Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/920

838 Among the early printed works of Dr. Barton was a Memoir concerning the Fascinating Faculty which has been ascribed to the Rattlesnake and other North American Serpents, published in 1796. He issued a supplement to this memoir four years later, and a new edition in 1814. The original paper had been read before the American Philosophical Society. He also undertook a work on the materia medica of the United States, issuing an opening part in 1798, a second part in 1804, and an edition of the two combined in 1810. His most important publication was his Elements of Botany, a work of 508 pages, octavo, illustrated with thirty plates, which first appeared in two volumes in 1803. A second edition of the first volume was issued in 1812, and of the second volume in 1814, with forty plates. After the author's death. Dr. William P. C. Barton published, in 1836, a revised edition in one volume, condensed by omitting the quotations from Latin and English poets, certain tabular views that had become antiquated, and the index. To this edition is prefixed a biographical sketch, prepared by Dr. W. P. C. Barton at the request of the Philadelphia Medical Society, of which Dr. B. S. Barton had been president from February, 1809, till he died, and read before that society February 24, 1816. The Elements of Botany was republished in London, and was translated into Russian.

Another considerable work was his New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, which appeared in 1798. Other subjects on which he published more or less fully were the natural history of Pennsylvania, the disease of goiter, the generation of the opossum, the principal desiderata in natural history (read before the Philadelphia Linnæan Society), Siren lacertina, the hellbender, the bite of the rattlesnake, the honeybee, the jerboa, and the stimulant effects of camphor upon vegetables. He issued also the first part, sixty-four pages, of a work on paleontology, entitled Archceologiæ Americanæ Telluris Collectanea et Specimina. In the preface to this fragment he says, "I at one time, indeed for some years together, flattered myself that I should have found leisure to have devoted a considerable portion of my life to the study of organic geology," but adds that his recent succession to the chair of Dr. Rush would prevent any extensive or systematic attention to this subject. An ardent thirst for literary fame, which was present in Prof. Barton throughout his life, made him an indefatigable student and writer. Several ambitious undertakings were left unfinished by him. The following three papers that he had read before the American Philosophical Society remained unpublished at his death: a eulogy on Dr. Priestley, with whom Dr. Barton had been acquainted; a geographical view of the trees and shrubs of North America; and a memoir (which gained the Magellanic premium) concerning a considerable