190 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



ROBERT HERMANN SCHOMBURQK. 



Robert Hermann Schomburgk, a Prussian traveler, was 

 born at Freiburg-an-der-Unstrut, June 5, 1804. He came 

 in 1826 to the United States when he was twenty-two years 

 of age, and, after working for some time as a clerk in Boston 

 and Philadelphia, became a partner in a Richmond, Vir- 

 ginia, tobacco manufactory in 1828. The factory was burned 

 and Schomburgk drifted to the West Indies in 1830, where, 

 after unsuccessful venture, his botanical work attracted the 

 attention of the London Geographical Society and secured 

 him the means to explore the unknown region of the Ori- 

 noco, where he traveled from 1833 to 1839, discovering 

 Victoria regia and numerous other plants. This work led 

 the British Government, in 1841-1844, to commission him 

 to survey the boundary between Venezuela and Guiana, 

 and to make further exploration. The famous line was 

 drawn and he was knighted by the Queen for his services. 

 Schomburgk, until his death in Berlin March 11, 1865, 

 continued in the British consular service, but he devoted 

 himself to botanical and geographical studies, being a 

 member of the principal American and European learned 

 societies. His works include several books and many scien- 

 tific papers on Guiana, and a " History of Barbadoes " 

 (1847). 



CHARLES PICKERING. 



Charles Pickering, M.D.,* died in Boston, of pneumonia, 

 on the 17th of March, 1878, in the seventy-third year of his 

 age. He was of a noted New England stock, being a grand- 

 son of Colonel Timothy Pickering, a member of Washington's 



* Proceedings American Academy of Arts and Sciences, XIII : 414 (1878). An 

 engraving of Pickering hangs in the Academy of Natural Sciences. 



