4 CHARLES ANTHONY GOESSMANN 



in technical and industrial chemistry, particularly in 

 its relations to the sugar and salt industries. The third 

 and last period was devoted almost entirely to agri- 

 cultural chemistry, a branch of chemical science in 

 which he was a leader hi this country. 



Karl Anton Goessmann, third and youngest son of 

 the four children of Geheimer Medizinalrath Dr. 

 Heinrich Goessmann and Helena Henslinger-Boediger 

 his wife, was born on the 13th of June 1827, at Naum- 

 burg, in the electorate of Hesse-Cassel. Carefully nur- 

 tured, he received his early training, first hi the schools 

 of his native place and later at the Latin School of 

 Fritzlar, whither his father had removed while the son 

 was still a lad of eight or nine, and which henceforth 

 was the home of his youth and early manhood. There 

 he passed through the curriculum, his quiet bearing 

 and studious habits winning him the commendation 

 and respect of his teachers. Fond of flowers and pets 

 as a child, he early developed a taste for the natural 

 sciences, and his spare hours and holidays were largely 

 spent roaming the fields, woods, and hills in search of 

 plants, minerals, and other objects of interest. He also 

 delighted especially in books of travel and adventure. 

 His education owed more perhaps to his home circle 

 than to the school. His mother, an excellent woman of 

 great piety, devoted herself to the culture of her four 

 children, and had she lived until Anton's manhood, 

 he might have entered the Church thus following 

 the example of his maternal uncle, who was attached 

 to the Dom of Fritzlar, where the young Goessmann 

 often served as altar-boy. The * priest-uncle,' as he 



