Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/271

 Rh "he will he remembered ever as one who did honor to his country and enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge." A worthy monument stands to his memory over his burial place at New Harmony.

One of the most attractive of our pioneer naturalists was the artist, Charles Alexander Le Sueur, who was a native of France, but had lived for a time in Philadelphia, from which place he came to New Harmony in the "boat-load of knowledge." But before leaving France his fame had become widespread. He enjoyed the friendship and correspondence of Cuvier. He had been around the world as a naturalist in the celebrated voyage of Péron. He was one of the most careful of observers and had singular skill in drawing and painting animals. The turtles and fishes were his special subjects of study, and his pictures of them are among the most lifelike ever published. He had been the first naturalist to study the fishes of the Great Lakes and the first to examine the great group of fishes called suckers and buffaloes. He made large collections of the animals of the Wabash Valley, which he sent to Cuvier, and which are still preserved in the museum at Paris. A number of his water· color sketches remain; one, a small but very lifelike portrait of the old Governor Francis Vigo, I have seen in Indianapolis. Le Sueur painted the drop curtain of the theater at the Community Hall. It represented the Falls of Niagara, and to heighten the Americanism of the scene he painted by the side of the Falls that other great wonder of the New World, the rattlesnake.

When the community disbanded, Le Sueur returned to Philadelphia, earning thereafter, it is said, a precarious living by giving lessons in painting. Afterward he returned to France, where he became curator of the museum at Havre. Richard Owen was a great favorite with Le Sueur, and I have already published in these pages Owen's account of him and of the days when as a boy he waded barefooted in the bayous of the Wabash to gather mussel shells for the naturalist.

Dr. Gerard Troost, a Dutch geologist, was also a member of the community, and after leaving it he became State Geologist of Tennessee. He made a magnificent collection of minerals, which was purchased, it is said, by a society in Louisville for thirty thousand dollars.

Dr. Joseph F. Neef, a blunt, plain-spoken, honest man, was the teacher of New Harmony, and he was a great favorite with his pupils. He was born in Alsace, and in his early life had been both priest and soldier. He was a mathematician of great ability. After leaving the army he became an associate of Pestalozzi in his school near Yverdun in Switzerland. He was mentioned by Pestalozzi as an earnest, manly worker who did not disdain to