CHAPTER XIX

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE

The "Eccentric Naturalist" at Henderson—Bats and new species—The demolished violin—"M. de T.": Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (Schmaltz)—His precocity, linguistic acquirements and peripatetic habits—First visit to America and botanical studies—Residence in Sicily, and fortune made in the drug trade—Association with Swainson—Marriage and embitterment—His second journey to America ends in shipwreck—Befriended—Descends the Ohio in a flatboat—Visit with Audubon, who gives him many strange "new species"—Cost to zoology—His unique work on Ohio fishes—Professorship in Transylvania University—Quarrel with its president and trustees—Return to Philadelphia—His ardent love of nature; his writings and fatal versatility—His singular will—His sad end and the ruthless disposition of his estate.

Audubon's humorous sketch of "The Eccentric Naturalist" has often been quoted, and it presents a picture which is amusing, however short of the truth it may fall or however it may fail in doing justice to its subject. Though his real hero is not named, no doubt as to his identity has ever been entertained. This episode occurred at Henderson in the late summer of 1818, and was published thirteen years after in the _Biography_ of birds.[263] Since the story was not fully told then and the after-effects were productive of much harsh criticism, it cannot be overlooked if we would do justice to both the writer and his subject.

When walking one day by the river, to follow Audubon's story, he saw a man landing from a boat with what appeared like a bundle of dried clover on his back; he concluded from his appearance that the stranger must be "an original," a term which had been applied also to himself. A meeting followed, and the stranger, who had inquired for Mr. Audubon's house, explained that he was a naturalist, and had come to see Audubon's drawings of birds and plants; he bore also a letter from a friend, introducing "an odd fish" which might "prove to be undescribed." The visitor was made welcome in Audubon's Henderson home, where, to quote the naturalist,

at table his agreeable conversation made us all forget his singular appearance.... A long loose coat of yellow nankeen, much the worse of the many rubs it had got in its time, and stained all over with the juice of plants, hung loosely about him like a sac. A waistcoat of the same, with enormous pockets, and buttoned up to the chin, reached below over a pair of tight pantaloons, the lower parts of which were buttoned down to the ankles. His beard was as long as I have known mine to be during some of my peregrinations, and his lank black hair hung loosely over his shoulders. His forehead was so broad and prominent that any tyro in phrenology would instantly have pronounced it to be the residence of a mind of strong powers. His words impressed an assurance of rigid truth, and as he directed the conversation to the study of the natural sciences, I listened to him with as much delight as Telemachus could have listened to Mentor.

All had retired for the night when of a sudden a great uproar was heard in the visitor's room. To his great astonishment, Audubon found his guest running about the apartment naked, holding the "handle" of his host's favorite violin, the body of which had been battered to pieces against the walls in the attempt to secure a number of fluttering bats which had entered by an open window. "I stood amazed," said Audubon, "but he continued jumping and running round and round, until he was fairly exhausted, when he begged me to procure one of the animals for him, as he felt convinced they belonged to 'a new species.' Although I was convinced to the contrary, I took up the bow of my demolished Cremona, and administering a sharp tap to each of the bats as it came up, soon had specimens enough." Other incidents of this visit, which Audubon said lasted three weeks, are fully recorded. The eccentric naturalist collected an abundance of plants, shells, bats and fishes. One evening he failed to appear, and after a prolonged search was nowhere to be found; nor were the Audubons wholly assured of his safety until some weeks later they received a letter with due acknowledgments of their hospitality.

The "M. de T." of this episode was Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, in many respects the most singular figure that has ever appeared in the annals of American science. Although young in years, for Rafinesque was then but thirty-five, he was already old in experience and that of the bitterest sort; and although already known to many in both hemispheres, he had few friends. It is certain that neither Audubon nor anyone else in that part of Kentucky had ever heard of him before.

Born in Constantinople, of a father who was a French merchant from Marseilles and of a mother with a German name who by nativity was Greek, Rafinesque had known life in many lands, and was destined, as he said, to be a traveler from the cradle to the tomb.[264] His first voyage, made with his parents on their return to France, by way of Scutari in Asia, Smyrna, and Malta, led to his first discovery, when he was a year old, for he was able to announce that "infants are not subject to sea-sickness." At eleven he read Latin and collected plants; at thirteen he wrote his first scientific paper, "Notes on the Apennines," which he had seen when traveling from Leghorn to Genoa. His father, who set out for China in 1791, fell in with pirates, but managed to reach America; he died of the yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793. To escape the Reign of Terror in France, Rafinesque's mother fled with her children to Italy, where four years were passed at Leghorn. There Constantine studied with private tutors, but his education was never formal and he was allowed to follow his omnivorous tastes, reading, as he said, ten times more than was taught in the schools. His writings are mainly in French, Italian, and English, and his facility with languages was no doubt remarkable, even if we discount his egotized estimate of his own attainments: "I have undertaken to read the Latin and Greek, as well as the Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, and fifty other languages, as I felt the need or inclination to study them."

