August 1898] OBITUARIES 141 
was able to gratify his desire to examine the facts. In this year he 
visited the islands himself, leaving in May and returning in October, 
not only making observations but also amassing a most valuable 
collection of specimens illustrating the fauna and flora of the group. 
He published his results in a series of important papers, still incom- 
plete at the time of his death. He specially emphasised his discovery 
that each island had peculiar species of animals and plants, those of 
neighbouring islands never quite identical though closely related ; and 
he maintained that this harmonic distribution, as he termed it, could 
only be explained on the hypothesis, that the Galapagos were the 
summits of mountains of a submerged continental area, which had 
once been connected with the mainland of America. This heterodox 
view was at first much opposed, but it has now met with nearly 
universal acceptance among naturalists. It was approvingly discussed 
recently by Dr Giinther in his presidential address to the Linnean 
Society ; it has also been admitted as plausible by Mr W. Botting 
Hemsley, the specialist on insular floras. Dr Baur’s work was thus 
far-reaching in the realm of biological and geological philosophy, and 
an investigator of his originality and broad ideas can ill be spared. 
ANTON KERNER RITTER VON MARILAUN 
Born JUNE 13, 1831. DIED JUNE 21, 1898 
Dr KERNER VON MARILAUN, whose death at the age of 67 is 
announced, was Professor of Systematic Botany, and Director of 
the Botanic Gardens and Museum of Vienna University. He is 
best known to English students from his “ Pflanzenleben,” perhaps 
the most charming work on plant-life ever written ; it was recently 
translated into English under the direction of Prof. F. W. Oliver. 
Another, delightful but smaller work is his “Plants and their Un- 
bidden Guests,” translated by Dr Ogle, with a preface by Charles 
Darwin. These are the work of a keen observer and lover of nature, 
who was gifted with a vivid imagination, which occasionally led him 
beyond the limit of strict scientific accuracy. Kerner also wrote 
several books and papers dealing systematically with the flora of 
Southern Austria, the Tyrol, and neighbouring countries. 
FERDINAND COHN, who, on June 25th, died suddenly at Breslau, was 
born in that town in 1828, educated there, and had held the chair of 
botany at its University since 1859. Author of several books and 
papers dealing with plant-life in general, he was best known to the 
public by his semi-popular work “Die Pflanze,” of which the first 
edition appeared in 1870, the second in 1896. His more strictly 
scientific work was on the lower groups of plants, such as Algae, 
Fungi, and Bacteria, and most of it was published in “ Beitriige zur 
Biologie der* Pflanzen,” an irregular periodical founded by Cohn in 
1870 and edited by him till its cessation in 1896. He also edited the 
“ Kryptogamen-flora von Schlesien,” which began in 1876 and is still 
incomplete. 
The deaths are also announced of :—Dr PAut Broccui, professor of zoology and 
director of the National Agronomic Institute at Paris, and president of the Society of 
Agriculture ; and on March 7th, at Columbia, Mo., of E. H. Lonspaun, of the U.S. 
Geological Survey, and formerly connected with the Geological Surveys of Missouri 
and Iowa. 
