him know, and those who have multiplied those paintings by the graphick art also know, and can verify the statement I have given, of his uncommon perception of errors, in drawings and engravings. It always took quick cognizance of those defects, which other delineators of natural objects, or, in different words, other naturalists who suffer the authenticity of their names to accompany unfaithful or caricatured representations of the works of nature, too frequently allow to escape their observation, and in this way bring into disrepute the real advantages derived from pictured illustrations.
In the year 1782 the eldest brother of the subject of this memoir, took him into his family in this city, in which situation he continued between four and five years. During this period he prosecuted his collegiate and medical studies; the first in the college of Philadelphia, where however he did not take the degree of bachelor of arts, and the latter under the celebrated anatomical professor Dr. William Shippen, with whom he commenced the study of medicine, in the beginning of his eighteenth year.
While he was yet a pupil of Dr. Shippen, he accompanied his uncle, Mr. Rittenhouse, and the other commissioners appointed for that purpose, in running the western boundary line of Pennsylvania. On this occasion he was absent from Philadelphia about five months, having set out with the commissioners in May, 1785, and returned in October following. He was then only between nineteen and twenty years of age, but from his scientifick acquirements he was an useful associate of the commissioners. It was in this excursion that he first had an opportunity of mixing with the savage natives of this country—then he first turned his attention to their manners, their history, their medicines and pathology, and to other interesting points of inquiry, all of which he pursued with
faithful representations. In evidence of this I will only mention this one fact,— that in the drawing of the horny lizard, of which he has had a superb engraving made, he caused every spinous process or horny protuberance (which were exceedingly numerous) on the back, tail, and legs of the animal, to be distinctly and separately counted, and made to correspond, even in number, in the drawing. This indeed may be considered as overreaching the point of necessary truth, and I so considered and still consider it; but it at least must be received as a remarkable evidence of a wish to adhere to faithfulness in portraits of nature.
