550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



his scientific knowledge. One was upon the invitation of the natural- 

 ist Meyer, to Hamburg and Heligoland, where he saw the ocean for 

 the first time ; another was to the Harz Mountains. Toward the end 

 of his career at the university, he accepted a call to teach pedagogy 

 and botany at the school of the orphan-house. Fritsche, who was one 

 of his pupils, says of his lectures, " We were of course struck with his 

 foreign dialect, but we also took good notice that he understood his 

 subject." His last excursion from the university was made to Ber- 

 lin, where he met Ehrenberg the microscopist, Yon Chamisso the cir- 

 cumnavigator, and Schlechtendal the famous botanist, who already 

 knew him well by name from Hegetschweiler's mention of him in his 

 " Schweitzer Pflanzen." 



Heer left the university in March, 1831, stood his examination in 

 theology at St. Gall in April, preached his first sermon at Wolfhalden, 

 and was ordained on the 10th of June. His father desired him to de- 

 vote his life to teaching, and to become the head of a high-school 

 which they would found. Heer himself preferred to take a parish, 

 where his work might give him opportunities for continued scientific 

 investigations. Before a decision was reached, his physical condition 

 demanding recreation, he made some important excursions among the 

 mountains, which were quite adventurous for that time. In January, 

 1832, he accepted an invitation from Herr Heinrich Escher-Zollikofer, 

 of Zurich, to go and arrange his extensive entomological collection. 

 This was the event that decided the course of his life. He became a 

 member of the Physical Society of Zurich, and read before it his first 

 paper, " On the Red Snow of the High Alps." He formed a connec- 

 tion with Julius Froebel, who afterward lectured and conducted Ger- 

 man newspapers in the United States, and published with him in 1834 

 the first number of a geographical magazine " Mitteilungen aus dem 

 Gebiete der theoretischen Erdkunde " of which four numbers, in all, 

 were issued. 



Heer had not been many months at Zurich when an invitation 

 came to him to take the pastorate of the parish of Schwande. He 

 was already expressing regret in his letters that his attention was 

 being diverted from theology, and he seems to have suffered a pain- 

 ful hesitation between the possible duty of accepting this call and 

 continuing in his scientific work. He submitted the question to Herr 

 Escher, who replied that the field and influence of the scientific inves- 

 tigator, who had the whole world, was much broader than those of the 

 pastor, which were confined to his parish or his canton. Moreover, the 

 naturalist too can work for God's kingdom. There were many pious 

 pastors, but pious naturalists were, according to his present knowledge, 

 a tolerably rare plant, and therefore the more to be prized and the more 

 necessary to the tribe of the learned. With these conflicting views 

 troubling his mind, he was entertaining plans for a scientific journey 

 to India and the Himalaya Mountains, when, in February, 1834, he 



