638 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



After four years he left his practice with Dr. Wislizenus, and went 

 to Germany to marry Miss Dora Horstmann, to whom he had been 

 engaged for ten years. The following year, in 1840, Dr. and Mrs. 

 Engelmann came to St. Louis. We have already mentioned Dr. 

 Engelmann's interest in the Western Academy of Science in 1836- 

 '37. It was in 1835 that he began the remarkable series of meteor- 

 ological investigations and records which were kept up continuously 

 for nearly fifty years. In 1842 he published his important mono- 

 graph upon American Cuscutince in the American Journal of Sci- 

 ence and Art. The paper caused a true sensation in botanical circles. 

 In 1848 he prepared the report upon the Cactacece of Doniphan's 

 Rio Grande and Mexican trip, and later the important reports upon 

 the Cacti of the Pacific Railroad survey and the Mexican boundary. 

 These papers, the standard authority upon this interesting and im- 

 portant family of plants, are a monument of accurate and careful 

 work. Dr. Engelmann was a considerable traveler. He made 

 many journeys to the West and South, and to Europe, always to the 

 profit of botanical science. There existed between him and Asa 

 Gray and Charles C. Parry the kindest sympathy and deepest regard. 

 On many of his journeys Mrs. Engelmann was his companion. Be- 

 tween the two there existed the most delightful companionship and 

 love. Early in 1879 she died, and it might almost be said that he 

 was never happy again. In vain his friends attempted to cheer him. 

 A trip to the Pacific coast in company with C. S. Sargent and C. C. 

 Parry was arranged, but it failed to relieve his depression or to cure 

 his bodily ills. In the summer of 1883 he went again to Germany, 

 but broke down upon the trip and died soon after his return home. 

 It is significant of the man's interest in his work that, while he was 

 ready to go, he longed to live just one year more, that he might 

 finish out his half century of meteorological observations. During 

 his later years, Dr. Engelmann was in the habit of preparing sum- 

 maries of the observations for each year, making careful comparisons 

 with the records of preceding years, computing averages, drawing 

 diagrams, etc., for presentation at the academy. Dr. Engelmann's 

 interest in the academy never flagged; one of its founders in 1856, 

 he was rarely absent from any meeting if he was in the city; he 

 served as president sixteen times. Though having many oppor- 

 tunities to publish his botanical notes, he loyally preferred the 

 medium of the Transactions of the academy he so much loved and 

 for which he did so much. The bulk of his literary production is 

 scattered through its pages. There are his papers upon cacti, Rocky 

 Mountain pines, North American juncus, yucca, junipers, firs, 

 agave, oaks, isoetes, the genus Pinus, etc. papers that rank among 

 the best in American botany. Yet all this work was done, not by a 



