In the year 1868 he established at Leipsic a factory for the 

 manufacture of volatile oils and essences, which met with phe- 

 nomenal success. Only five years later, in 1873, he accumulated 

 a sufiBcient fortune to enable him to retire from business and de- 

 vote the remainder of his life to travel and the study of the nat- 

 ural sciences. 



In February, 1874, he started on his first journey around the 

 world, sailing from Bremen to the island of St. Thomas in the 

 West Indies; thence he visited Porto Rico, Barbados, Trinidad, 

 Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica. On account 

 of a severe attack of fever he returned to Panama, and as soon 

 as he was able sailed for New York, where he landed July 28. 

 While in the United States he collected in Massachusetts, New 

 York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Kan- 

 sas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Califor- 

 nia, and sailed from San Francisco, November 16, for Yokohama. 

 Leaving Japan in January, 1875, he visited Hong Kong, China, 

 Macao, Annam, Cochin China, Siam, and Java, where he re- 

 mained nearly five months. In October he went by way of 

 Singapore, Johore, Penang, and Burma to Calcutta; the months 

 of November and December were spent in various parts of In- 

 dia; and on the last day of the year he sailed from Bombay for 

 Europe, by way of Aden and the Suez Canal. On this two- 

 years' journey he made extensive ethnological collections for 

 the Volkermuseum in Leipsic, and prepared more than 7700 

 "numbers" of dried plants. 



Essentially a self-taught scientist up to this time, he began at 

 the age of 33 years to avail himself of the benefits of university 

 training. From 1876 to 1878 he studied at Leipsic and Berlin, 

 spending two months in the summer of 1877 in the Carpathian 

 mountains, and received the degree of Ph. D. from the Univer- 

 sity of Freiburg in June, 1878. His dissertation was on Cin- 

 chona, the genus of South American trees that produces "Peru- 

 vian bark" and is the source of quinine. In the following year 

 he published his "Methodik der Speciesbeschreibung und Ru- 

 bus, ' ' in which he utilized his knowledge of the genus Ruhus to 

 illustrate the way in which species ought to be described. 



In 1881 appeared in book form his account of his journey 

 around the world, and in 1883 his ' ' Phytogeogenesis, ' ' in which 

 he elaborated his views upon the origin of plant life upon the 

 earth. His vast botanical collections of 1874-76 meanwhile re- 



66 



