His innate craving for scientific knowledge and his love of nature found slight chance for cultivation at a time when institutions of science in America were scarce, but he sought the best within reach by a course in the Rennselaer Institute at Troy, N. Y., whence he was graduated and became a civil engineer in the construction of one of the early railroads in North Carolina. The financial crash of '37 imposed a cessation on the railroad project, and with ready resourcefulness Mr. Tuomey betook himself again to teaching, by occupying a chair of mathematics and the natural sciences in a school presided over by Miss Mercer, in Loudoun County, Virginia. Responding to an opportunity afforded at Petersburg, Va., to establish a seminary of his own, he and his gifted wife entered on an enterprise there. This opened a wide vista to the pent-up zeal of Professor Tuomey for the cultivation and enlargement of his scientific gifts. In Petersburg was abundantly vindicated the principle in the person of this indomitable young Hibernian, that success finally rewards the patient, plucky, and resourceful. It became his honor at Petersburg to entertain that eminent English geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, on the occasion of both his visits to America, and by correspondence and otherwise he came into touch of more or less intimacy with the learned scientists of the American continent, as well as with those abroad. Among those with whom he was brought by reason of scientific congeniality into touch were Agassiz, James Hall, state geologist of New York, Professor Bache, Professor Dana, Dr. Gibbs, Edmund Ruffin, and Professor Holmes. It was a glorious company of savants in those early days of scientific militancy when men of eminence had to confront an inertia of stout popular opposition.