KART. ALP^EED VOX ZITTEL. 



'ri';insl;it(>(l l)v Charles Scmucheut. " 



During- an excursion in southern Tyrol in the summer of 1808, 

 Privy Counsellor Kai-l Alfred aou Zittel, professor of i!:eology and 

 paleontology at the University of Munich, (iermany, first began to 

 suffer from heart trouble. On the evening of the ."ith of January, 

 1904, he died, being then in his sixty-fourth year. In Zittel, the 

 Bavarian Academy of Sciences has lost its president, the University 

 of Munich one of its greatest teachers, and ])aleontologv its master. 

 For thirty-five year's he conducted the periodical Paheontographica, 

 and was about to comj)lete the fiftieth volume of this gi-eat paleonto- 

 logical serial, and to celebrate the event with Avords of rejoicing and 

 warranted pride, Avhen his death changed contemplated joy into 

 deepest mourning. 



Karl Alfred von Ziltel was born on the ii^th of September, 1839, 

 in the parsonage at Uahlingen, the seat of the rulers of Baden. He 

 was the youngest son of Bastor, later Dean, Karl Zittel, who was 

 prominent in tlic political life of Baden and leader of Protestant 

 liberalism. 



Young Zittel showed an early love for natural history, and when 

 his father removed to Heidelberg, he, as a student in the gynniasium, 

 spent his spare hours in the well-known mineral shop owned by 

 Lonmiel. Here lie arranged and identified fossil siuiiis and shells, 

 and thus laid the foundation of his surprising and accurate knowl- 

 edge of forms — a knowledge which, combined with a brilliant mem- 

 ory, later distinguished him as master in j)aleontol()gy. 



In 1857 he entered Heidelberg University as a student of the natu- 

 ral sciences, especially of paleontology. At that time it was neither 

 comfortable nor profitable to study paleontology at Heidelberg, 

 because of the almost insurmountid)le difficulties in securing the three 

 students necessary to induce Heinrich (ieorg Broun, author of 

 Lethsea Geognostica and of Index Paleontologicus, and joint pub- 



«A free translation, greatly condensed, of the (Jernian nieniorinl. Karl Alfred 

 von Zittel, Ein Nucbruff, by I'l-of. .T. V. I'onieix-kj. i)nblisbe(l in I'al.-eonto- 

 fcrapbica. Band .50, 1904, pp. .'{-L's. Ivxlracts from the writint^'s of Sness, Osborn, 

 and Woodward bnve also been added. 



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