Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/705

Rh special duty was to report on the more important post-mortem examinations made, and several of these reports, with beautiful illustrative drawings, are published in the "Medical and Surgical History of the War."

In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Natural History in Swarthmore College, a position which his natural aptitude for imparting scientific information makes pleasant to him.

Apart from the record of his intellectual activity there is but little more to be stated regarding Dr. Leidy, for we are of the opinion that in an article of this kind a eulogium would be out of place, although in the present instance there is every temptation to write a warm one. Since his election to his professorship in the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Leidy's life has been the placid one of the student. At the earliest possible moment he had resolved to depend wholly on his own efforts for a livelihood. The struggle had been severe, the work incessant, and the success achieved at the early age of thirty years was due, not at all to social or family influence, but solely to personal merit. Since 1853 his published works have been his "footprints on the sands of time," and it only remains to allude briefly to the more important of these, and to his connection with an institution which in no small degree has been instrumental in enabling him to secure his present enviable position in the scientific world.

In 1844 Dr. Amos Binney, who then contemplated the publication of his superb work on the terrestrial air-breathing mollusks of the United States, was desirous of employing an anatomist who was also an artist, to dissect and draw the internal organs of the species to be described. On the recommendation of Dr. Goddard, Dr. Leidy was selected to take charge of the work. The result was the production of sixteen plates, giving the anatomy of thirty-eight species of native mollusks with a beauty of finish and accuracy of detail which have never been excelled. Dr. Leidy afterward wrote the chapter of the introduction entitled "Special Anatomy of the Terrestrial Mollusks of the United States."

Dr. Binney's intention, after the work had progressed sufficiently to demonstrate the ability of the artist to render much higher service than that of a mere draughtsman, was that Dr. Leidy should give a complete anatomical and physiological description of the terrestrial gasteropoda of the United States, including the special and general anatomy, with the embryology of the several genera. Before the special anatomy was completed, however, the death of Dr. Binney put a stop to the work. Referring to Dr. Leidy's dissections and drawings, Dr. Binney very justly remarks in his preface, "They constitute the most novel and important accession to science contained in the work, and are an honorable evidence of a skill and industry which entitle him to a high rank among philosophical zoölogists."

Dr. Leidy's studies of the terrestrial gasteropods excited the