834- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



character may be inferred from the fact that he performed the 

 responsible duties of a treasurer general for the Moravian Church 

 in America. The mother of Lewis was Dorothea Elizabeth, 

 daughter of Baron (afterward Bishop) John de Watteville, and 

 Benigna, daughter of Lewis Nicholas, Count Zinzendorf. It was 

 to Zinzendorf and Watteville that the renewal and resuscitation 

 of the ancient church of the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian 

 Brethren,, in the eighteenth century was mainly due. In 1733 

 two families of the Brethren crossed the frontier of Moravia by 

 night and made their way to the estate of Count Zinzendorf in 

 Saxony. Here they were joined by others, and in a few years 

 the town of Herrnhut was built by the colonists. Zinzendorf 

 took an interest in this settlement from the start, became a 

 bishop in the church, and devoted his life to its service. The 

 efforts of the Brethren were early turned toward foreign missions, 

 and it was in furtherance of mission work that Zinzendorf and 

 Watteville came to America and founded the first Moravian 

 settlements in this country. 



Being so closely connected with the re-founders of an ancient 

 denomination, the parents of Lewis naturally looked forward to 

 his becoming an able promoter of the interests of their church. 

 He was their eldest son, of a decidedly intellectual temperament 

 and an enthusiastic disposition, and when in early boyhood he 

 developed the habit of addressing short speeches and little ser- 

 mons to the family circle, his future seemed to be definitely 

 marked out. 



When a little more than seven years old, Lewis was placed 

 in the acaderny of the Moravian community at Nazareth Hall, 

 where he remained eleven years. Young Lewis received his first 

 impulse toward scientific study when on a visit to this school 

 with his grandfather. Bishop de Watteville, before he entered it 

 as a pupil. Seeing a specimen of the Lichen digitatus lying on a 

 table, the child examined it with interest, and was told its name 

 and something about its physiology. From that moment he was 

 wont to date his interest in the vegetable kingdom. After enter- 

 ing the school he received some instruction in the elements of 

 botany. A partial flora of Nazareth and vicinity, made while he 

 was at this institution, which remained among his manuscripts at 

 his death, is evidence that this study took immediate hold upon 

 the mind of the youth. During his school days his powers of 

 language and his vein of satirical humor were occasionally mani- 

 fested in poetical effusions. While still a pupil and not yet eight- 

 een years of age he assisted in teaching some of the younger 

 classes. Lewis had three brothers, none of ^hom ever turned to 

 scientific pursuits, and two sisters. 



In 1798 Hans von Schweinitz was called to Germany and took 



