254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the students facetiously called Knape's osteology, or by the unat- 

 tractive condition of the dissecting art at that time. Thus he 

 went, with a correct instinct, late but thoroughly, through anthro- 

 potomy, the true elementary school of biology. He worked in 

 the Zoological Museum of Lichtenstein, helped arrange the fishes 

 and crustaceans, and certainly heard Rudolphi on comparative 

 anatomy and physiology, Weiss on mineralogy, which was very at- 

 tractive to him, Erman on electricity and magnetism, and Horkel 

 on natural philosophy. We are astonished at what he must have 

 assimilated to himself during those three years in preparation for 

 his journey round the world, when we find how well qualified he 

 proved to be for every kind of observation on land and water. 



While Chamisso's poems of the time of the war of deliverance 

 contain nothing of importance, the period was marked by his 

 most famous work, and one that has been translated into most of 

 the languages of civilization The Wonderful History of Peter 

 Schlemil. In Schlemil, in his outer guise, Chamisso presented a 

 prototype in many respects of himself; and in the way that 

 Schlemil comforted himself for the loss of his shadow in striding 

 over the earth with his seven-league boots, " scaling its heights, 

 testing the temperatures of its fountains and of the air, observing 

 its animals and studying its plants, speeding from the equator to 

 the pole, and from one hemisphere to the other, and comparing 

 experiences" this fiction is only a reflection of the longings by 

 which he was possessed, when, a French-German, or a German- 

 Frenchman, there was no place, no sword for him in the combat. 

 Out of the human tangle into the expanse of nature, the deeps of 

 science, was his solution of the difficulty. Sharp questions have 

 been asked concerning the meaning of SchlemiPs loss of his shadow ; 

 it is symbolical of Chamisso's loss of a country. The dream de- 

 scribed by Chamisso in "Schlemil" was soon to be fulfilled, but 

 not by means of seven-league boots. He was not permitted to 

 join the expedition of Prince Max von Wied-Neuwied to Brazil, 

 but Hitzig showed him a newspaper containing an account of a 

 contemplated exploring expedition of the Russians. A ship fitted 

 up by Count Romanzoff was to be dispatched to the south seas, 

 and was also to seek for a northeast passage from the Pacific to 

 the Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon's return from Elba had just aston- 

 ished the Congress of Vienna, and set Europe into a fright. In 

 the newly blazing war-fever, in which he would have to remain 

 an idle spectator, Chamisso's dissatisfaction rose to the highest 

 pitch, and, stamping with his feet, he exclaimed, " I wish I was at 

 the north pole with those Russians ! " The sagacious Hitzig man- 

 aged the affair with Russia ; and Chamisso, recommended by 

 Lichtenstein and other teachers, was appointed naturalist of the 

 expedition, and reported himself on the 9th of August, 1815, to 



