REMINISCENCES OF BOYHOOD-FROM MILE-STONES IN OUR LIFEJOURNEY. From the old battle hill, I can see the site of the school-house where two or three hundred boys were gathered together to be whipped and taught as their fathers were before them. A new edifice, indeed, has taken the place of our school, yet upon its statelier front I can see, as if drawn in the air by a strange pencil, the outline of that ancient building, with its round belfry, whose iron tongue held such imperial command of our hours. It costs no great effort to summon back one of those famous Examination Days that absorbed the anticipation of months, and made the week almost breathless with anxiety. There shines the nicely sanded floor, which the cunning sweeper had marked in waving figures, to redeem it from association with any vulgar dust. There sit the School Committee, chief among them the trim chairman, upon whose lips, when he pronounces the final opinion of the board, the very fates seem to rest their judgment. There, too, is the throng of parents, kindred, and friends, who have come to note the performances of the boys, to look pity upon their mistakes, and to smile sympathy upon their successes. Should the presidential chair fall to his lot, no prouder and more radiant day can come to the school-boy, than when, with new clothes and shining shoes, he stands forth to speak his well-conned piece, and wears away among the admiring crowd the ribboned medal that marks his triumph. Our schoolmasters were great characters in our eyes, and the two who held successively the charge of the grammar department, made a prominent figure in our wayside chat, and to this day we can find some trace of their influence in our very speech and manner. They were men of very different stamp and destiny. The first of them was a tall fair-faced man, with an almost perpetual smile. I always felt kindly towards him, though it was not easy to decide whether his smile was the expression of his goodnature, or the mask of his severity. He wore it very much the same when he flogged an offender, as when he praised a good recitation. He seemed to delight in making a joke of punishment, and it was a favorite habit of his, to fasten upon the end of his rattan the pitch and gum taken from the mouths of masticating urchins, and then, coming upon their idleness unawares, he would insert the glutinous implement in their hair not to be withdrawn without an adroit jerk and the loss of some scalp locks Poor fellow! his easy nature probably ruined him, and he left the school, not long to follow any industrious calling. When, a few years afterwards, I met him in Boston, with the marks of broken health and fortune in his face and dress, the sight was shocking to all old associations, as if a dignity quite sacerdotal had fallen into the dust. His earthly troubles have long been ended, and I take some pleasure in recording a kind and somewhat grateful feeling towards one whose name I have not heard spoken these many years. His successor was a man of different mould, a stern, resolute man, his face full of an expression that seemed to say that circumstances are but accidents, and it is the will that makes or mars the man. He was not in robust health, and it seemed to some of us, who were thoughtful of his feelings, that were it not for this, he would have been likely to pursue a more ambitious career, and give to the bar the excellent gifts that he devoted to teaching. He was a most faithful teacher, and his frown, like the rain cloud, had a richer blessing for many a wayward idler, than his predecessor's perennial smile. He has borne the burden and the heat of the day for many a long There are two other personages that have much to do with every youth's education, and whose names are household words in every New England home. The doctor and the minister figure largely in every boy's meditations, and in our day, the loyalty that we felt towards their professions had not been troubled by a homeopathic doubt or a radical scruple. In our case, it needed no especial docility to appreciate these functionaries. Our doctor was a most emphatic character, a man of decided mark in the eyes alike of friends and enemies. He was very impatient of questions, and very brief yet pithy in his advice, which was of marvellous point and sagacity. He lost his brevity, however, the moment that other subjects were broached, and he could tell a good story with a dramatic power that would have made him famous upon the stage. He was renowned as a surgeon, and could guide the knife within a hair's breadth of a vital nerve or artery with his left hand quite as firmly as with his right This ambi-dexterity extended to other faculties, and he was quite as keen at a negotiation as at an amputation. He was no paragon of conciliation, and many of the magnates of the profession appeared to have little liking for him, and sometimes called him a poor scholar, rude in learning and taste, but lucky in his mechanical tact. But he beat them out of this notion, as of many others, by giving an anniver sary discourse before the State Medical Association, which won plaudits from his severest rivals, for its classical elegance, as well as its professional learning and sagacity. It was said that the wrong side of him was very wrong and very rough. But those of us who knew him as a friend, tender and true, never believed that he had any wrong side. Certain