136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



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particular flora ever undertaken. It began under the auspices of the 

 sovereigns of Austria and Bavaria, and was afterwards liberally fos- 

 tered by the Brazilian government. The forty-seven parts, — some of 

 them, in fact, volumes, — already published, comprise almost one hun- 

 dred natural orders, and more than eight thousand species, of which 

 fully one thousand four hundred are illustrated by figures. With the 

 essential aid recently guaranteed by the Emperor of Brazil, and un- 

 der the editorial charge of his most able assistant and colleague, Dr. 

 Eichler, this great work may be expected to reach an early completion, 

 and to form a noble monument to the memory of Von Martius, al- 

 though he himself elaborated only two or three of the families. He 

 took laborious oversight of the whole, and wrote the various subsidiary 

 articles, Excursus, fyc, especially those upon the medicinal and eco- 

 nomical uses of Brazilian plants, and upon the aspects and character- 

 istics of vegetation in different parts of the empire. These disserta- 

 tions are written in choice Latin, and with a vigor and spirit which, it 

 has been said, inspire regret for the olden time, when this was the uni- 

 versal language of botany. His fondness for linguistic studies, also, led 

 him to investigate the languages of the tribes among which he trav- 

 elled, and to collect vocabularies. He gave new attention to this sub- 

 ject in his later years, and in 1867 brought out his important, and, as 

 it proved, his last work, the Beitrdge zur Ethnographie und Sprachen- 

 kunde Amerikas, zumal Brasiliens, in two octavo volumes. 



He wi'ote a separate treatise upon the medical properties of the 

 plants of Brazil. He was a copious contributor to the Gelehrte Anzei- 

 gen, of Munich, during the whole period of its existence. In addition 

 to his onerous duties as Professor of Botany in the University, and Di- 

 rector of the Botanic Garden, he was for many years, and down to his 

 death, the active Secretary of the Mathematico-physical section of the 

 Royal Bavarian Academy ; and in that capacity he delivered a series of 

 eulogies upon distinguished deceased members, which, recently re- 

 printed in two octavo volumes, form a collection which may well com- 

 pare with the similar and celebrated orations of Cuvier. These dis- 

 courses, ranging, as they do, over wide fields in science and philoso- 

 phy, exuberant in learning, discursive and yet profound, and often 

 aglow with feeling, may give to those who knew him not some idea of 

 the man himself, — of his wealth of knowledge and nobleness of 

 spirit, his affectionate disposition, vivacity, geniality, and the fervid 

 poetical imagination, which was rather tempered than restrained by the 



