This anthology of nineteenth-century American science writing began with my pursuit of American studies. Over the years I became intrigued by the scientists of the period, especially the first half of the century. They often wrote about science and natural history, literature and exploration. When I queried my science friends on their familiarity with scientists of the nineteenth century, they recognized names, knew who represented their own fields, but had rarely read any of the original work. I soon realized one of the reasons why when I tried to find ready sources for the primary works of the early naturalists (Say, Nuttall, Wilson). Not only were there no anthologies of early American science, but even the compendiums of nineteenth-century science writing, of which there are scores, rarely bothered with the Americans. If by chance they should, the same three or four names appeared: Joseph Henry, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., a smattering of William James as philosophy of science or Thoreau as natural history. I came away from these anthologies with the uncomfortable feeling that American science in the nineteenth century was inferior at best, non-existent at worst. Of course, there might be good reason for this omission from the British and European point of view; simply put, they were far ahead of the Americans in both productivity and scientific infrastructure, but that did not mean science in the United States had not made contributions to the century or that it would not be of interest to students of the American nineteenth century.