420 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



Rector of the Martini School and Preacher in the Church of the 

 Holy Ghost. Under the eyes of his father, a distinguished writer, 

 well known for his learning, he received a careful education, until 

 he was of an age to enter the University of Halle ; shortly before 

 which, however, he had the misfortune to lose both his parents within 

 fourteen days of each other. The love of natural history, with 

 which he was early imbued, determined him to apply himself at 

 Halle to the study of medicine, and in the year 1804 he obtained 

 his doctor's degree, his dissertation on which occasion was entitled : 

 " Specimen de Vegetabilium imprimis Filicum propagatione." But 

 as he had no great inclination to the practice of physic, he joyfully 

 accepted an offer made to him in the same year to superintend the 

 botanic garden of Count Razumoffsky, then Minister of Public In- 

 struction in Russia, situated at Gorenki, in the neighbourhood of 

 Moscow. Several papers from his pen soon after appeared in the 

 ' Memoires de la Societe Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou ; ' 

 such as " Description d'une nouvelle espece dJElymus ; " " Revision 

 du Genre Geum ; " " Notice sur une Plante de la Famille des Suc- 

 culentes; " "Descriptiones Plantarum rariorum Sibiriae ; " and "Ge- 

 nera Plantarum duo \^Adenophora and Guldenstcedtia]." In 1808 he 

 published a ' Catalogue du Jardin des Plantes du Comte Alexis de 

 Razumoffsky a Gorenki pres de Moscou ; ' in 1812, a second 

 edition of the same ; and in the same year at Zurich, ' Beitrag zur 

 botanischen Systematik, die Existenz der Monokotyledonen und 

 der Polykotyledonen betreffend.' In the year 1821 he travelled in 

 France, England and Germany, making the acquaintance of many 

 scientific men, and establishing a correspondence with them, by 

 means of which the botanical treasures of his patron were largely 

 increased. But Count Razumoffsky dying shortly afterwards, the 

 Emperor Alexander, through the tiien Minister of the Interior, 

 Count Kotschubei, appointed him in 1823 Director of the Imperial 

 Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg. This garden, which had formerly 

 belonged to the Medical College, was then in a state of the utmost 

 disorder, possessed only some few miserable houses, and required an 

 entire reorganization, insomuch that Fischer has been justly regarded 

 as its founder. Under his directions a large portion of the valuable 

 plants from Gorenki were transferred to it, a library was founded, 

 and an herbarium established, new and important buildings were 

 erected, and rich collections of plants and seeds were obtained from 

 England, France, Germany, and other more distant regions, to fill 

 the space thus created for their reception. At his proposal also, 

 various scientific journeys were undertaken both within the Russian 



