SKETCH OF L. D. VON SCHWEINITZ. 837 



this time were Dr. Reichenbach, of Dresden; Kunze, of Leip- 

 sic ; Major Le Conte, United States Army ; Blumenbach, of 

 Gottingen ; 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 editorial 

 care of Dr. D. F. Schwaegrichen. Among the one thousand 

 three hundred and seventy-three species described in this synop- 

 sis, 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 correspondences which 

 were of great value to him after he returned to America and be- 

 gan the formation of a regular herbarium. In 1821 von Schwei- 

 nitz published at Raleigh, N. C., a pamphlet containing descrip- 

 tions of seventy-six species of Hepaticaz, (liverworts), among 

 them being nine discovered by him. In the same year he con- 

 tributed to the American Journal of Science, then in its fifth vol- 

 ume, 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 state- 

 ment that among the thirty species of violets then known in 

 America there was not one exactly like any of the twenty Eu- 

 ropean species. 



During his residence at Salem, von Schweinitz had been 

 offered the presidency of the University of North Carolina. The 

 acceptance of this honorable position would have necessitated 

 giving up his service in the Moravian Church, and so, feeling that 

 the Brethren had the best claim upon his energies, he declined it. 

 At the beginning of the year 1822 he removed to Pennsylvania, 

 and took up his residence in his native village of Bethlehem. 

 Here he undertook the charge of the Moravian girls' seminary at 

 that place, and the secular office of general agent for the Brethren 

 was retained. His botanical studies were not suffered to languish. 

 " The beautiful slopes and valleys about Bethlehem and Naza- 

 reth/' says Johnson, " the romantic banks of the Delaware, and 

 the precipitous rocks of the Lehigh, all yielded up to him a trib- 

 ute of their hitherto unexplored treasures. The high estimation 

 set upon his works by men of science had procured his election 

 as an honorary member in several societies devoted to natural 

 history, both in Europe and America. His correspondence in- 

 creased, and the formation of his herbarium advanced with great 

 rapidity." About this time Major Long's expedition to the sources 

 of the St. Peter's River, in the Northwest Territory, returned. It 

 had been arranged that the plants collected on this trip by Thomas 



