563 



He was accustomed to spend his autumn vacation somewhere on the 

 sea-coast, for the sake of studying marine animals. While he was 

 returning from one of these visits which he had made in 1855 to 

 the coast of Norway with two of his pupils, the steamer, between 

 Bergen and Christiansand, in which he was travelling, was run into 

 by another, and speedily sank. Nearly fifty people lost their lives, 

 and among them one of Muller's companions, a young man of great 

 promise. In a letter to a friend in England, in which Miiller gives 

 an account of this deplorable calamity, he says that on finding him- 

 self in the water, he at first kept himself up by swimming ; but 

 that having his clothes on, he soon became exhausted, and would 

 have inevitably perished, had he not caught hold of a ship's ladder 

 that was floating by. He held on for a long time, and had given 

 up all hope of succour, when he was picked up by a boat from the 

 other vessel. His remaining companion, Dr. Schneider, saved him- 

 self in a similar way. This event had a deep effect upon him, and, 

 although he still resorted to the sea- side, he dreaded afterwards to 

 trust himself on ship-board. 



Still working hard as before, but with altered spirits, he in the 

 spring of 1858 began to fail in health; he complained of head- 

 aches and passed sleepless nights, owing, doubtless, to a recurrence 

 of cerebral disease from which he had twice before suffered in the 

 course of his life. Experiencing no amendment, and at length feeling 

 that his end was approaching, he settled his affairs both public and 

 private ; called his son by telegraph from Bonn on the 27th of 

 April, and fixed on the morrow for a medical consultation on his 

 case ; but the next morning found him a corpse. 



A man of Miiller' s eminence had of course been enrolled a member 

 of the chief learned bodies of Europe and America. He was elected 

 a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1840. 



Miiller was rather grave and reserved in manner ; he was upright 

 in all his dealings, ever ready to perceive merit in others, candid and 

 just in acknowledging the scientific labours of his predecessors and 

 contemporaries. The tidings of the unlooked-for extinction of his 

 laborious and valuable life caused profound sorrow in every part of 

 the world where science is cultivated. 



VOL. ix. 2 Q 



