II. ■ 

 Christian Koiirad Sprengel. 



FEW men have been more in advance of the age in which they 

 Hved, or have suffered so long an undeserved oblivion, as the 

 subject of this brief sketch. No mention of him is made in the 

 Biographical Dictionaries, nor in the histories of Botany prior to that 

 of Sachs (1875). Had not his discoveries been re-enunciated and 

 extended by Charles Darwin, his name might even now be wanting 

 in the roll of famous botanists. Very little is known about his earlier 

 life. Born in 1750, he became Rector of Spandau, near Berlin. 

 There, under Heim, he began the study of Botany, and became so 

 enthusiastic over it that he neglected his duties as Rector, and was 

 ejected from his post. He migrated to Berlin, where he supported 

 himself by giving lessons in languages and in botany, and took up a 

 lodging on the Hausvoigtei-Platz in a back room at the top of the 

 house. " Here," says one of his old pupils (from i8og to 1813) 

 in an enthusiastic account of him in " Flora "' of i8ig, " I always 

 found him, in an old bedgown, with a nightcap and a long pipe, the 

 room filled with clouds of tobacco smoke. He sat generally at the 

 window, with a book or his herbarium. Shelves of books, his collec- 

 tion of plants, and a few old household goods completed the 

 contents of the room." 



He goes on : " In figure Sprengel was well-built, rather large 

 than small, lean, and raw-boned. His face was full of expression, 

 the colour fresh, the glance vi\acious. He wore his hair, which was 

 prematurely grey, uncut, hanging about his shoulders. His gait 

 was firm and upright ; he walked fast, and, in spite of his age, went 

 for half-a-day without rest. He was simple and frugal . . drank 

 only water . . was never married." 



Sprengel's only contribution to botanical literature is his now 

 famous work, " Das Entdeckte Geheimniss," which was pubUshed in 

 1793, just one hundred years ago. This book — of which more here- 

 after — was too far in advance of its time, and met with a chill recep- 

 tion, which did not encourage its author. Besides being despised as 

 a visionary by the dry systematists of the Linnaean school who then 

 held sway in botany, Sprengel seems to have been too fond of speaking 

 the truth, regardless of consequences, and thus became very unpopular, 