it is, that they who grew up under his practice have been little inclined to exchange the regular school of medicine, with its scientific method and gradual progress, for any new nostrums of magical preten sions. Our minister had the name of being the wise man of the town, and I do not remember to have heard a word in disparagement of his mind or motives, even among those who questioned the soundness of his creed. His voice has always been as no other man's to many of us, whether heard as for the first time at a father's funeral, as by me when a child five years old, or in the pulpit from year to year. He came to our parish when quite young, and when theological controversy was at its full height. A polemic style of preaching was then commen, and undoubtedly in his later years of calm study, and more broad and spiritual philosophizing, he would have read with some good-natured shakes of the head, the more fiery discourses of his novitiate, whilst he might recognise, throughout, the same spirit of manly independence, republican humanity, and profound reverence that have marked his whole career. There was always something peculiarly impressive in his preaching. Each sermon had one or more pithy sayings that a boy could not forget; and when the thoughts were too profound or ab Dr. William J. Walker, of Charlestown, Mass, and Rev. James Walker, now President of Harvard. stract for our comprehension, there was an earnestness and reality in the manner which held the attention, like a brave ship under full sail that fixes the gaze of the spectator, though he may not know whither she is bound or what is her cargo, sure enough that she is loaded with something, and is going right smartly somewhere. It was evident that our minister was a faithful student and indefatigable thinker. When the best books afterwards came in our way, we found that the guiding lines of moral and spiritual wisdom had already been set before us, and we had been made familiar with the well winnowed wheat from the great fields of humanity. Every thought, whether original or from books, bore the stamp of the preacher's own individuality; and may well endorse the saying, that upon topics of philosophic analysis and of practical morals he was without a superior, if not without a rival in our pulpits. It is a great thing for young people to grow up under happy religious auspices, and religion itself has a new charm and power when dispensed by a man who is always named in the family with reverence and tenderness. The world would be far better, and Christian service would be much more truly valued, if there were more just and emphatic tribute paid to efficient pastoral labor. Our well known minister has now a more conspicuous station; but he cannot easily have deeper influence than when pastor for a score of years over a united parish, and one of the leaders of public opinion upon all topics of high importance. It is well that the new post is in such harmony with the previous career; for the head of a college, according to our old-fashioned ideas, should be a minister, and he should always abide in due manner by the pastoral office. THE AGE OF ST. AUGUSTINE-FTOM STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY. As we close our sketch with this vivid picture before us, we cannot but glance at the changes that have come over Christendom since Augustine's time. Could the legend preserved by Gibbon, and told of seven young men of that age, who were said to have come forth alive from a cave at Ephesus, where they had been inmured for death by the Pagan Emperor Decius, and whence they were said to have emerged, awakened from nearly two centuries of slumber, to revisit the scenes of their youth and to behold with astonishment the cross displayed triumphant, where once the Ephesian Diana reigned supreme;-could this legend be virtually fulfilled in Augustine, dating the slumber from the period of his decense; could the great Latin father have been saved from dissolution and have sunk into a deep sleep in the tomb where Possidius and his clerical companions laid him with solemn hymns and eucharistic sacrifice, while Genseric and his Vandals were storming the city gates; and could he but come forth in our day, and look upon our Christendom, would he not be more startled than were the seven sleepers of Ephesus? There indeed roll the waves of the same great sea; there gleam the waters of the river on which so many times he had gazed, musing upon its varied path from the Atlas mountains to the Mediterranean, full of lessons in human life; there stretches the landscape in its beauty, rich with the olive and the fig tree, the citron and the jujube. But how changed are all else. The ancient Numidia is ruled by the French, the countrymen of Martin and Hilary; it is the modern Algiers, Hippo is only a ruin, and near its site is the bustling manufacturing town of Bona. At Constantine, near by, still lingers a solitary church of the age of Constantine, and the only building to remind Augustine of the churches of his own day. In other places, as at Bona, the mosque has been converted into the Christian temple, and its mingled emblems might tell the astonished saint how the Cross had struggled with the Crescent, and how it had conquered. Go to whatever church he would on the 28th of August, he would hear a mass in commemoration of his death, and might learn that similar services