GEORGE MARC GRAVE 273 



book that they must have been printed from the same blocks, or that 

 both sets of blocks must have been made from the same paintings. It 

 is of course possible that this "certain young man" was Marcgrave 

 himself. 



These then are the scientific fruits of the life of George Marcgrave. 

 Of his " Progymnastica Mathematica Americana " but a fragment re- 

 mains. His splendid "Historian Eerum Naturalium Brasilia?" was 

 edited by an alien hand. His magnificent natural history drawings, the 

 like of which the world had never seen before, were lost to the world for 

 150 years. His splendid collections were scattered to the four winds. 

 His fate is surely a melancholy one. Cut off at the age of 34 at the 

 very zenith of his powers, what a loss to the world. Recall the results 

 of his six and one half years in Brazil. What would it have meant to 

 science to have had him edit his own MSS., publish his own drawings, 

 describe his own collections; in short, to have published his projected 

 great " Natural History of Brazil," which was intended to embrace the 

 inhabitants of the air, the land and the water, and of which but these 

 splendid fragments remain, a mighty memorial to his genius. Well 

 may Lichtenstein call them a "precious legacy," and ask if another 

 country has ever had in its first exploration such a full and exhaustive 

 account of its natural history. To quote further from Lichtenstein : 



These . . . are . . . only a small part of what he would have accomplished in 

 a longer life, and are an example of the pitiable fate which brought to an early 

 end such an able student of science. How many errors, how many empty sur- 

 mises, how many useless debates, we would have been spared if Marcgrave 

 himself had been able to arrange and communicate his observations. 



Had he lived, the present writer believes that our knowledge of the 

 natural things of Brazil would have been more advanced in the year 

 1650 than it was in the year 1800. 



After escaping the dangers of the deep, the accidents and epidemics 

 of the camp and the siege (on two occasions of which he barely escaped 

 with his life), after coming safely through the perils of forest and 

 flood, of fever and wild beasts and poisonous snakes and cannibal sav- 

 ages, this able man came to his death of endemic fever in that pest hole 

 of all the ages, the Gold Coast of west Africa, To die, at 34 years, at the 

 zenith of his power, to leave unfinished his great work, what a loss to 

 the world ! Well may Lichtenstin call him one of the great heroes of 

 science. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

 1884. Article Marcgrave — in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic Leipzig. 

 1717. Anonymous. . . . Ausser diesem Ost-Indianischen Wercke ist in der Konigl. 

 Bibliotheck auch ein West-Indianisches unter folgendem Titel enthalten: 

 Theatrum rerum naturalium Brasiliae, imagines, etc. Neue Zeitungen 

 von Gelehrten Sachen, Erster Theil, No. IV., pp. 29 and 30. 

 1647. Barlaeus, Caspar. Rerum per octennium in Brasilia et alibi nuper 

 Gestarum, Historia, pp. 330-331. Amsterdam. Also Cleve, 1660, pp. 559. 



VOL. LXXXI. — 19. 



