PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



the Moravian ministry. The eldest, Emil Adolphus de Schwei- 

 nitz, was born in Salem, N. C, in 1816. He filled various 

 ecclesiastical offices in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, was 

 made a bishop in 1874, and died in 1879. The second son, 

 Robert, was born in Salem, in 1819. He has filled various 

 charges and was for many years president of the executive 

 board of the American Moravian Church. Since his retirement 

 from the active ministry he has been general treasurer of the 

 Church and of its Foreign Mission Department. The third 

 son, Edmund Alexander, was born in Bethlehem in 1825, and 

 died there in 1887. He also became a bishop, and was the 

 author of several books on the history and polity of the Unitas 

 Fratrum. In 1856 he established a weekly journal for the 

 Moravians in America, which he edited for ten years. His 

 life was one of great activity and usefulness. Bernard, the 

 youngest son, was born at Bethlehem, in 1828, and died at the 

 age of twenty-six years, being at the time in charge of a church 

 on Staten Island. During the latter years of the father's life 

 he used de in place of von in his name, and the sons have always 

 used the new form. 



Von Schweinitz was of high stature, erect carriage, and 

 robust habit. The accompanying portrait is a copy of a mini- 

 ature painted some years before his death, and consequently 

 represents him in the prime of life. He had an unusually 

 amiable and attractive disposition, which made him a general 

 favourite with high and low. His conversational powers were 

 of a high order, and contributed much to an ease of inter- 

 course which was an important factor of his usefulness. Hu- 

 mour, anecdote, and repartee were always at his command, 

 while the varied and exciting scenes through which he had 

 passed and the prominent personages with whom he had come 

 in contact furnished him an inexhaustible fund of interesting 

 reminiscences. Strange to say, considering his German ex- 

 traction, he was devoid of any appreciation for music. He 

 spoke and wrote in English, German, French, and Latin, and 

 was also acquainted with Greek. 



A notable feature of his scientific work was its systematic 

 character. Evidence of this is furnished by the synoptical 

 tables attached to his several monographs, and by the fact that 

 the analytical table of the Carices was one of his productions. 

 The cryptogams had for him an attraction that they do not 



