146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



title to have the Leyden-jar called by his name. Volta's electrophore 

 is really Wilcke's discovery. Segner's water-wheel, Leidenfrost's and 

 Sulzer's experiments, became the germs of important discoveries and ap- 

 plications. Stahl's phlogiston, even if it was a false conception, and 

 Haller's elementa, in the long run, made chemistry and physiology 

 German sciences. Herr Hofman has very lately taught us how to 

 appreciate Marggraf's services in technical chemistry. Vater and 

 Lieberkuhn are still mentioned in the finer anatomy, and the first part 

 of Sommering's classical activity belongs to the same category. Cas- 

 par Frederick Wolf reformed the development-history and outlined 

 the doctrine of the metamorphosis of plants. As early as 1785 Blu- 

 menbach, the founder of physical anthropology, led a class in com- 

 parative anatomy. In natural history, Rosel earnestly advanced the 

 labors of Swammerdam and Reaumur ; Ledermiiller described the 

 creatures which he called infusorim. Gleditsch performed the experi- 

 mental demonstration of the sexuality of the phanerogams by fer- 

 tilizing the palms in our botanical gardens with pollen from Leipsic. 

 Even in classification, in which the rivalry of the seafaring nations 

 with the Germans was so arduous, a few, like the creator of our fish- 

 collection, Bloch, won imperishable fame. Germans also approved 

 themselves as scientific travelers : the two Forsters, Cook's compan- 

 ions around the world ; and in connection with the Russian expedition 

 for observing the second transit of Venus, our Pallas, as a student of 

 the Siberian fauna. Finally, in geognosy had Werner secured the 

 uncontested leadership for the Germans as the pre-eminently mining 

 people, among whom Agricola had previously created mineralogy. 



This enumeration, which might be considerably extended, shows 

 what good progress German natural science had made in the last cen- 

 tury. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any other people can boast of a 

 greater richness of notable achievements during the same period. But, 

 toward the end of the century, the aspect was changed, to our disad- 

 vantage, and not without our fault. 



After its early bloom in the middle ages, and the activity of the 

 Reformation, the German mind, disturbed in its development by the 

 Thirty Years' War, remained, as respects literary production, in the 

 background. At most, it trifled a little in a tasteless way. Then, 

 all at once, in the second half of the century, it rose to so mighty 

 a flight that it not only recovered its lost rank, but placed itself, 

 in some kinds of poetic creation, at the head of modern mankind. 

 A constellation of talent arose, the like of which the ages of Augustus 

 and Louis XIV did not see, nor the fifteenth century, except in other 

 fields. Who can describe the intoxication of the nation, when im- 

 mortal songs announced that the king's son had come whose kiss 

 was to awaken the thorn -rose of German poetry out of its half a 

 thousand years' slumber ? At the same time there pressed upon us 

 the new naturalism and emotionalism from England, and enlighten- 



