
is rapidly being accumulated, while progress is being made in all
the other objects contemplated. The Institute is already, in its
Library, Lectures and Academy of Music, an inestimable boon to
the city, and must speedily have a marked effect on the interests
of literature and science. A museum is not at present contem-
teniplated ; but if not otherwise provided for, it would be a worthy
object to attempt, in such an institute, a representation at least of
the geology and natural history of the State, which might do
much to promote the development of its resources, as well as the
education of its young men. The Provost, Mr. Morrison, is evi-
dently earnest and enthusiastic in the good work in which he is
employed, and the Librarian, Mr. IThler, from his knowledg ef
10
Natural Science, is specially fitted to take a practical view of the
scientific part of the Library, and to be of service in the organi-
zation of a Museum should this be undertaken.
Such endowments as this of Mr. PeaboJy give to the United
States an enviable eminence among the nations of the earth, in
the promotion of popular culture and scientific progrcj'S. They
constitute an unmistakeable evidence of the wisdom of the early
American colonists in making provision for the general diff"usion of
education, and they show that in the future this great country is
destined to be unrivalled in its means, whether in books, appara-
tus, collections, or teachers, for the development of the greatest of
all the resources of nations — mind. Already it is outbidding
the old world in the market of teaching labour, and of rare and
costly specimens and books; and the growth, side by side, of its
wealth and culture, must accelerate tMs more and more.
More fortunate than the belligerent Southerners, I found means
to extend my peaceful raid into the heart of Washington itself;
which, in a scientific sense, is the Smithsonian Institution, and in
that of hospitality and kindly greeting, nowhere warmer than in
Prof. Henry and his family. Washington seems to have grown
and thriven on the war, but still presents the old cof.trast of mas-
sive and impressive public buildings with comparatively plain and
even mean private residences, a point in which it differs from all
the other great cities of America ; but the reason readily appears
from a consideration of its poll ical circumstances. The Smith-
sonian Institution is cosmopolit.'n in its aims — its object being
"the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." This
object, as wisely interpreted by Prof. Henry, is not to promote local
ends, but those in which the world is interested ; not to do that
which any one can profitably do, but that which, while important in
itself, caimot be done by other means. Thus peculiar in its aims,
the Institution has to forego many tempting roads to popularity, yet
like other good things it seems to be popular in spite of itself.
Practically, as the gi-eat current of science on this continent neces-
sarily runs nmch in the channel of discovery in Geologj' and Natural
History, the work of the Institution lies much in this direction,
and no institute in America has rendered more important aids to
the prosecution of Natural Science. Its collections, under the
skilful superintendence of Prof. Baird, are a marvel of system and
careful arrangement ; and ar'- open to the inspection and study
of naturalists from any par*, of the world ; who are in some cases
11
accommodated with rooms for their work as well as access to
specimens. Its publications have given to the world a great mass
of matter which would otherwise have been inaccessible to students.
Its facilities for intercommunication and exchanges between
scientific men, involving an inmiense amount of detail, have been
of the utmost service, and its liberal disposal of duplicate speci-
mens has strengthened the hands of students and teachers far and
wide.
Prof. Henry and his assistants are at present giving much at-
tention to the collection of American antiquities, and have accu-
mulated a very large and instructive assemblage of objects of
aboriginal art from all parts of the continent. The effort is a
most important one. America, with its modern stone age, must
eventually furnish the clue to the right interpretation of the
immense quantity of facts as to the stone and bone age of Europe
now being accumulated, and of A'hich the chronology is at present
so strangely, and even abf^urdly, exaggerated by the majority of
I European archaeologif-ts.
