THE TOMD OF RUMPHIUS. 251 



how nearly this sacred spot came to be entirely neg- 

 lected and forgotten forever, reads as follows : 



MEMORISE SACEUM GEORGn EVEEAEDI EUMPHII, 



(le re botanica et Listorica natural! optime merita 



TCSirLUM 



dlra temporis calamitate et sacrilegia manufere 



DIEUTUM, 



itanibus placatis restitui jussit 



et 



pietatem reverentiamque publicam testificans 



HOC MOXTTMENTUM 

 IPSE COXSECEAYIT 



Godarus Alexander Grardus Phillipus 



Liber Baro A. Capellen 



Totius Indite Belgicseque 



PREFECTUS EEGrUS. 



Amboinas Mensis Aprilis, 

 Anno Domini m.dccc.xsiv. 



George Eveeard RmiPF, whose name has lieen 

 latinized into Rumphius, as an acknowledgment of 

 the great service he has rendered to the scientific 

 ^vorld, was a German, a native of a small town in 

 liesse-Cassel. He was born aljout the year 1(326, 

 and, having studied medicine, at the age of twenty- 

 eight went to Batavia, entered the mercantile ser- 

 vice of the Dutch East India Company, and thence 

 proceeded to Amboina, where he passed the re- 

 mainder of his life. At the age of forty-two, while 

 contemplating a voyage back to his native land, he 

 suddenly became blind, and therefore never left his 

 adopted island home; yet he continued to prosecute 

 his favorite studies in natural history till his death, 

 which occurred in 1693, when he had attained the 

 ripe age of sixty-seven. 



His great work on the shells of Amboina, which 



