GEORGE MARC GRAVE 259 



scientific staff and that Marcgrave had his work assigned by him (Piso). 

 While it is probable that the exact facts can never be absolutely ascer- 

 tained, it would seem that if Piso were scientific chief his headship was 

 merely nominal. So far as the present writer has been able to learn, 

 Piso's only preparation for scientific work consisted in his medical 

 training, and this, it will be recognized, was very limited (he was born 

 in 1596). Marcgrave, however, had had 11 years' study and training 

 at the best German and Dutch universities, and was skilled not merely 

 in medicine, but in botany, natural history, mathematics and astron- 

 omy. He was selected by De Laet and Count Maurice on account of 

 these scientific attainments, was given the official post of astronomer 

 with a definite salary, and was the intimate personal friend of Count 

 Maurice, and as such was a member of his official family. 



"We learn from many sources, but above all from De Laet in his 

 preface to Marcgrave's "Historic Eerum Naturalium Brasilia?," that 

 this was written in the city of Mauritia and in cipher. It seems well to 

 quote De Laet (1648 folio). 



When his papers so confused and unfinished were turned over to me by the 

 illustrious Count Johann Moritz, by whose kindness and favor and outlay he had 

 done these things, no small difficulty presented itself at once. For the writer 

 fearing that some one might try to claim for himself his (Marcgrave's) work, 

 should any misfortune by chance befall him before he should be able to make 

 his observations known to the world, had written a good part of those things 

 which were of most moment in certain characters devised by himself as a second 

 alphabet left in secret, which must first be understood and transcribed with a 

 greater effort than any one would wish to assume. Nevertheless, although occu- 

 pied with other matters, I accomplished this task with great labor. 



Speaking on this subject Lichtenstein conjectures : 



From the wonderful activity with which he during his stay in Brazil made 

 and recorded his observations, one may conclude that Marcgrave anticipated an 

 early death and made haste to firmly establish his fame. 



And when one reads of his early and almost immediate death, and 

 of the fate of his literary remains, his sound judgment in this matter 

 is to be commended. 



However, the present writer, in the light of the data noted above, 

 wishes to call attention to the fact that the astronomical and mathe- 

 matical papers embraced under the general title " Progymnastica 

 Mathematica Americana " do not seem to have been written in cipher. 

 The bearing of this on the Marcgrave-Piso controversy would seem to 

 be that, since the latter had no mathematical training whatever, there 

 was no danger of his appropriating these papers as his own in case any 

 accident should befall their writer; but that such danger was. to be 

 apprehended with reference to the natural-history papers, hence the 

 cipher. 10 So cautious was Marcgrave that some things wore written in 

 a second cipher (De Laet, Preface, 1648). 



10 See foot-note to page 256. 



