SKETCH OF JULIUS ADOLPH STOCKHARDT. 261 



SKETCH OF JULIUS ADOLPH STOCKHAEDT. 



By Professor W. 0. ATWATER. 







A FEW miles from Dresden, iu one of the many picturesque re- 

 gions of Saxony, cozily stowed away at the confluence of three 

 lovely valleys, lies the little village of Tharandt, known to a few pleas- 

 ure-seekers as a charming summer resort, and to the world at large 

 as the seat of a famous school of forestry and agriculture. On an 

 eminence overlooking the village, and itself overlooked by the pictu- 

 resque ruin of what was once a hunting-castle of the princes of Sax- 

 ony, is the house ; in the village below are the school, the laboratory, 

 and the experiment station ; and hard by are the experimental garden 

 and fields where the subject of our sketch, Julius Adolph Stock- 

 HAKDT, lives and labors. For nearly forty years he has been engaged, 

 by researches, by lectures, by writing, and by the publishing of jour- 

 nals, in promoting and popularizing the science of chemistry, especially 

 in its applications to the culture of the soil. In carrying science to 

 the people, and in presenting it in such ways that the most learned 

 can not criticise nor the most ignorant fail to understand, that every 

 one who reads or listens shall wish to read or listen more, and that 

 the facts when comprehended may be successfully and profitably ap- 

 plied to practice, few living men are his peers. And, as an author 

 as well as interpreter of researches, Stockhardt ranks among the 

 ablest of the early leaders in this, the golden age of agricultural 

 chemistry. 



He was born at Rohrsdorf, near Meissen, in Saxony, January 4, 

 1809. After receiving a classical education, he studied pharmacy and 

 the natural sciences for several years, and was graduated in 1833 as 

 an apothecary of the first class. In 1834 he traveled in Belgium, Eng- 

 land, and France, then devoted himself to pharmaceutical study and 

 research, and in 1838 received the degree of Ph. D. from the Univer- 

 sity of Leipsic. He then entered uj^on the teaching of natural science 

 in Dresden, and afterward in the technological school at Chemnitz, and 

 was also appointed inspector of apothecaries. His rare talent for 

 presenting scientific knowledge of matters usually obscure was soon 

 recognized by both students and citizens, and the remarkable power 

 of critical observation displayed in his writings (" Untersuchung der 

 Zwickauer Steinkohle," 1840; "Ueber Erkennung und Anwendung 

 der Giftfarbe," 1844, etc.) was the occasion of almost innumerable 

 applications for the investigation of commercial problems, and de- 

 mands for his opinion upon scientific and legal questions. In 1843 

 he traveled in Belgium and France to perfect himself in technologi- 

 cal science. In 1846 he published his " Schule der Chemie," which in 



