644 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



who had been exiled from their own land, he removed to Illinois, 

 practicing at Mascoutah for a time, but finally removed to St. 

 Louis. In 1839 he went into the far Northwest on a fur-trad- 

 ing expedition. While there he spent some time among the Nez 

 Perces Indians. In 1840 he began practice in St. Louis, where 

 his influence among the German population, both politically and 

 otherwise, was great. Some time later he joined a Mexican trading 

 expedition, taking with him a good scientific equipment; he was, 

 however, seized and imprisoned at Chihuahua, and was only liber- 

 ated on the arrival of Colonel Doniphan's troops there in 1847. He 

 remained with those forces in a professional capacity until they were 

 disbanded in the summer of 1847, when he returned to St. Louis. 

 The next year an official report of the scientific results of this jour- 

 ney appeared at Washington; it was entitled Memoir of a Tour to 

 Northern Mexico, and contains geographical, geological, topograph- 

 ical, astronomical, and barometric observations. He brought home 

 many plants, which were afterward worked out by Engelmann. 

 While in Washington, Wislizenus met Miss Lucy Crane, sister-in- 

 law of Hon. George P. Marsh. In 1849 a cholera epidemic raged at 

 St. Louis, throughout which Dr. Wislizenus labored at his profes- 

 sion. Meantime Mr. Marsh had been appointed minister from the 

 United States to Turkey. In 1850 Wislizenus went there, and at 

 Constantinople was married to Miss Crane. They visited various 

 parts of Europe, and on returning to this country, Dr. Wislizenus, 

 leaving his wife in the East, went himself to Panama, with some idea 

 of settling there. In 1852, however, he returned to this country, 

 and settled permanently in St. Louis. He was one of the founders 

 of the academy, and an honored member of various medical societies. 

 His barometic observations and his collections in botany and min- 

 eralogy were of value. While Dr. Engelmann was absent in Europe, 

 in 1858, Wislizenus took charge of his observations, becoming so 

 interested that he afterward continued them for himself until 1881, 

 when failing eyesight interfered with the work. He died September 

 22, 1889. 



There are to-day few, indeed, of the original members of the 

 academy alive. Mr. C. P. Chouteau and Nathaniel Holmes are all. 

 Through a large part of its history Mr. Holmes was the secretary of 

 the academy; not himself a professional scientist nor a large con- 

 tributor to any definite line, he was a man of wide reading and varied 

 interests. He carefully examined everything that came to the 

 society's library through the long period of his secretaryship, and it 

 was his practice to prepare careful papers upon what he read, papers 

 which added much to the interest of the meetings, and often led to 

 important discussions. While Mr. Holmes is not now a resident of 



