8o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to a grocer in Fiirstenberg, where he worked for five years from 

 five o'clock in the morning till eleven at night on a maximum 

 yearly salary of thirty dollars. He was able to gratify his archae- 

 ological tastes in this situation by hiring a drunken but learned 

 miller's clerk to recite to him lines from Homer. One day he 

 broke a blood-vessel while trying to lift a barrel, and was dis- 

 charged as no longer of value to his employer. Utterly destitute, 

 he took passage in a vessel for South America, was shipwrecked, 

 found his way to Amsterdam, and obtained a light employment, 

 in connection with which he was able to read a little every day. 

 He thus gradually acquired a good knowledge of English, Dutch, 

 Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. In 1844 he entered the office of 

 Messrs. Schroder & Co. on a comfortable salary and began to 

 learn Russian, preparatory to taking an agency for the house in 

 St. Petersburg. He soon started in business in that place on his 

 own account. In 1850 he came to California, where he became an 

 American citizen and the possessor of $400,000. He returned to 

 Russia, continued his business, and learned Swedish and Polish. 

 After the Crimean War he learned Greek and then devoted two 

 years to the study of Greek literature. In 1858 he traveled 

 through northern Europe, Italy, Egypt, and the lands of ancient 

 Greece. Being compelled by a lawsuit to return to Russia and 

 stay there three years, he went into business again and made more 

 money. Before beginning his life-work, for which the opportu- 

 nity at last offered, he- made a voyage around the world and pub- 

 lished his first book, La Chine et le Japon, in 18G6. Having dug 

 experimentally, without important results, at Ithaca, he began in 

 1870 his excavations in the Troad to verify the accuracy of Ho- 

 mer's account of the lost Troy, in the literal reality of every part of 

 which he fully believed. He began first at the place called Bou- 

 narbashi, which the learned world had agreed was the site of the 

 ancient city. Having dug and examined the topography long 

 enough to satisfy himself that nothing was to be found there, he 

 tried the mound of Hissarlik. Here he unearthed six cities which 

 had succeeded each other on the same site, four of them at least 

 prehistoric, and one of which, bearing the marks of a great con- 

 flagration and being rich in relics, he was satisfied was Homer's 

 Troy. For security in performing this work, Dr. Manatt tells us : 

 " As an American citizen he took out our passports for himself, 

 his family, and his servants ; and it may as well be remembered 

 that Troy was uncovered under the protection of our flag/' The 

 results of these explorations were described in the books Troy 

 and its Remains, and Ilios, the appearance of which was the signal 

 for an active discussion of the merits of his discoveries. While 

 many doubted the accuracy of his identification of one of the 

 cities with the real Troy, it was generally agreed that he had 