were offered in every country under the sun, and in the imperial language which he so loved to speak. Let him go westward to the sea coast, and he finds the new city, Algiers, and if he arrived at a favorable time, he might hear the cannon announc ing the approach of the Marseilles steamer, see the people throng the shore for the last French news, and thus contemplate at once the mighty agencies of the modern world, powder, print, and steam. Although full of amazement, it would not be all admiration. He would find little in the motley popu lation of Jews, Berbers, Moors, and French, to console him for the absence of the loved people of his charge, whose graves not a stone would appear to mark. Should he desire to know how modern men philosophised in reference to the topics that once distracted his Manichean period, he would find enough to interest and astonish him in the pages of Spinoza and Leibnitz, Swedenborg and Schelling; and would be no indifferent student of the metaphysical creeds of Descartes, and Lock, and Kant. Much of novelty would undoubtedly appear to him united with much familiar and ancient. Should he inquire into the state of theology through Christendom, in order to trace the influence of his favorite doctrines of origi nal sin and elective grace, he would learn that they had never in their decided forms been favorites with the Catholic Church, that the imperial mother had canonised his name and proscribed his peculiar creed, and that the principles that fell with the walls of the hallowed Port Royal, had found their warmest advocates in Switzerland, in Scotland, und far America, beyond the Roman communion. He would recognise his mantle on the shoulders of Calviu of Geneva, and his followers, Knox of Scotland, and those mighty Puritans who trusting in God and his decreeing will, colonised our own New England, and brought with them a faith and virtue that have continued, while their stern dogmas have been considerably mitigated in the creed of their children. The Institutes of Calvin would assure him that the modern age possessed thinkers clear and strong as he, and the work of Edwards on the Will would probably move him to bow his head as before a dialectician of a logic more adamantine than his own, and make him yearn to visit the land of a divine, who united an intellect so mighty with a spirit so humble and devoted. Should he come among us, he would find multitudes to respect his name, and to accept his essential principles, though few, if any, to agree with him in his views of the doom of infants, or of the limited offer of redemption. He would think much of our orthodoxy quite Pelagian, even when tested by the opinion of present champions of the ancient faith. In the pages of Channing he would think of his old antagonist, Pelagius, revived with renewed vigor, enlarged philosophy, and added eloquence. He might call this perhaps too fond champion of the dignity of man by the name, Pelagius, -like him in doctrine, like him, as the name denotes, a dweller by the sea. Who shall say how much the influences of position helped to form the two cham pions of human nature, the ancient Briton and the modern New Englander, both in part at least of the Bame British race, both nursed by the sea-side, the one by the shores of Wales or Brittany, the other by the beach of Rhode Island. "No spot on earth," says THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. Channing, "has helped to form me so much as that beach. There I lifted up my voice in praise amidst the tempest. There, softened by beauty, I poured out my thanksgiving and contrite confessions. There, in reverential sympathy with the mighty power around me, I became conscious of power within." How long before the human soul shall reach so full a developmeat, that faith and works, reason and authority, human ability and divine grace shall be deemed harmonious, and men cease to be divided by an Augustine and Pelagius, or an Edwards and Channing? Although this consummation may not soon, if ever, be, and opinions may still differ, charity has gained somewhat in the lapse of centu ries. Those who are usually considered the followers of Pelagius have been first to print a complete work of Augustine in America-his Confessions. The Roman Church, backed by imperial power and not che ked by Augustine, drove the intrepid Briton into exile and an unknown grave. He who more than any other inan wore his mantle of moral freedom in our age died, honored throughout Christendom, and the bell of a Roman cathedral joined in the requiem as his remains were borne through the thronged streets of the city of his home. THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILA- Tuis association originated in the social gatherings A meeting was called for this purpose by Messrs. Speakman and Gilliams at the residence of the first named on the evening of January 25, 1812, at which the following persons were present by invitation-Dr. Gerard Troost, Dr. Camillus McMahon Man, Messrs. John Shinn, Jr., Nicholas S. Parmentier. Steps were taken to form an organization, which was perfected on the 21st of March following, and the name of Thomas Say was by general consent added to the number of original members. An upper room was rented, and the collection of books and specimens commenced. Thomas Say was appointed the first Curator. By THOMAS SAY was born in the city of Philadelphia, July 27, 1787. He