65 
Professor C. F. P. vos MarrTius’s Eloge on Ledebour, delivered at the 
public meeting of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich, held on the 
27th November, 1851. Translated from Gelehrte Anzeigen of that 
Academy of January 2, 1852, by N. WALLICH, M.D., F.R.S., V.P.L.S. 
Charles Frederick von Ledebour, Russian Councillor of State, and 
Professor Emeritus at the University of Dorpat, was many years do- 
miciled in Munich, participating in the labours of the mathematical and 
physical class of this academy as foreign member. He was descended 
from an ancient Pomeranian family, and was born on the 8th of July, 
1785, at Stralsund, in which garrison his father was stationed in the 
capacity of Swedish Judge-Advocate-General, but died a few weeks 
before that event took place. As a young man Ledebour devoted 
himself to the natural bent of his mind, pursuing mathematical 
studies with such zeal, that he was enabled, so early as his fifteenth year, 
to enter the University of Grifswald, where the celebrated physiolo- 
gist Charles Asmund Rudolphi became his paternal instructor and 
guide. His juridical studies soon yielded to his natural propensity 
towards those of mathematics and natural sciences. In the course of 
some years he went to the Swedish metropolis, in order to undergo the 
public examination in mathematics and practical geometry; and it 
was there, that his intercourse with the two celebrated disciples of 
Linneus, Thunberg and Olaf Swartz, and a journey to the northern 
Norwegian frontier mountains, undertaken in company with some 
mining officers, determined the choice of his future career. He re- - 
turned to Grifswald with a commission as an officer, and with prospects 
of employment in practical geometry; but yielding to his patton Ru- - 
dolphi's urgent recommendation, to apply for the post he was about to — 
vacate at the University, Ledebour presented himself on the third day 
of his arrival for medical examination; wrote his inaugural treatise, 
Dissertatio botanica, sistens Plantarum Domingensium Decadem ; and 
thus he became demonstrator on botany, and director of the Botanie 
Garden at Grifswald, at the early age of twenty years. 
Being called to the University of Dorpat, as professor of natural 
history, and especially botany, Ledebour proceeded for some time to 
Berlin in 1811, where Willdenow and Pallas, the greatest. nati 
who ever entered Russia from Germany, kindled in him extensive plans 
for elucidating the natural Meters. of that super — z trs PE 
VOL. IV. a Ee 
