466 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



river threatened to sweep away his cabin, when he took to his 

 canoe, and dropped down the stream among the floating logs 

 and masses of ice. In 1844 he returned to Old Prussia on a 

 visit, at Konigsberg made the acquaintance of Ernest Meyer, 

 the professor of botany, and learned from him — what he 

 would have been most glad to know before — that dried speci- 

 mens of plants for the herbarium might be disposed of at a 

 reasonable price. Returning to St. Louis, he began to collect 

 plants in this view, took the botanical specimens to Dr. Engel- 

 mann, who gave him botanical assistance and encouragement. 

 In 1846 Dr. Engelmann and the writer of this notice obtained 

 permission for the transportation of Mr. Fendler and his lug- 

 gage along with the body of United States troops which took 

 possession of Santa Fe, New Mexico ; there he remained for 

 about a year, and made his well-known New Mexican collec- 

 tion, the first-fruits of the botany of that interesting district. 

 In 1849 he attempted another western botanical expedition, 

 this time with Salt Lake in view. But on the plains he lost 

 all his drying-paper in a flood of the Little Blue River ; and 

 he returned to St. Louis, to find that all his collections, books, 

 journals, and other possessions had been burnt in the great 

 conflagration which had just devastated that city. He now 

 sought a different climate, and, at the approach of winter, 

 went to the Isthmus of Panama for four months, made at 

 Chagres an interesting botanical collection, returned by way 

 of New Orleans to Arkansas, and to Memphis on the Ten- 

 nessee side of the river, where for three years he carried on 

 the camphene-light business, botanizing in the vicinity when 

 he could. In 1854, the introduction of gas having made his 

 occupation unprofitable, and a craving for new scenes being 

 strong upon him, he sailed for La Guayra, went up to Carac- 

 cas and thence to Colonia Tovar, 6500 feet above the sea, 

 built his cabin on the mountain side, where he lived four or 

 five years and amassed his large and fine Venezuelan collec- 

 tions of dried plants, so well known in the principal herbaria 

 of the world. His principal companions were his thermometer 

 and barometer, and his careful meteorological observations 

 were published by the Smithsonian Institution, in the report 



