Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.
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.