LEWIS DAVID VON SCHWEINITZ. 



I/I 



visits to its early settlements. His official duties were very 

 arduous. He was a member of the governing board of the 

 Moravian Churches in North Carolina, a trustee of the Salem 

 Female Academy, the administrator of the very large landed 

 estates owned by the church in the State, and he frequently 

 preached in Salem and other places. Yet he found time to 

 continue his botanical researches, which he could now carry on 

 in a dominion, scientifically speaking, all his own. On one of 

 his exploring trips he discovered among the Sauraton Moun- 

 tains, in Stokes County, a most beautiful waterfall, which still 

 bears his name. Among his scientific correspondents at this 

 time were Dr. Reichenbach, of Dresden ; Kunze, of Leipsic ; 

 Major Le Conte, United States Army ; Blumenbach, of Got- 

 tingen ; Elliott, of South Carolina ; Schwaegrichen, of Leip- 

 sic; and Hooker, of England. The first fruit of his botanical 

 work in the South was a synopsis of the fungi of North Caro- 

 lina, written in Latin, which was given to the world in 1818 

 through the Society of Naturalists at Leipsic, under the edi- 

 torial care of Dr. D. F. Schwaegrichen. Among the thirteen 

 hundred and seventy-three species described in this synopsis, 

 there are three hundred and fifteen that were new to science. 

 In the same year his duties required him to attend a synod 

 of his religious brethren at Herrnhut. On his way he visited 

 England, France, and Holland, and established correspond- 

 ences which were of great value to him after he returned to 

 America and began the formation of a regular herbarium. In 

 1821 von Schweinitz published at Raleigh, N. C., a pamphlet 

 containing descriptions of seventy six species of Hepaticce (liv- 

 erworts), among them being nine discovered by him. In the 

 same year he contributed to the American Journal of Science, 

 then in its fifth volume, a Monograph on the Genus Viola, in 

 which five new species were described. This was a valuable 

 paper, and was often cited by European botanists. In it he 

 made the interesting statement that among the thirty species 

 of violets then known in America there was not one exactly 

 like any of the twenty European species. 



During his residence at Salem, von Schweinitz had been 

 offered the presidency of the University of North Carolina. 

 The acceptance of this honourable position would have neces- 

 sitated giving up his service in the Moravian Church, and so, 

 feeling that the Brethren had the best claim upon his energies, 



