FERDINAND VON MUELLER. 273 



slightly abbreviated form the interesting biography by Mr. W. B. 

 Spencer, published in the Victorian Xaturalist for October last. 



A notice in the Gardeners' Chronicle of Oct. 17, 1896 (accompanied 

 by a portrait, for the loan of which we are indebted to the Editor of 

 that periodical) gives an interesting sketch of his work, but is some- 

 what marred by an undue insistence on the harmless egotism which 

 characterized the deceased botanist. That he had a weakness for 

 titles and a high opinion of his own capabilities was manifest 

 enough, not only to his correspondents, but to those acquainted 

 with his work ; but the weakness is one to which many excellent 

 folk are subject, and it would have been afifectation had he 

 not recognized the great work he did for Australian botany. 

 There are other criticisms in the Chronicle to which exception 

 might be taken. That the Baron was capable of great sacrifices 

 on behalf of science is manifest from the following sketch ; the 

 generosity with which he supplied Mr. Beutham with the material 

 which he had accumulated for a Flora of Australia is in itself 

 sufficient proof of this — indeed, his willingness to communicate 

 information was only equalled by his anxiety to acquire it. — Ed. 

 JouKN. Box.] 



Ferdinand Mueller's father was Commissioner of Customs in 

 the little town of Rostock, and there he was born in 1825, and 

 received his early education, evidently intending from an early age 

 to become a pharmaceutical chemist ; in fact, his first employment 

 was as chemist's assistant in the town of Husum, in Schleswig- 

 Holstein. From Rostock he went to study at the University of 

 Kiel, Avhere he passed his pharmaceutical examination in 181 G, his 

 early studies in which direction will explain the interest which he 

 has always taken in this department. 



Meanwhile, however, he had attended the botany lectures of 

 Professor Nolte, and with characteristic energy had set to work 

 studying and collecting in his spare time the plants of the island of 

 Sylt, and in 184G he presented, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor 

 of Philosophy in the University of Kiel, a paper on Capsella Ihirsa- 

 pantoris. In the same year he published in Flora a more extensive 

 paper on the fiora of Schleswig-Holstein, and though he was unable 

 to devote himself as yet entirely to his favourite study, it is evident 

 that his path in life was already clearly marked out for him, and 

 that, wherever he was or whatever occupation he might have to 

 follow, the study of botany would be his main object. 



Late in 181G, Dr. Preiss, a friend of the Mueller family, had 

 returned from a visit to Western Australia, and being acquainted 

 with the phthisical tendency of the student and his sisters, had 

 strongly urged their emigration to the more genial climate of the 

 sunny south. Accordingly Dr. Mueller and his sisters set sail, and 

 arrived in Port Adelaide in December, 1817. His capital was limited 

 mainly to his brains, so he had to find something to do, and readily 

 got and accepted employment in the chemist's shop of Heuzenroeder, 

 in Rundle-street. Adelaide was not then what it is now, and one 

 had not to go far afield to got l)eyond the reach of civilization. All 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 35. [July, 1897.] t 