In 1802 Rafinesque was sent with his brother to America and became a shipper's, clerk at Philadelphia, where he spent all of his spare time in the study of nature, plants being his first and greatest love. Here he was befriended by Dr. Benjamin Rush, and during this period he made the acquaintance of many pioneer naturalists in the United States. In 1805 the offer of a lucrative situation in Sicily lured him back to the Old World and to a country already known to him. There he soon discovered the medicinal squill, of ancient repute and thought to be an antidote, which in the form of syrup was long the bane of childhood; this and other medicinal drugs he exported to the European and American markets in such quantities that before the secret of his trade became known to the jealous Sicilians, he had reaped from it, in conjunction with his other enterprises, a small fortune. During the ten years that were spent in Sicily we find him the manager of a successful whisky distillery, the chancellor or secretary of the American Consulate at Palermo, editor, writer, and correspondent of learned men in Europe, as well as traveler and explorer in every part of the island, which he proposed to monograph with all of its contents. At Palermo Rafinesque met the English naturalist, William Swainson, his lifelong correspondent; together they tramped over the island and together they worked for a number of years on the fishes of the western coast.[265] Swainson, who became the friend of Audubon, was one of the few who later defended Rafinesque.

Rafinesque espoused a Sicilian woman of the Catholic faith, and had by her two children, of whom a daughter lived to maturity; this experience seems to have embittered him against the sex, for no other woman excepting his mother, to whom his _Life of Travels_ was dedicated, was ever mentioned in his writings, and this one was disinherited in his extraordinary will. Through fear of being drafted into the French wars, he assumed for a time his mother's family name of Schmaltz, and finally left Sicily in disgust; taking with him his fortune and "fifty boxes of personal goods," he set out again for America in 1815. Sicily, he declared in epigram, offered "a fruitful soil, a delightful climate, excellent productions, perfidious men, deceitful women."

This second voyage to the New World began late in July but did not end until 100 days later, when, on the night of November 2, his ship ran on the Race Rocks near New London, at the western end of Long Island Sound, and eventually went down within sight of land with all his possessions. "I had lost everything," he said, "my fortune, my share of the cargo, my collections and labors for twenty years past, my books, my manuscripts, my drawings, even my clothes ... all that I possessed, except some scattered funds, and the insurance ordered in England for one third of the value of my goods." "I have found men," he continued, "vile enough to laugh without shame at my misfortune, instead of condoling with me! But I have met also with friends who deplored my loss, and helped me in need." One of these friends was Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell of New York, who had given a helping hand to Audubon,[266] and it was probably through him that Rafinesque obtained a position as private tutor in a family living on the Hudson. Traveling up and down the country, collecting objects in natural history, writing, with frustrated attempts at business, occupied a number of the following years; meanwhile he had aided in founding the Lyceum of New York and had become a member of the Literary and Philosophical Society. At Philadelphia he found another friend in Mr. John O. Clifford, of Lexington, Kentucky, who encouraged him to visit the West, and in the spring of 1818 he descended the Ohio in an "ark" in company with several others who had joined him in the enterprise. At Shippingport he was welcomed by the Tarascon brothers, flour merchants, formerly of Marseilles and Philadelphia, and it was through them, possibly, that he first heard of Audubon's drawings of birds.

Such was the "odd fish" who a little later greeted Audubon on the river bank at Henderson. Had Audubon known the true history of his visitor either then or at a later time, he would not, we believe, have held him up to ridicule in the "Episode" quoted above, and could he have foreseen the unpleasant consequences that ensued, his conduct would assuredly have been different. A part of the episode, which Audubon does not relate, was supplied by another naturalist at a much later day.[267] Audubon, it seems, was at that time a good deal of a wag, and whether to vent his dislike of species-mongers, to avenge the loss of his violin, or to gratify some spirit of mischief, he played upon the credulity of his guest, in a way that could be deemed hardly creditable, in giving him detailed descriptions and even supplying him with drawings of sundry impossible fishes and mollusks. Rafinesque took the bait eagerly, duly noted down everything on the spot, and, what was more unfortunate for American zoölogy, a year later began to publish the results. The fictitious species of fish, to the number of ten, "communicated by Mr. Audubon," first appeared as a series of articles in a short-lived and long forgotten western magazine,[268] but in 1820 they were gathered into a little volume [269] now considered so quaint and rare that it has been reproduced in its entirety. In this pioneer work on the ichthyology of the Ohio River and the great Middle West, 111 kinds of American fresh-water fishes are briefly described. Those ten "new species," representing apparently a number of new genera, "so like and yet so unlike to anything yet known," long remained a stumbling block to American zoölogists; naturally they tended to discredit the work of Rafinesque.

