24 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan., 



was cast into a dungeon, from which he emerged only on the i8th 

 January, 1830, with strict orders never to return to Japan." In 

 1859, however, after the American, Commodore Perry, had forced 

 open the gates of Japan, Von Siebold returned as a semi-official 

 ambassador, and, for a time, actually entered the Japanese service 

 as a negotiator. In these troublous years he was not so successful, 

 either in politics or science, and in 1862 he returned to his own 

 'country, where he died four years later. 



The best known of Von Siebold's works is Nippon : A irhiv znr 

 Besclireibung von Japan %md desscnNehen- unci Schutzlandcrn, a splendidly 

 illustrated folio, published at Leyden and Leipzig, from 1834 to 1842, 

 with the assistance of the King of the Netherlands. In conjunction 

 with C. J. Temminck, H. Schlegel, and W. de Haan, he published a 

 Fauna Japonica, which appeared at various dates between 1834 ^^^ 

 1851 ; while, with the assistance of J. G. Zuccarini, he presented to 

 the Royal Bavarian Academy of Science a memoir entitled FIov^p 

 yaponiccs families naturaks. It is not, however, any of these elaborate 

 works that now demands our attention, but, rather, a rare and little- 

 known quarto pamphlet of 16 pages, originally published in 1824 at 

 Leyden, and fortunately, since none of the London libraries seem to 

 possess it, afterwards reprinted in Oken's Isis, Bd. xx., Heft 2, 

 columns 135-143, 1827. Its title is De histories natnralis in Japonia statu, 

 nee non de augniento emolumentisqui in decursu pevscvntationuni expectandis 

 dissevtatio, cni nccedunt spicilegia jannce JaponiccB, and it contains so very 

 curious and interesting an account of the state of natural science in 

 Japan at the time of his visit that, considering its general inaccessi- 

 bility, I think I cannot do better than quote from it somewhat 

 extensively. 



In this account of Von Siebold's, among other characteristics of 

 the Japanese, some of which have already been alluded to, we shall 

 notice especially these three : their love of the monstrous, the keen 

 eye united with the cunning hand, and the practical bent of their 

 minds. We shall further notice that the position of natural science 

 had considerably improved since the days of Kaempfer, 175 years 

 before. In fact Kaempfer's own labours, followed by the example of 

 Thunberg, had aroused among the learned Japanese an almosc 

 incredible ardour and curiosity in natural history. 



Botany, says Von Siebold, was especially cultivated by them, 

 partly for its service in the pharmacopeia, since, like all oriental 

 nations, they were much given to herbs, and had at least 500 in daily 

 medical use, partly since they depended on the vegetable kingdom 

 for almost all the necessaries of life, in the way both of food and 

 clothing. But not entirely to these practical ends did they study the 

 science, since our author adds, " for their own pleasure and for the 

 ornament of their houses they cultivate the rarer plants, which 

 they are at pains to procure not only from distant provinces of their 

 own land, but even from China, and especially from Corea." Their 