was the son of Dr. Benjamin Say, a druggist, who introduced him into the same business. He subsequently became associated in business with his friend Speakman. injudicious endorsements the partnership became involved, and the business brought to a close. Mr. Say afterwards became curator of the Academy. His simple habits of life, while thus occnpied, are pleasantly described by Dr. Ruschenberger: "He resided in the Hall of the Academy, where he made his bed beneath a skeleton of a horse, and fed himself on bread and milk; occasionally he cooked a chop or boiled an egg; but he was wont to regard eating as an inconvenient interruption to scientific pursuits, and often expressed a wish 575 that he had been made with a hole in his side, in which he night deposit, from time to time, the quantity of food requisite for his nourishment. He lived in this manner several years, during which time his food did not cost, on an average, more than twelve cents a day." In 1818 Mr. Say joined Messrs. Maclure, Ord, and Peale, in a scientific exploration of the islands and coast of Georgia. They visited East Florida for the same purpose; but their progress to the interior was arrested by the hostilities between the people of the United States and the Indians. In 1819-20 he accompanied as chief geologist the expedition headed by Major Long to the Rocky Mountains, and in 1823 to the sources of the St. Peter's river and adjoining country. In 1825 he removed with Maclure and Owen to the New separation of his two associates as agent of the Harmony settlement. He remained after the property, and died of a fever, October 10, 1834. Ilis chief work is his American Entomology, published at Philadelphia in three beautifully illustrated octavo volumes, by S. A. Mitchell, in 1824-5. He also commenced a work on American Conchology, six numbers of which were pub lished before his death. He was also a frequent contributor to the journal of the Academy and other similar periodicals. His discoveries in Entomology are said to have probably been greater than those ever made by any single individual.* GERARD TROOST, the first President of the Academy, was born at Bois le Duc, Holland, March 15, 1776. He was educated in his native country, received the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Leyden, and practised for 8 short time at Amsterdam and the Hague. He then entered the army, where he served at first as a private soldier and afterwards as an officer of the first rank in the medical department. In 1807 he was sent by Louis Buonaparte, then King of Holland, to Paris to pursue his favorite studies in natural science. He there translated into the Dutch language Humboldt's Aspects of Nature. In 1809 he was sent by the King of Holland to Java, on a tour of scientific observation. He took passage from a northern port in an American vessel to escape the British cruisers, proposing to sail to New York and thence to his destination. The vessel was, however, captured by a French privateer, and carried into Dunkirk, where the naturalist was imprisoned until the French government was informed of his position. On his release, he proceeded to Paris, where he obtained a passport for America. embarked at Rochelle, and arrived at Philadel phia in 1810. He After the abdication of Louis Buonaparte, he determined to make the United States his permament residence, and turned his chemical knowledge to good account by establishing a manufactory of alum in Maryland. Dr. Troost resigned the presidency of the Academy in 1817, and was succeeded by Mr. Maclure. He was afterwards, about 1821, appointed the first Professor of Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy at Philadelphia, but resigned in the following year. • Encyclopædia Americana, xiv. 683, In 1825 he joined Owen's community at New Harimony, where he remained until 1827, when he removed to Nashville. In the following year he became professor of Chemistry, Geology, and Mineralogy in the University of that city, and in 1831 Geologist of the state of Tennessee, an office he retained until its abolition in 1849. Dr. Troost died at Nashville on the 14th of Angust, 1850. During his presidency the Academy removed, in 1815, to a hall built for its accommodation by Mr. Gilliams, in Gilliams court, Arch street, and placed at its disposal at an annual rent of two hundred dollars. WILLIAM MACLURE, the successor of Dr. Troost, was born in Scotland in 1763. After acquiring a large fortune by his commercial exertions in London, he established himself about the close of the century in the United States. In 1803 he returned to England as one of a commission appointed to settle claims of American merchants for spoliations committed by France during her revolution. On his return, he made a geological survey of the United States. "He went forth," says a writer in the Encyclopedia Americana,* “ with his hammer in his hand, and his wallet on his shoulder, pursuing his researches in every direction, often amid pathless tracts and dreary solitudes, until he had crossed and recrossed the Alleghany mountains no less than fifty times. He encountered all the privations of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and exposure, month after month, and year after year, until his indomitable spirit had conquered every difficulty and crowned his enterprise with success." Mr. Maclure published an account of his researches, with