chusetts, who was Secretary of War, and Mr. Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, who was Attorney-General, these officials being designated by the act, with the Secretary of State, a tribunal to examine and grant patents; and that these three distinguished officials would examine the application critically, scrutinizing each point of the specification and claims carefully and vigorously. The result of this examination was that, during the first year, a majority of the applications failed to pass the ordeal, and only three patents were granted. Every step in the issuing of a patent was taken with great care and caution, Mr. Jefferson thinking always to impress upon the minds of his officers and the public that it was a matter of no ordinary import ance. The subsequent history of the office is very interesting, especially since it contains a record of Mr. Jefferson's vigorous opposition to the change effected by the act of 1793, which he held, by a promiscuous granting of exclusive privileges, would lead to the creation of monopoly in the arts and industries, and was against the theory of a popular government, and would be pernicious in its effects. In 1812 a building was put up for the accommodation of the office, but this was destroyed in 1836, and with it most of the records which would be necessary for a proper understanding of the early history of American invention. In the Patent-Office building, and with it destroyed, there was gathered a collection of models, which was sometimes by courtesy called the "American Museum of Art," and which afforded a precedent for the larger collection of models and natural products, which remained under the custody of the Commissioner of Patents until 1858, when it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and became a part of the present National Museum. In 1836 the patent system was reorganized, and most of the methods at present in use were put in operation. As it now stands, it is one of the most perfect and effective in the world, and the Patent Office, judged by the charac 8 ter of the work it performs, although, perhaps, not strictly to be classed among the scientific institutions, is, nevertheless, entitled to such a place by reason of its large and admirable corps of trained scientific experts serving on the staff of examiners.' The administration of John Adams, beginning in 1797, was short and turbulent. Political strife prevented him from making any impression upon our scientific history; but it requires no research to discern the attitude of the man who founded the American Academy, and who drew up the articles for the encouragement of literature and science in the Constitution of Massachusetts. Jefferson, as Vice-President, taking little part in the affairs of the Administration, was at liberty to cultivate the sciences. When he came to Philadelphia to be inaugurated VicePresident, he brought with him a collection of the fossilized bones of some large quadruped, and the manuscript of a memoir upon them, which he read before the American Philosophical Society, of which he had been elected president the preceding year. "The spectacle of an American Statesman, coming to take part as a central figure in the greatest political ceremony of our country, and bringing with him an original contribution to science, is certainly," as Luther has said, "one we shall not soon see repeated.' In 1801 began the administration most memorable in the history of American science. The President of the United States was, during the eight years of his office, President of 1 See Official Gazette, U. S. Patent Office, vol. xii., No. 15, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 1877; also articles in Appleton's and Johnson's Cyclopædias. The history of the Patent Office has never been written; a full account of its work, and of its influence upon the progress of American invention is greatly to be desired. 2 See Jefferson, "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped, of the Clawed Kind, in the Western Part of Virginia," in the American Philosophical Transactions, IV., p. 246, (March 10, 1797); also F. B. Luther, "Jefferson as a Naturalist," in the Magazine of American History, March, 1885, pp. 379-390. the American Philosophical Society as well, and was in touch with all the intellectual activities of the period. He wrote to a correspondent: "Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight," and to another he said: "Your first letter gives me information in the line of natural history, and the second promises political news; the first is my passion, the last is my duty, and therefore both desirable." "At times of the fiercest party conflict," says Luther, "when less happily constituted minds would scarcely have been able to attend to the routine duties of life, we find him yielding to that subtle native force which all through life was constantly drawing him away from politics to science." Thus during these exciting weeks in February, 1801, when Congress was vainly trying to untangle the difficulties arising from the tie vote between Jefferson and Burr, when every politician at the capital was busy with schemes and counter-schemes, this man, whose political fate was balanced on a razor's edge, was corresponding with Dr. Wistar in regard to some