ADVERTISEMENT VII 



Historia Testudinum, 9 based in large measure on notes 

 made in America or on correspondence with observers 

 there. In addition, Schoepf had put together a manu- 

 script descriptive of the birds of North America com- 

 ing under his observation ; which material was lost at 

 sea between Virginia and South Carolina or more 

 likely disappeared through negligence. Regarding the 

 trees of North America Dr. Schoepf remarks, ' : What 

 I saw every day and in the greatest numbers was trees, 

 but in my travels I could the more aptly suppress my 

 observations, the work of my esteemed friend Head 

 Forester Von Wangenheim, 10 of Tilsit in Curland, hav- 

 ing shortly before appeared, containing everything 

 which it would be of use for the European reader to 

 know." Taken together with his travels, this was a 

 very considerable body of work entitling the author to 

 a place in our intellectual history. 11 



On setting out from Europe, as appears from the 

 Preface to the Beytr'dge, the young Schoepf had been 

 counselled by Schreber to have an eye to the geological 

 structure of the new world, Kalm having given an in- 

 sufficient report in that item. The advice was followed 

 to good purpose, 12 but the observer was able to do more, 



8 Erlangen, 1793-1801 " One of the earliest monographs of 

 the Testudinata." Goode, loc. cit. cf. Reisc, &c., I, 382-386; 

 II, 440-444- 



10 G6ttingen, 1787. 



11 Bibliography in Meusel, Lexikon der vom Jahre 1750 bis 

 1800 verstorbenen Teutschen Schriftsteller, XII (1812), 364. 

 cf. Bock, Sammlung von Bildnissen gelehrter Manner. Niirn- 

 berg, 1791-1798, XV (1795) Portrait, bibliography, and auto- 

 biographical material. 



12 cf. George Huntington Williams, Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., V 



, 591-593 "An excellent but now almost forgotten 