a map and other illustrations, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, in 1817. It bears date January 20, 1809, and was the first work of the kind undertaken in the United States. Mr. Maclure became a member of the Academy on the sixth of June, 1812, and its president on the thirtieth of December, 1817. He was a munificent benefactor as well as valuable member of the association, his gifts amounting in the aggregate to $25,000. One of his favorite plans of public usefulness was the establishment of an University for the study of the natural sciences. Selecting Owen's settlement at New Harmony as the field of his operations, he persuaded Dr. Troost and Messrs. Say and Lesueur to accompany him in 1825 to that place. After the failure of the scheme Mr. Maclure visited Mexico, in the hope of restoring his impaired health, and died at the capital of that Country during a second visit, on the 23d of March, 1840. Mr. Maclure presented over five thousand volumes to the library of the academy, and purchased in Paris the copperplates of several important and costly works on botany and ornithology, with a view to their reproduction in a cheap form in the United States. It is to his liberality thus exerted, that we owe the American edition of Michaud's Sylva by Thomas Nuttall. On the death of Mr. Maclure, Mr. William Hembel became president of the Academy. Mr. Hembel was born at Philadelphia, September 24, xiv. 407. 1764. He studied medicine, and served as a voJunteer in the medical department of the army in Virginia during a portion of the Revolution, but owing to a deafness which he believed would incapacitate him for duty as a practitioner, refused to apply for the diploma which he was fully qualified to receive. He, however, practised for many years gratuitously among the poor of the city, and was in other respects conspicuous for benevolence. His favorite branch of study was chemistry. Mr. Hembel resigned his presidency in consequence of advancing infirmity, in December, 1849, and died on the 12th of June, 1851. Ho was succeeded by Dr. Morton. SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON was born at Philadelphia in 1799. His father died when he was quite young, and he was placed at a Quaker school by his mother, a member of that society. From this he was removed to a counting-house, but manifesting a distaste for business was allowed to follow the bent of his inclination and study for a profession. That of medicine was the one scfected-Quaker tenets tolerating neither priest nor lawyer. After passing through the usual course of preliminary study under the able guidance of the celebrated Dr. Joseph Parrish, he received a diploma, and soon after sailed for Europe, on a visit to his uncle. He passed two winters in attendance on the medical lectures of the Edinburgh school, and one in a similar manner at Paris, travelling on the Continent during the summer. He returned in 1824, and commenced practice. He had before his departure been imade a member of the Academy, and now took an active part in its proceedings. Geology was his favorite pursuit. In 1827 he published an Analysis of Tabular Spar from Bucks County; in 1834 A Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States; in the same year a medical work, Illustrations of Palmonary Consumption, its Anatomical Characters, Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment, with twelve colored plates; and in 1849, An Illustrated System of Human Anatomy, Special, General, and Microscopic. During this period he was actively engaged in the duties of his profession, having, in addition to a large private practice, filled the professorship of Anatomy in Pennsylvania College, from 1839 to 1843, and served for several years as one of the physicians and clinical teachers of the Alms-House Hospital. He commenced in 1830 his celebrated collection of skulls, one of the most important labors of his life. He thus relates its origin : "Having had occasion, in the summer of 1830, to deliver an introductory lecture to a course of Anatomy, I chose for my subject The different Forms of the Skull, as exhibited in the fire Races of Men. Strange to say, I could neither buy nor borrow a cranium of each of these races, and I finished my discourse without showing either the Mongolian or the Malay. Forcibly impressed with this great deficiency in a most important branch of science, I at onco resolved to make a collection for myself." His friends warmly seconded his endeavors, and the collection, increased by the exertions of over one hundred contributors in all parts of the world, soon became largo and valuable. At the time of his death it numbered 918 human specimens. It has been purchased by subscription for, and is now deposited in, the Academy, and is by far the finest collection of its kind in existence. The first use made of the collection by Morton was the preparation of the Crania Americana, published in 1839, with finely executed lithographic illustrations. It was during the progress of this work that he became acquainted with George R. Gliddon, of Cairo, in consequence of an application to him for Egyptian skulls. It was followed after the arrival of Mr. Gliddon, in 1842, by an intimate acquaintance, and the publication in 1844 of a large and valuable work, the Crania Egyptiaca. Morton finally adopted the theory of a diverse origin of the human race, and maintained a