It is a wide leap to pass from the arrow-heads and stone axes
of the Aboriginal Indians to the multitudinous inventions of the
modern Americans, but the transition is easily mads by passing
from the Smithsonian to the noble white marble building designa-
ted by the humble name of Patent Office, and inspecting its
thousands of tcet of glass cases crammed with machines and
models, ingenious and stupid, useful and useless; but all monu-
ments of the many inventions of scheming minds. The Patent
Office is a vast and well arranged museum of useful art, but its
cases are so numei'ous and so crowded with objects, that a non-
professional visitor is simply bewildered, and contents himself with
a oeneral <;lance at the whole. In the lower hall there stands an
object suggestive in several ways. It is the nmrblc statue of
Washington by Powers, sent during the late war by General But-
ler from Baton Rouge, in imitation, perhaps, of certain Generals
of ancient Rome and modern France, in their treatment of works
of art. It is a fine figure, somewhat idealised perhaps, but giving
a far better conception of the temperament and aspect of the great
American General than the current portraits.
A very interesting collection, known as the Army iMedical
Museum, has been formed in Ford's theatre, the building in
which Lincoln was assassinated. It is a marvel of careful mount-
ing and preparation, and in this respect alone is well worthy of a
12
visit from any one interested in the best mode of exhibiting objects
in a museum. It is of great professional value ; and indepen-
dently of this, it possesses a melancholy interest in its profuse ex-
hibitions of the effects of shot, shell and other implements of
destruction, on the poor human frame. Almost every conceiv-
able form of injury received in war is here exhibited by prepara-
tions, every one of which tells not only the histoiy of a surgical
case, but a tale of suffering and death. A strange commentary it
is on the humanity of a christian and civilized age to see these
beautifully fashioned and fitted human bones, splintered by the
rude violence of deadly missiles, and now mounted with all the
dainty skill of the anatomical preparator. In flat Ci^ses, where
they are much better seen than as ordinarily arranged in wall
cises, are a few interesting American skulls — some of supposed
mound-builders of the West, others of rude Indian tribes, and a
few Mexican and Peruvian. One cannot fail to be struck, even on
a cursory inspection of these skulls, as well of as the larger series in
the Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia and in the Smithsonian,
with such general views as the following; — 1st. That there is
one prevalent and somewhat long-headed form of skull very gen-
erally distributed in America ; 2nd. That there are occasional
and peculiar short-headed forms; 3rd. That some of the latter,
as well as some of the long and narrow forms, are the results of arti-
ficial compression ; 4th. That the skulls of the more civilized races
are of a finer and more delicate type ; 5th. That there is a strong
resemblance between the ordinary American forms and those of
the skulls of ancient and rude European and African tribes.
These are general truths which rise out of the mass of details
noticed by craniologists, and which are eminently suggestive as
to the relationships and affiliations of men.
In leaving the museum I paused to look at two little glass
cases containing two modern mummies of Indian children, in ex-
cellent preservation. One is a Flathead child, its skull com-
pressed in the strange fashion of that tribe — its feet gathered up
to its chest, its shrunken frame carefully wrapped in cloth, and
on its breast bearing a necklace of beautiful Dcntalium shells, the
most precious treasure of the west coast, u>ixed with a few glass
beads, perhaps almost as precious. The other is a Dakotah
vhild, in full dress, with neatly made coat and Icggins, and
prettily worked mocassins, and a broad collar of white and blue
beads and brass buttons neatly strung on leather. These, though
13
quite modern, reminded me of the quantities of precious strings
of wampum^laid up in some ancient graves of Indian babes in
British America, and which remain after the furs, no doubt
clothing the bodies, have decayed. A higher phase of our
humanity is represented by these remains than by tlie inventions
of the Patent Office — the love that survives the death of its
object, and which, in the absence alike of human philosophy and
Divine revelation, preaches with a force stronger than sense and
mere reason, that the loved one " is not dead but sleopeth," and
will awake in another world, whither affection can follow it only
by decking its poor remains in the best robe and burying it witli
the most costly treasures. Such faith in the Indian mother may
be very simple and ignorant ; but it is surely a better and holier
thing than that cold skepticism which, while grovelling in a base
selfishness, looks up in its higher flights of reason and imagination
to tell us that man is but a better kind of brute, an aggregate of
blind material forces.