KAKL ALFKKI) VOX ZITTEL. 



TriUislatcd hv Ciiari.ks Scihhheut. « 



Diirin<>" an oxciirsion in southern Tyrol in the smnnior of 1898, 

 Privy CounsoHoi" Karl Alfred von ZittcK j)r()f('Ssor of ijfi'olo^y and 

 [)ale()nt()loi>y at tlie Fnivorsity of Munich, (lorniany, first began to 

 sutiVi' fi'oni heart lr()ul)h'. On the evcninii; of the oth of January, 

 11)04, 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 paleontology its master. 

 For thirty-five years he conducted the periodical Paheontographica, 

 and was about to complete the fiftieth volume of this great paleonto- 

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

 warranted pride, when his deatli changed contemplated joy into 

 deepest mourning. 



Karl Alfred von Zittel was born on the 25111 of September, 18:39, 

 in the parsonage at P>ahlingen, the seat of the rulers of Baden. He 

 w^as the youngest son of Pastor, later Dean, Karl Zittel, who was 

 jn-imiinent in the 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 gynmasium, 

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

 Lommel. Here he arranged and identified fossil snails and shells, 

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

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

 ory, later distinguished him as master in paleontology. 



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 insurmountable dilliculties in securing the three 

 students necessary to induce Heinrich (ieorg Broun, author of 

 Letha?a Geognostica and of Index Paleontologicus, and joint pub- 



« A free translation, greatly condensed, of the German memorial. Karl .Vlfred 

 von Zittel, Ein Naclirnff, by Prof. J. F. roniepck.i, published in TaliTOnto- 

 grapbica, Band .^)0, 1004, pp. .S-l'S. Extracts fi-oni the writings of Sness, Osliorn, 

 and Woodward have also been added. 



771) 