controversy on the subject with the Rev. Dr. John Bachman of Charleston. Dr. Morton died at Philadelphia, after an illness of five days, on the 15th of May, 1851. A selection of his inedited papers was published, with additional contributions from Dr. J. C. Nott and George R. Gliddon, under the title of Types of Mankind: or Ethnological Researches, based upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and upon their Natural, Geographical, Philological, and Biblical History. It is prefaced by a memoir of Dr. Morton, to which we are indebted for the materials of this notice. JOSIAH C. NOTT, the son of the Hon. Abraham Nott, was born in Union District, South Carolina, March 31, 1804. His father removed with his family in the following year to Columbia. After his graduation at the college of South Carolina in 1824, Mr. Nott commenced the study of medicine in Philadelphia, where he received his diploma in 1828. After officiating as demonstrator of Anatony to Drs. Physick and Hosack for two years, he returned to Columbia, where he remained, engaged in practice, until 1835. A portion of the two succeeding years was passed in professional study abroad. In 1836 he removed to Mobile, Alabama, where he has since residel. In 1848 he published his chief work-The Biblical and Physical History of Man. He has also written much on Medical Science, the Natural History of Man, Life Insurance, and kindred topics, for the American Journal of Medical Science, the Charleston Medical Journal, New Orleans Medical Journal, De Bow's Commercial Review, the Southern Quarterly Review, and other periodicals. MR. GEORGE ORD, the friend, assistant, and biographer of Wilson, himself a distinguished ornithologist, succeeded Dr. Morton. In 1826 the Academy purchased a building, originally erected as a Swedenborgian place of worship, to which its collections were removed. Their increase, after a few years, rendered enlarged accommodations necessary, and on the 25th of May, 1839, the corner-stone of the building in Broad street, now occupied by the institution, was laid. The first meeting was held in the new hall on the 7th of February, 1840. In 1847 an enlargement became necessary, and was effected. In 1817 the Society commenced the publication of The Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciencer. It was published at first monthly, and VOI., II.-87 afterwards continued at irregular intervals until 1842. In March, 1841, the publication of the Proceedings of the Academy was commenced. It is still continued; the numbers appearing once in every two months. A second series of the Journal was commenced in December, 1847. These periodicals are supported by subscriptions, and by the interest on a legacy of two thousand dollars, bequeathed by Mrs. Elizabeth Stott.* JOHN C. FREMONT. JOHN CHARLES FREMONT is the son of a French emigrant gentleman, who married a Virginia lady. He was born in South Carolina, January, 1813. His father dying when he was four years old, the care of his education devolved upon his mother. He advanced so rapidly in his studies that he was graduated at the Charleston College at the age of seventeen. After passing a short time in teaching mathematics, by which he was enabled to contribute to the support of his mother and family, he devoted himself to civil engi neering with such success that he obtained an appointment in the government expedition for the survey of the head waters of the Mississippi, and was afterwards employed at Washington in drawing maps of the country visited. He next proposed to the Secretary of War to make an exploration across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. The plan was approved, and in 1842, with a small company of men, he explored and opened to commerce and emigration the great South Pass. In his Report, published by governinent on his return, he portrayed the natural features, climate, and productions of the region through which he had passed, with great fulness and clearness. His adventures were also described in a graphic and animated style; and the book, though a government report, was very widely circulated, and has since been reprinted by publishers in this country and England, and translated into various foreign languages. Stimulated by his success and love of adventure, he soon after planned an expedition to Oregon. Not satisfied with his discoveries in approaching the mountains by a new route, crossing their summits below the South Pass, visiting the Great Salt Lake and effecting a junction with the surveying party of the Exploring Expedition, he determined to change his course on his return. With but twenty-five companions, without a guide, and in the face of approaching winter, he entered a vast unknown region. The exploration was one of peril, and was carried through with great hardship and suffering, and some loss of life. No tidings were received from the party for nine months, while, travelling thirty-five hundred miles in view of, or over perpetual snows, they made known the region of Alta California, including the Sierra Nevada, the valleys of San Joaquin and Sacramento, the gold region, and almost the whole surface of the country. Fremont returned to Washington in August, 1844. He wrote a Report of his second Notice of the Origin, Progress, and Present Condition of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia By W. J.. W. Ruschenberger, M. D., Phila. 1852, |