[WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



after Fran Merian's death by her daughter Dorothea. The 

 same gifted daughter showed her interest in her parent's 

 work and her devotion to her memory by bringing out a 

 beautifully illustrated edition of her mother 's earliest work 

 which treated of the wonderful life-history of silk-worms. 1 



The century following that which had celebrated the 

 scientific triumphs of Maria Merian found in Josephine 

 Kablick, born in 1787 in Hohenelbe, Bohemia, a woman 

 who was destined to prove a worthy successor, as a nature- 

 student, of the noted daughter of Frankfort-on-the-Main. 



From her tenderest years she exhibited a passionate love 

 for every form of plant life. In addition to this, she had, 

 while yet young, the good fortune of studying under the 

 best botanists of her time. 



Soon she became an enthusiastic collector and was in a 

 short time the happy possessor of a herbarium which con- 

 tained many new species of plants which she had discov- 

 ered during her frequent botanical excursions. From 

 making collections for her private herbarium, she was 

 gradually led to make collections for the schools and col- 

 leges of her native country, as well as for the museums and 

 learned societies of various parts of Europe. Many public 

 institutions owed to her cordial cooperation some of the 

 choicest treasures in their herbaria, and not a few botanical 

 writers of her day found in her an intelligent and sympa- 

 thetic collaborator. 



But Frau Kablick *s interest in nature was not confined 

 to plants. She was an assiduous student of paleontology 

 as well as of botany, and the many fossil animals and plants 

 named in her honor testify to her success in the pursuit of 

 her favorite branches of science. 



There was nothing of the conventional blue-stocking 



iThe Latin edition of this work is entitled Erucarum Ortus, 

 Alimenta et Paradoxa Metamorphosis, Amsterdam, 1718. It waa 

 afterwards translated into French and published under the title 

 Histoire des Insects de I'Europe. 



