Note 218 — Chapter XXXIII · RETURN ON THE ERIE CANAL AND THE RIVER HUDSON TO NEW YORK—VOYAGE TO EUROPE

Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) was educated in medicine at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Edinburgh. In 1823, he settled in practice in Philadelphia, and interested himself in the development of natural science, being a member for many years and finally president (1850) of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. To this institution he bequeathed his collection of skulls, which he began in 1830, and which is the largest museum of comparative craniology in the United States, containing over fifteen hundred specimens, nearly two-thirds of which are human. For the origin of Peale's Museum, see our volume ix, p. 55, note 22. Titian Peale is noted in our volume xiv, p. 40, note 1.—Ed.