As a specimen of these spurious fish stories, which were previously published in both America and Europe, we reproduce a part of Rafinesque's description of the "91st. Species. Devil-Jack Diamond-fish. Litholepis adamantinus":

This may be reckoned the wonder of the Ohio. It is only found as far up as the falls, and probably lives also in the Mississippi. I have seen it, but only at a distance, and have been shown some of its singular scales. Wonderful stories are related concerning this fish, but I have principally relied upon the description and figure given me by Mr. Audubon. Its length is from 4 to 10 feet. One was caught which weighed four hundred pounds. It lies sometimes asleep or motionless on the surface of the water, and may be mistaken for a log or a snag. It is impossible to take it in any other way than with the seine or a very strong hook, the prongs of the gig cannot pierce the scales which are as hard as flint, and even proof against lead balls! Its flesh is not good to eat. It is a voracious fish: Its vulgar names are Diamond fish, (owing to its scales being cut like diamonds) Devil fish, Jack fish, Garjack, &c.... The whole body covered with large stone scales laying in oblique rows, they are conical, pentagonal, and pentædral with equal sides, from half an inch to one inch in diameter, brown at first, but becoming of the colour of turtle shell when dry: they strike fire with steel! and are ball proof!

While we cannot defend Audubon in his treatment of Rafinesque, it would be hardly fair to judge such incidents wholly in the light of after events, for, as our narrative will show, it is unlikely that he ever saw Rafinesque or heard of him again until long years after this incident, certainly not until after his "Episode" was published in 1831.[270] Rafinesque evidently enjoyed this sketch of himself, for he gave unstinted praise to the work in which it was published. As late as 1832, when the appearance of _The Birds of America_ seems to have stimulated him to even more grandiose conceptions of his own merits than was usual, he declared that his discoveries were counted by the thousand, and that he had traveled twenty thousand miles, always collecting and drawing. In view of the fact that drawing was a talent which nature had unequivocally denied him, it is interesting to read this boast that an unfriendly critic drew forth: "My illustrations of 30 years' travels, with 2,000 figures will soon begin to be published, and be superior to those of my friend Audubon, in extent and variety, if not equal in beauty. I shall study and write as long as I live, in spite of all such mean attempts against my reputation and exertions, trusting in the justice of liberal men."[271]

After leaving Audubon at Henderson in the summer of 1818, Rafinesque passed down the Ohio into the Mississippi, pausing only to pay his respects at the famous communistic settlement of New Harmony, by the mouth of the Wabash in Indiana, then the abode of Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and Charles Le Sueur, all of whom have left bright and honored names in the annals of American science. He eventually returned to Philadelphia by way of Lexington, Kentucky, where he was induced to settle and teach natural history and the modern languages in the Transylvania University, at that time the most important seat of learning in the West. After closing up his business affairs in Philadelphia, Rafinesque entered upon his new labors at Lexington in the autumn of 1819. He was probably the first teacher of these subjects west of the Alleghanies, and certainly the first in that section of the country to use the present object method in the elucidation of natural history. The lot of a pioneer in education has never been a sinecure, and the post which Rafinesque then filled was not a "chair" but a hard "settee." In those days the classics were in the saddle and "rode mankind," while the natural sciences, when tolerated at all, were given short shrift; yet this eccentric foreigner held his position for seven years and accomplished an extraordinary amount of work. As usual he spread his energies over the whole field of knowledge, lecturing, writing and publishing on almost every subject, but concentrating upon none. Meanwhile, he roamed far and wide and made extensive collections.

While at the Transylvania University Rafinesque seems to have applied for the master of arts' degree, but was at first refused, as he said, "because I had not studied Greek in a college, although I knew more languages than all of the American colleges united, but it was granted at last; but the Doctor of medicine was not granted, because I would not superintend anatomical dissections."

One of his many projects, as meritorious as it was impractical, at that time, was a Botanic Garden with a Library and Museum for Lexington, which was then but a small village; though land was actually secured and a start in tree planting begun, the project of course came to nothing and had to be abandoned. Rafinesque also invented, as he believed, the present coupon system of issuing bonds, the "Divitial Invention," as he called it; in 1825 he set out for Washington in order to secure his patent rights, but his journey and idea never brought him any returns. On the contrary, the incident marked the culmination of his troubles with the president of the University and its governing board, whom he seems to have constantly nettled by his independent ways and roaming habits. Upon returning from Washington he found that Dr. Holley, who, he said, "hated and despised the natural sciences" and wished to drive him out altogether, had broken into his rooms during his absence, and had "given one to the students, and thrown all my effects, books and collections in a heap in the other," besides depriving him of certain other privileges. "I took lodgings," he continued, "in town and carried there all my effects; thus leaving the college with curses on it and Holley; who were both reached by them soon after, since he died next year at sea of the yellow fever, caught at New Orleans; having been driven from Lexington by public opinion; and the College has been burnt in 1828 with all its contents."

