178 



THE AQUARIUM, JULY, 1895. 



to learn, caused his father to yield to 

 his desire for a higher school education. 

 Delitzsch owns three free scholarships 

 at the famous cloister school Pforta. 

 This school is not far from Delitzsch, in 

 beautiful Thtiringen. One of the schol- 

 arships Ehrenberg succeeded in secur- 

 ing, a privilege representing about five 

 hundred dollars a year. In later years, 

 when he had reached the height of his 

 fame, he often spoke gratefully of his 

 native town, acknowledging that with- 

 out the aid of the Delitzsch scholarship 

 his career would have been impossible. 



After six years young Ehrenberg was 

 graduated with lionors,and although his 

 taste was decidedly in favor of natural 

 history, complying with the wish of his 

 father, he studied theology at the Uni- 

 versity of Leipsic. Having completed 

 his studies, his first sermon convinced 

 his father that he would not be a suc- 

 cess as a preacher, and he now willingly 

 gave his permission for the study of 

 medicine. 



Delitzsch having at the close of the 

 Napoleonic war, 1815, become a Prus- 

 sian possession, Ehrenberg's military 

 duties compelled him to stop his studies 

 at Leipsic and continue them at the 

 Royal University at Berlin. Three years 

 later he passed examination and re- 

 ceived his grade as M.D. 



His father expected that Gottfried 

 would now return to his native town, 

 settle down and devote himself to the 

 practice of medicine. But fate directed 

 differently. His essay, written in the 

 most perfect Latin, on the development 

 of moulds and fungi, showed so much 

 originality of thought that it attracted 

 the attention of the Royal Academy. 

 They found him useful, and two years 

 later he started with his intimate 

 friend, Hemprich, likewise an M. D. 

 and instructor of Zoology at the Mili- 



tary Academy, on an expedition to 

 Africa at the expense of the Prussian 

 Government. 



For nearly six years these two young 

 scientists studied the flora and fauna of 

 the Desert, the upper Nile, Mount 

 Sinai, Lebanon, the Red Sea and Abys- 

 sinia. The narrative, as told in Ehren- 

 berg's diary and printed in Dr. Max 

 Lane's biography of Ehrenberg, which 

 work we have before us while writing 

 this sketch, reads like fiction. No rail- 

 roads nor steamers being then in exist- 

 ence, the long Journey from Berlin to 

 Triest had to be made in wagons ; a sail- 

 ing vessel carried them to Alexandria. 

 From there on they traveled on the 

 backs of camels, of which their cara- 

 van possessed sixteen, or on Nile- 

 boats. We read that the travelers had 

 been left a long time without money 

 and even letters from home, through 

 the treacherous act of the Prussian 

 consul at Triest, who had used for 

 himself the money sent for them, with- 

 holding at the same time all corres- 

 pondence both ways. Twice our trav- 

 elers were surrounded by the terrible 

 plague ; a war on the desert caused 

 them at another time to retreat to 

 Cairo, while tropical fevers reduced 

 their number. 



Nine of the party had already found 

 their graves on the border of the Nile 

 or in the sand of the desert, and when, 

 while in Abyssinia, Dr. Hemiirich also 

 died of tropic fever in the arms of 

 Ehrenberg, then the expedition turned 

 homeward. 



The result of this voyage Avas 34,000 

 specimens, representing 135 species of 

 mammals, 430 of birds, 546 of fish and 

 amphibians, 600 annelides and Crusta- 

 cea and 2,000 species of insects, 300 

 specimens of minerals, and botanical 

 specimens without number. This col- 



