36 Brief Historical Notice 



As some biographical particulars of this remarkable 

 investigator will be welcome, I give the following brief 

 notice, first published by Dr Correns on the authority 

 of Dr von Schanz : Gregor Johann Mendel was born on 

 July 22, 1822, at Heinzendorf bei Odrau, in Austrian 

 Silesia. He was the son of well-to-do peasants. In 1843 

 he entered as a novice the "Koniginkloster," an Augustinian 

 foundation in Altbrimn. In 1847 he was ordained priest. 

 From 1851 to 1853 he studied physics and natural science 

 at Vienna. Thence he returned to his cloister and became 

 a teacher in the Realschule at Brunn. Subsequently he 

 was made Abbot, and died January 6, 1884. The experi- 

 ments described in his papers were carried out in the 

 garden of his Cloister. Besides the two papers on hybridi- 

 sation, dealing respectively with Pisum and Hieracium, 

 Mendel contributed two brief notes to the Verh. ZooL bot. 

 Verein, Wien, on Scopolia margaritalis (1853, in., p. 116) 

 and on Bruchus pisi (ibid. 1854, iv., p. 27). In these 

 papers he speaks of himself as a pupil of Kollar. 



Mendel published in the Brunn journal statistical 

 observations of a meteorological character, but, so far 

 as I am aware, no others relating to natural history. 



*_j / 



Dr Correns tells me that in the latter part of his life 

 he engaged in the Ultramontane Controversy. He was 

 for a time President of the Brunn Society*. 



For the photograph of Mendel which forms the frontis- 

 piece to this work, I am indebted to the Very Rev. Dr 

 Janeischek, the present Abbot of Brunn, who most kindly 

 supplied it for this purpose. 



So far as I have discovered there was, up to 1900, only 

 one reference to Mendel's observations in scientific literature, 

 namely that of Focke, Pflanzenmischlinge, 1881, p. 109, 



* A few additional particulars are given in Tschermak's edition. 



