CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG. 327 



CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG. 



Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg died June 27, 1876, in liis 

 eighty-second year. He belonged among the founders of our present 

 zoologj', and was the first to treat in a scientific way that mass of 

 minute beings formerly included in the vague term " Infusoria." With 

 the synchronism that often marks valuable discoveries, it happened that 

 considerable improvements in the microscope were made about the 

 time he began his favorite investigations, and the demands of his sub- 

 ject led him ever to encourage and aid such improvements. 



In 1830 appeared his great work on living infusoria, with admirable 

 plates from his own hand. His interpretation of forms so novel was 

 naturally influenced by previous ideas of organization in the animal 

 kingdom ; so that to many of them he attributed oi-gans more or less 

 defined, and a certain complication of structure. As microscopy pro- 

 gressed, these views were modified and corrected by the observers he 

 had trained, or who had been stimulated hj his example. The studies 

 of Schwann and Henle on the nature and development of the cell gave 

 a new interpretation to these microscopic creatures. Some were found 

 to be unicellular plants, and others proved the embryos of sponges, and 

 to be even of articulated or radiated animals. But all such corrections 

 were simply the unvarying steps that mark discovery. Ehrenberg it 

 was who took the first step, and who, to the end, remained the master- 

 spirit in this field. 



In 1840 appeared his chief work on the fossil infusoria, which ex- 

 hibited their extraordinary part in building geological formations, 

 whether as a fine sand (Bergmehl), or in more compact forms. He 

 showed that some cretaceous foraminifera are still living, and explained 

 in advance the structure of portions of the deep-sea bottom which have 

 recently been examined by the dredge. The number of these low or- 

 ganisms, figured in his chief works and in his numerous minor publica- 

 tions, is so great as to give data for their geographical and geological 

 distribution over a large portion of the globe. 



It must not be thought that Ehrenberg was a specialist of the narrow 

 type which is, unfortunately, so common to-day. He was a man learned 

 in all branches of natural history, and had grown side by side with the 

 science he fostered. Although he spent the greater part of his life in 

 his native Prussia, he travelled a good deal. Having studied at first 

 theology, and afterwards medicine, at Leipzig, he moved, in 1817, to 

 Berlin, and there devoted himself to what proved to be the occupation 

 of his life. From 1820 to 1825, he travelled with Hemprich in Arabia, 