bones of the mammoth which he had just procured from Shawangunk in New York. Again, in 1808, when the excitement over the " Embargo" was highest, and when every day brought fresh denunciations of him and his policy, he was carrying on his geological studies in the White House itself. Under his direction upward of three hundred specimens of fossil bones had been brought from the famous Big Bone Lick and spread in one of the large unfinished rooms of the Presidential mansion. Dr. Wistar was asked to come to Philadelphia and select such as were needed to complete the collection of the Philosophical Society. The exploration of the lick was made at the private expense of Jefferson through the agency of General William Clarke, the Western explorer, and this may fairly be regarded as the beginning of American governmental work in paleontology. His scientific tendencies led to much criticism, of which the well-known lines by William Cullen Bryant, in "The Em bargo," afford a very mild example.' He cast all calumny aside with the remark "that he who had nothing to conceal from the press had nothing to fear from it," and calmly went on his way. The senior members of his Cabinet were James Madison, a man of the most enlightened sympathy with science, and Gallatin, one of the earliest American philologists; while one of his strongest supporters in Congress was Samuel Latham Mitchill, a mighty promoter of scientific interests in his native State, whom Adams wittily describes as "chemist, botanist, naturalist, physician, and politician, who supported the Republican party because Jefferson was its leader, and Jefferson because he was a philosopher." During this administration the project for a great national institution of learning was revived by Joel Barlow. In 1800, when Barlow was the American Minister in Paris, he said in a letter to Senator Baldwin: "I have been writing a long letter to Jefferson on quite another subject. It is about learned societies, universities, public instruction, and the advantages you and I have of doing something great and good if you will take it up on proper principles. If you will put me at the head of the institution, as I propose, and give it that support which you ought to do, you can't imagine what a garden it would make of the United States. I have a great project, and only want the time and means to carry it into effect." M. Dupont de Nemours was also corresponding with Jefferson upon the same subject, and his work, "Sur l'Education Nationale dans les Etats Unis," published in Paris in 1800, was written at his request.' Barlow returned to the American States in 1805, and almost his first public act after his arrival, we are told, was 'Go, wretch, resign the Presidential chair; Or where the Ohio rolls his turbid stream ' Todd, "Life and Letters of Joel Barlow," p. 208. Adams: "Jefferson and the University of Virginia," p. 49, et seq. to issue a prospectus in which he forcibly and eloquently depicted the necessity and advantages of a National Scientific Institution. This was to consist of a central university at or near the seat of government, and, as far as might seem practicable or advisable, other universities, colleges, and schools of education, either in Washington or in other parts of the United States, together with printing-presses for the use of the Institution, laboratories, libraries, and apparatus for the sciences and the arts, and gardens for botany and agricultural experiments. The Institution was to encourage science by all means in its power, by correspondence, by premiums and by scholarships, and to publish school-books at cost of printing. The Military and Naval Academies, the Mint, and the Patent Office were to be connected with the university, and there was also to be a general depository of the results of scientific research and of the discoveries by voyages and travels, actually the equivalent of a national museum. "In short," wrote Barlow, "no rudiment of knowledge should be below its attention, no height of improvement above its ambition, no corner of an empire beyond its vigilant activity for collecting and diffusing information." 99 1 The editor of the National Intelligencer, the organ of the administration in 1806, commented favorably upon the plan of Barlow. "This gentleman," wrote he, "whose mind has been enlarged by extensive observation, by contemplating man under almost every variety of aspect in which he appears, and whose sentiments have been characterized by an uniformly zealous devotion to liberty, has most justly embraced the opinion that the duration as well as perfection of republicanism in this country will depend upon the prevalence of correct information, itself dependent upon the education of the great body of the people. Having raised himself, as we understand, to 1See text of prospectus in Appendix C to this paper, or in National Intelligencer, Washington, 1806, August 1st, and November 24th. The original publication, of which there is a copy in the Congressional Library, recently brought to my notice by Mr. Spofford, is a pamphlet, anonymously published, with the date of Washington, 24th January, 1806.— Prospectus of a | National Institution, | to be | established | in the United | Washington City | Printed by Samuel H. Smith | - | 1806 States | = 8°, pp. 1-44. |