SPICY ISLANDS. 



great number of years. He was born in 1627, and became dodlor 

 of phyfic in the univerfity of Hanover. He went over to this 

 ifland in charader of conful and merchant ; and appUed his leifure 

 moments to the ftudy of botany ; but by the vaft fruits of his 

 . labors, he muft be fuppofed to have dedicated his whole time to 

 that purfuit. By his continual refearches after plants, and other 

 objeas of natural hiftory on this burning foil, he had, at the age 

 of forty-three, the misfortune of lofmg his iight. Notwithftanding 

 this he perfevered in his purfuits, and being deprived of his 

 vifual faculties, acquired that of diftinguifhing plants by the 

 fenfes of feeling and fmell. He formed a Hortus Siccus, in ten 

 folio volumes, and in 1690 dedicated them to the governor and 

 council of the Eaji India Company, who depofited it In the India 

 houfe at ^mjierdam ; with them he probably depofited his de- 

 fcription of fiihes^ and other animals of the ifland. His bota- 

 nical labors were not printed during his life ; they had the 

 good fortune to faU into the hands of that able naturalifl Doaor 

 John Burman, who publiflied the firft volume of the celebrated 

 Herbarium Amboinenfe in 1740, and completed the whole by the 

 year 1751. It confifts of fix folio volumes, and an Au&uariutn, 

 which are illuftrated with feven hundred plates, relative to the 

 fubjecT:, befides two portraits, one of Rumpbius, in the fixty-eighth 

 year of his age, in a ftate of blindnefs. He is reprefented feel- 

 ing the plants and ftiells, placed before him on a table ; the other 

 portrait is of his publiflier, Docftor Burman. I do not know for 

 certain the time of his death ; it probably was at Amboina, for 

 he dates the dedication of his Hortus Siccus, from the caftle of 

 Victoria, 1690, in the 63d year of his age. 



Z a Governor 



171 