After this unpleasant experience Rafinesque returned to Philadelphia, where he spent the last and saddest part of his checkered career. His insistent ideas, which were undoubtedly the index of an unbalanced mind, increased, especially his mania for describing "new species" of animals and plants; this mania perverted everything that he wrote, especially toward the end of his life, and made him a thorn in the side of every naturalist who tried to verify his work. A non-conformist and a respecter of no authority but his own is never popular, though a part of the antagonism which Rafinesque aroused was due to the conservatism of his age. He boldly advocated organic evolution when almost the whole world believed that species were fixed and unchangeable things, and in many other respects was fifty years ahead of his time; but nothing was ever carefully worked out in his fertile mind, with the consequence that the world paid no heed to his crude and undigested ideas.

The great mass of Rafinesque's books and monographs, his "tracts," broadsides, and ephemeral papers of all sorts, extending to nearly a thousand titles, must have gone into paper rags, when not used to kindle fires, for he was generous in their distribution, and they are now exceedingly rare. He touched nearly everything, it is true, but little that he touched, especially in this later period of his life, did he ever truly ornament. His best pioneer work, in the opinion of competent students, was that done upon the fishes of Sicily and the natural history of the Ohio Valley; his _Medical Flora_, in two volumes (1828 and 1830), is also admitted to have possessed real value; but his writings are now sought after as literary or scientific curiosities, and as such they are unique.

No doubt Rafinesque was often treated unjustly, either through ignorance or intent, while many naturalists were exasperated by the barbed arrows which he shot into the air or direct at the mark. Others through sheer inability to follow him gave up the attempt, one writer[272] saying that such an attitude was justified when it appeared that he had made six species out of one, not to speak of several different genera and two sub-families. If anyone still believes that Rafinesque has been misjudged, says Günther,[273] let him read his letters to Swainson, from 1809 to 1840, fifty-three in number, covering 178 closely written quarto or folio pages, now in possession of the Linnæan Society of London. "Rafinesque," continues this critic, "was a man deeply to be commiserated, not merely on account of the unfortunate circumstances which left him in his youth to himself, without teacher or guide, but still more on the ground of that natural disposition by which his universal failure in life was brought about. He was possessed of a feverish restlessness which entirely disqualified him from serious study of any of the multitudinous subjects which attracted his mind in rapid succession."

Rafinesque, bereft of friends and fortune, unknown even to his neighbors, by whom he seems to have been regarded as a harmless herb doctor, was left to struggle on alone, without recognition and without sympathy or support. Reduced finally to abject poverty, he concocted and sold medicines which were advertised much like quack remedies at the present day, especially his "Pulmel," which without a doubt he thought had cured him of the pulmonary consumption. To advertise this he wrote a little treatise, hoping to realize something from its sale and at the same time to avoid any undue appearance of empyricism.

Toward the very end of his life, Rafinesque projected a savings bank, and, strangely enough, this seems to have been a success, though just how is not clear, since it both borrowed and loaned money at six per cent. He had already attempted to secure rights on a "steam-plough," a "submarine boat," "incombustible houses," and similar novelties which abler inventors have later perfected. For a long time he led the life of a perfect recluse in a garret in a poor quarter of Philadelphia, in the midst of his collections, his books and his manuscripts, never the world forgetting but ever by the world forgot. There, in the direst misery, he died in 1840, at the age of fifty-six, without a word of cheer or a tear of regret. His body was barely saved from the dissecting table and given decent burial through the loyalty and promptitude of one of his few remaining friends, Dr. William Mease, who with undertaker Bringhurst, broke into the room where his body lay and let it down through a window by ropes.[274] Even his will was ruthlessly violated, and all of his effects, in eight dray-loads, were hurried off to the public auction rooms and sold in bargain lots, his books and all else bringing but a mere pittance, not even enough to pay his landlord and the administrator of his estate.

Thus died the "eccentric naturalist" whom Audubon had portrayed, and for whom the world in general had shown scant sympathy. Rafinesque, nevertheless, possessed a mind of extraordinary acumen and an energy and versatility little short of marvelous. He dipped into every field of knowledge, looking for precious metal, but much that he brought to the surface was dross. His restless versatility alone would probably have ruined him, for nothing short of an analysis of the globe with all of its contents would have satisfied his ambitious spirit. His was the ardor of the traveler and the explorer, with a passionate love for nature seldom equaled, but without the incentive and the patience of the investigator or a balance-wheel in the judgment. His ambition in early life was to become the greatest naturalist of his age; had his early training and environment been suited to his needs, and had fortune favored him more consistently with her smiles, this ambition possibly might have been realized, but we suspect that in this case nature would have proved stronger than nurture, and that he would have been Rafinesque to the end.