CHARACTER AND WORK OF LIEBIG. 49 



Enough seems to be known, however, to show that this inter-montanic 

 region is not so deficient as has been supposed, either in the number 

 of its species or in representatives of adjoining faunas. The impres- 

 sion that the Central Province is unfavorable to pulmonate growth 

 also seems wrong, except in respect to the scarcity of lime in the soil, 

 to which cause we may probably attribute the fact that the more 

 minute forms are in large majority. 



+++ 



CTIAKACTEE AND WOKK OF LIEBIG. 1 



By J. L. W. THUDICHUM, M. D. 



JUSTUS LIEBIG was born on the 12th of May, 1803, at Darmstadt, 

 in the grand-duchy of Hesse. His father was what in this country 

 (England) we should term a wholesale druggist and dry-salter, a trade 

 which is in Germany designated by the name of materialist. There 

 is no doubt that the opportunities which he had of collecting chemical 

 reagents, and of witnessing the preparation of many products which 

 were the objects of his father's trade, early excited in him that curi- 

 osity which soon became an insatiable thirst. It is related on credit- 

 able testimony that at the age of fourteen years he had performed all 

 the experiments of which he could get knowledge from books, or for 

 which within his means he could obtain the materials, and it is related 

 by himself that about that time there was not a work in the library 

 of the Grand-duke of Darmstadt on chemistry which he had not read. 

 Looking at his early days by the light of that information, we cannot 

 doubt that the anecdote ordinarily told of his having been a dull boy 

 is a mere mistake. He was abstracted by other pursuits, and there- 

 fore, no doubt, neglected his school-work, but that he should have 

 been less gifted than others cannot, under the circumstances, be be- 

 lieved. It is related by a credible person that in 1817, when he and 

 his school-fellows were speaking to each other as to what pursuit they 

 were to select, he said that he was going to be a chemist, whereupon 

 the other boys laughed at him and told him he was a great fool, for a 

 chemist was nothing. However, times have changed, and what at 

 that time was considered as no pursuit is now an honored profession. 

 In the year 1818 he gave a distinct direction to that early bent of 

 his mind, and he followed almost the only way which at that time 

 existed in Germany for studying chemistry ; he became an apprentice 

 in an ordinary apothecary's establishment. An apothecary in Ger- 

 many is a more scientific person than perhaps many would believe. 

 He has had a thorough training, he has passed examinations, and he 

 represents, therefore, the scientific side of chemistry, pharmacy, and 



] From the " Cantor Lectures " delivered before the Society of Arts. 



VOL. IX. 



