Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/385

Rh During the winter of 1793-'4 he was associated with Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and Simeon De Witt in the establishment of the Society for the promotion of agriculture, manufactures, and useful arts. Under its auspices he made a minera- logical survey of the state of New York, and his report in 1796 gained for him a wide reputation in Europe as well as in the United States. In 1797 he was again sent to the legislature from New York city, and there advocated, in the face of much ridicule and opposition, the act of 1798 that con- ferred on Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive right to navigate the waters of New York by steam. Subsequently, in 1807, he was a passenger on the first passage made in the " Cler- mont " by Robert Fulton {q. v.). He retired from his professorship at Columbia in 1801, having been elected as a Democrat to congress, and served from 1 Dec, 1801, till 22 Nov., 1804. Prof. Mitehill was then appointed to fill the vacancy in the U. S. senate from New York caused by the resignation of John Armstrong, and held that place until 3 March, 1809, after which he again served in con- gress till 3 March, 1813. In 1807, on the organi- zation of the College of physicians and surgeons in New York city, he was appointed its first professor of chemistry. This chair he declined, owing to his political duties, but in 1808 he accepted that of natural history, which he retained until 1820, when, on the reorganization of the college, he became professor of materia medica and botany. This he held until 1826, when the entire faculty resigned in a body, and Prof. Mitehill was vice-president of the medical department of Queen's (now Rutgers) college during 1826-'30. He was for twenty years a physician of the New York hospital, and in 1818 became surgeon-genei'al of the militia under Gov. De Witt Clinton. Dr. Mitehill was president of the County medical society in 1807, and in 1817 was one of the founders of the Lyceum of natural history of the city of New York, becoming its first president, and holding that place until 1823. He was also a member of learned societies at home and abroad. His public addresses were frequent and numerous. The most important of his dis- courses was that on the celebration of the comple- tion of the Erie canal in 1825. In 1797 he began the publication of the quarterly " New York Medical Repository," in connection with Dr. Edward Miller and Dr. Elihu H. Smith, and he was its chief edi- tor for more than sixteen years. His writings were numerous. Those on science, especially, were very valuable, owing to their presentation of facts then neglected in the United States, and his researches on fishes received the approbation of Cuvier. The latter, as well as most of his papers on natural history, were published through the "Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History." His "Address to the Fredes or People of the United States " (New York, 1804), in which he proposed the name of Fredonia as a new and more appropriate name for the United States, became the subject of serious debate before the New York historical society and elsewhere. The universality of his knowledge has been ably described by Dr. John W. Francis, who says : " Ancient and modern languages were un- locked to him, and a wide range of physical science the pabulum of his intellectual repast. He was now engaged with the anatomy of the ^2:,g, and now deciphering a Babylonian brick ; now involved in the nature of meteoric stones ; now in the dif- ferent species of brassica ; now in the evaporiza- tion of fresh water ; now in that of salt ; now scrutinizing the geology of Niagara: now anato- mizing the tortoise ; now offering suggestions to Garnet, of New Jersey, the correspondent of Mark Akenside, on the angle of the windmill ; and now concurring with Michaux on the beauty of the black walnut as ornamental for parlor furniture ; now with his conchological friend, Samuel Akerly, in the investigation of bivalves ; and now with the learned Jewish rabbi, Gershom Seixas, in exegeti- cal disquisitions on Kennieott's Hebrew Bible. Now he might be waited upon by the indigent philosopher, ChVistopher Colles, to countenance his measures for the introduction of the Bronx river into the city ; and now a committee of soap- boilers might seek after him to defend the in- noxious influence of their vocation in a crowded population. For his services in this cause of the chandlers, Chancellor Livingston assured him, doubtless facetiously, by letter, that he deserved a monument of hard soap ; while Mitehill, in return, complimented Livingston for his introduction of the merino sheep, as chief of the Argonauts. In the morning he might be found composing soligs for the nursery ; at noon dietetically experiment- ing and writing on fishes, or unfolding to admira- tion a new theory on terrene formations ; and at evening addressing his fair readers on the health- ful influence of the alkalies and the depurative virtues of whitewashing." Drake made Mitehill the subject of a poem, "To the Surgeon-General of the State of New York," while Halleck intro- duced him in another of " The Croakers," also in " Fanny " ; and elsewhere referred to him in prose " as not only distinguished in his profession, but as an author of popular works connected with medicine and science, and also as an active and use- ful leader in the social, literary, and scientific insti- tutions of the city. Dr. Mitehill, moreover, had won the name of a philosopher by his frequent discoveries, more or less important, in geology and other conjectural sciences." Mitehill was called the "Nestor of American science." See "Some of the Memorable Events and Occurrences in the Life of Samuel L. Mitehill, of New York, from the Year 1786 to 1827," by himself and Dr. Francis, contained in Gross's " American Medical Biography."

MITRE, Bartolomé (mee'-tray), Argentine statesman, b. in Buenos Ayres, 26 June, 1821. About 1836 he was persecuted by the dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas, on account of some patri- otic poems, and emigrated to Montevideo, where as captain he participated in the defence of the city during the first siege of 1838. He took part in conducting the journals " El Comercio," " El Ini- ciador," and " El Nacional," was chief editor of " La Nueva Era," and published in those papers his first poetical compositions. During the second siege he served again as lieutenant-colonel ; but after the revolution of 1846 he emigrated to Bo- livia, where he was made chief of staff of Gen, Adolfo Ballivian, and served in the battles of La- lava and Behistre as commander of the artillery. He defended Ballivian's government in " La Epoca." and was director of the military college ; but after Ballivian's downfall in 1847, as Mitre had refused to join the revolution, he was sent over the frontier to Peru, whence he went to Chili. Then he became editor of " El Mercurio," of Val- paraiso, in 1849, and was also assistant editor of " El Progreso " in Santiago, but, on account of his opposition to the government, he was banished and went to Peru in 1851. He soon returned to Cliili, and, when he heard of the rising in the Argentine Republic against Rosas, he joined the revolution- ary forces of the interior provinces under Urquiza, and commanded the artillery in the decisive battle of Monte Caseros, 2 Feb., 1852. After the flight