NATURAL SC7EXCES. 127 



revised two monographs which he had in preparation upon birds and fishes ; 

 and these two works he published upon his return from his travels (1551 and 

 1555), with illustrations which he had himself made after nature, but which 

 were not all of them accurate. 



Two men of genius one a German, George Agricola, the other a Swiss, 

 Conrad Gesner divided supremacy at that time in the domain of natural 

 history. The first occupied the position in regard to mineralogy which the 

 latter held in botany and zoology. George Landman Agricola, bom at 

 Chemnitz, in Saxony, in 1494, had studied in the Universities of France and 

 Italy ; while Gesner, born at Zurich in 1516, had been educated in the 

 schools of Paris and Montpellier. Agricola at first practised medicine, and 

 distinguished himself by his experiments in regard to what was called 

 chemical medicine. The study of chemistry led up to that of mineralogy, and 

 he devoted his whole time to the latter science, exploring the mines of 

 Bohemia and Saxony. It was in this way that he acquired a profound 

 knowledge of everything relating to the working of metals. In his works 

 on Mineralogy the chemical part is treated with as much precision and 

 learning as the docimastic part. These great works, translated into different 

 languages, and of which several editions were printed, earned for him more 

 reputation than profit, as he employed all his means in making costly 

 researches and experiments. Conrad Gesner did not attempt to rival 

 Agricola upon the field of mineralogy, turning his attention more specially 

 to the study of animals and of plants. He was, in reality, the originator of 

 scientific botany. Classing the plants by genus and kind, he was the first to 

 discover the.means of recognising each genus and kind by examining the organs 

 of fructification. In this way he discovered more than eighteen hundred new 

 kinds. His intention was to publish a work upon the natural history of the 

 whole world, and his erudition would have enabled him to complete this 

 immense task had his life been spared, but he only lived long enough to 

 write the first four books of his " History of Animals " (1551, 1554, 1555, 

 and 1558), which comprised the viviparous and oviparous tribes, the birds 

 and the fishes. His pupils, Gaspard Wolff and Joachim Camerarius, were 

 his executors, and they published the incomplete materials which he had left 

 behind him in regard to the vegetable kingdom, the serpents, and the fossils. 

 Gesner, who passed nearly all his life in his study at Zurich, was in per- 

 manent communication with the principal travellers of his day, such as Andre 



