Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
September 25, 1817
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 88
Notes:
Asphaltum is a naturally occuring hydrocarbon solid, a "chunk" of solid, heavy hyrdrocarbons, so technically not a mineral or a rock (inorganic in composition and origin).
Garrett Elliott Pendergrast (1776-1850) received a medical degree in 1803 from the University of Pennsylvania. He had been a surgeon in the Orleans Territory militia beginning in 1807. Appointed hospital surgeon in the U.S. Army in 1812, Pendergrast was serving under William Henry Harrison in 1813 when he received permission to travel to Philadelphia on private business. He resigned his commission in 1814. Prendergrast was the author of A Physical and Topographical Sketch of the Mississippi Territory, Lower Louisiana, and a Part of West Florida (Philadelphia, 1803).
