CARL LUDWIG ROMINGER 



By GEORGE P. MERRILL 

 Head Curator of Geology, U. S. National Museum 



Carl Ludwig Rominger, the son of Ludwig and Johanna Dorothea 

 (HoeckUn) Rominger, was* born at Schaitheim, in Wiirtemberg, 

 December 31, 1820, and died at Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 2"], 1907. 



He was matriculated at the University of Tubingen in the fall of 

 1839, receiving his diploma as a doctor of medicine in the fall of 

 1842. His record as a student was that of a painstaking, detailed 

 worker and the winner of two academic prizes, one for a research 

 demonstrating the mode of ascension and 

 distribution of the sap in plants, and the 

 other for making a detailed geological 

 map of the environs of Tiibingen. 



From 1842 to 1845 ^le remained at 

 Tubingen as an assistant in the chemical 

 laboratory of Chr. Gmelin, and at the 

 same time devoted considerable attention 

 to the study of geology and paleontology 

 under the guidance of Professor Quen- 

 stedt. From 1845 to 1848, under an an- 

 nual grant of four hundred florins from 

 the government of Wiirtemberg, he trav- 

 eled extensively on foot over a great por- 

 tion of Germany, Austria, Hungary, 

 Switzerland, and France, his main ob- 

 ject being the study of the geological structure of these coun- 

 tries. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1848, fearing an 

 interruption of his studies, he crossed the Atlantic with the idea of 

 continuing his work in America, though, as it subsequently proved, 

 the step was premature and ill-advised, owing to his being poorly 

 equipped for such an undertaking and mainly on account of his 

 slight knowledge of the English language. He shipped in a sailing 

 vessel from Bremen in April, 1848, arriving in New York some 

 fifty days later. Being unable to understand the language or make 

 himself understood ; without letters of introduction or knowledge of 

 the manners and customs of the people, and without funds, he was 

 obliged to follow his medical profession for a livelihood. After a 



79 



Fig. 



Carl Liuhvij. 

 mincer 



Ro- 



