April, 1896. OBITUARY. 279 



Fniili ' on the last day of 1895. " From time to time, with admirable 

 clearness and harmonious arrangement, lie collected in welcome 

 publications all that concerned the natural history of his Friuli,. 

 always enhancing its interest by the purity of his style, and presenting 

 the more certain of the results gained by his own labours or by those 

 of others. He was a naturalist of genius, who for the sake of a flower 

 did not overlook the hard rock below ; who did not despise the snail 

 and the butterfly." 



CHARLES WACHSMUTH. 

 Born at Hanover, Sept. 13, 1829. Died at Burlington, Ia., 



Feb. 7, 1896. 



IN June of last year Natural Science described the Monograph of 

 the Camerate or vaulted Crinoidea of North America, the result of 

 many years of labour on the part of Charles Wachsmuth and Frank 

 Springer, now on the point of publication by the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology at Harvard ; and that note gave some 

 account of the labours of the chief author, who, everyone will regret 

 to learn, has died before the end has crowned his work. The only 

 son of Christian Wachsmuth, an eminent lawyer and member of the 

 Prussian Parliament, Charles was born and educated for his father's 

 profession in his father's city. Failing health caused him to relinquish 

 law for commerce, and in 1852 he was sent to New York by a 

 Hamburg firm in the interest of German emigration, and in that city 

 he stayed for two years. His duties completed, health caused his 

 migration to Burlington, where he set up in business and made a 

 home for the wife whom he married in 1855. Hitherto he had paid no 

 attention to natural science, but unimproved health forced him to give 

 up business in 1857, and to seek outdoor exercise in the collecting of 

 fossils. Being attracted by the beautiful crinoid remains for which 

 Burlington is famous, and realising that he could do his best work by 

 restricting his energies to some special corner of the field 01 science, 

 he threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of the Crinoidea. 

 A visit to Agassiz at Cambridge, Mass., and then to Europe, in 1865, 

 inspired him to fresh efforts. He did not, however, venture on 

 independent publication, but assisted W. H. Niles in a paper on 

 the Burhngton Limestone (1866), as well as Meek and Worthen in 

 the Report of the Illinois Geological Survey. Wachsmuth's collection 

 grew in numbers and historical importance till he was at last induced 

 to part with it for $6,000 to Louis Agassiz, at whose request 

 he accompanied the museum to Cambridge, and spent some time 

 arranging it for exhibition. On his return to Burlington, he set to 

 work to renew his collection, doing this with such success that he was 

 enabled to part with a great portion of it to the Trustees of the British 



1 As quoted in Kivista Hal. di Paleont., i., p. 262, where C. Fornasini has a notice 

 from which some of the above facts are taken. 



