SKETCH OF CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG. 671 



governments, travelers, and scientists, from all parts of the globe, sub- 

 mitted specimens and problematic objects to the investigation or the 

 verdict of the Berlin microscopist and savant. Deep-sea soundings, 

 which began about this time, were especially fruitful in material for 

 research ; and the surprising result was brought to view that organic 

 beings e:s:ist even at the greatest depth of the earth's submarine 

 declivities, previously believed to be void of life. 



Those who, in common with the writer, dm-ing Ehrenberg's most pro- 

 ductive years, have witnessed and participated in the ardor and enthu- 

 siasm of the great and genial scholar and teacher, will ever remember 

 with veneration the originality and conscientiousness of his methods of 

 research, his wonderful skill, elegance, and acuteness in microscopical 

 observation, and, above all, the lucid and graphic description of the 

 master whose eyes undoubtedly had done more close and critical micro- 

 scopical research than those of any contemporary. In him were fully 

 and harmoniously blended the strictest sense of duty and truthfulness, 

 the highest order of intellectual attainments, the exquisite taste of the 

 accomplished classical scholar, and the charm of religious faith, genial 

 disposition, and a generous heart. 



Ehrenberg continued his work steadily and unfailingly to the end of 

 his life, even when his eyesight had become impaired by protracted 

 application, and when almost all of his famous contemporary co-laborers 

 at the Berlin University had passed away. 



In reviewing the discoveries, the works, and achievements of Ehren- 

 berg, one is strongly impressed by their vast number and their high 

 order in a domain at once so abstruse and so unHmited. In his hands, 

 microscopical research first attained its proper application and a definite 

 character, and revealed new fields of inquiry, afterward successfully 

 trodden by others ; his physiological and biological investigations paved 

 the way for those discoveries which, in rapid succession, have been since 

 effected in the structure and processes of the human body in health and 

 disease, and which have shed much light upon the progress of every branch 

 of the healing art. His researches and achievements contributed to 

 every department of the physical sciences ; the minute organic creation 

 became, for the first time in our knowledge, a new link in the scale of 

 animated beings, and its influence upon the formation of the strata of 

 the earth's crust and their geological history was recognized. All the 

 writings of Ehrenberg, the occasional orations and addresses delivered 

 by him as Rector Magnificus of the University, as Permanent Secretary 

 of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, etc, are masterpieces of learning, 

 of exquisite style, replete with exalted ideas, and form enduring evi- 

 dences of their illustrious author's eminence. His name will ever be 

 honored as the father of modern microscopy. 



How profoundly faith and rare modesty were congenial to his mind, 

 will appear from the following brief passage from one of his latest rec- 

 toral orations; "Investigators and writers who, because at the limit of 



