38G Letters, Announcements, ^c, 



natural history in a new and little-explored region and, by 

 roughing it, to regain health and strength. 



For five years in this district White roamed about, sleeping 

 amongst the snows, travelling on mule-back, battered and 

 tossed by wind and rain, dust and heat, until at last he re- 

 turned home robust, and sought for a wife ready to accompany 

 and aid him in future toil. He found her and married ; and 

 then the next thing was to consider, as he had now con- 

 tracted obligations, how to choose a profession that should 

 first pay the expenses of his future explorations, and secondly 

 occupy the minimum of time in preparation. 



His first idea was medicine, which he had studied in Buenos 

 Ayres previously; but considering that all the dentists of 

 Buenos Aires are rich men, and that the teeth of Argentines are 

 about the worst in the world, he fixed upon dentistry, which 

 he could combine with natural history in his projected travels, 

 wherein he was determined to exhaust the Argentine Republic. 



White first tried the London schools ; but the restrictions 

 were so onerous and the climate so bad, that he was forced 

 to migrate to Philadelphia. Here, after his two j^ears' course, 

 he was on the point of attaining his qualification, when a 

 wave of malignant typhoid fever swept over the city and 

 carried White away amidst its earliest victims, on the 29th 

 of November last, at the early age of 26 years. 



Dr. Eduard RiJppELL. — The death of Dr. Eduard Riippell, 

 of Frankfort-on-the-Main, which we announced in our last 

 Number (see p. 238), cannot be allowed to pass in this 

 Journal without honourable notice of so eminent a traveller 

 and naturalist. 



Dr. Riippell was born in Frankfort on the 20th November, 

 1794<, the son of an official in the postal service of the Grand 

 Duchy of Hesse. After leaving the Gymnasium he was 

 placed in business ; but his love for natural history led him 

 to visit Egypt as early as 1817, after which he became resi- 

 dent in Italy. The assistance rendered to him by the 

 Senckenbergian Society of Naturalists, which was founded 

 in that year in his native city, enabled Riippell to attend 



