Miscellaneous. 113 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Christian Gottfried Ehrekberg *. 



Among the men whose names will ever be associated with the 

 history of science, Ehrenberg occupies a very prominent place. 

 Fifty years ago he boldly penetrated into Africa as far as Abyssinia 

 in the face of difficulties of which we can now scarcely form any 

 idea, collecting zoological and botanical materials, whilst the fanati- 

 cism of the inhabitants followed the Christian wherever he went, and 

 more than once placed him in peril of his life. The results of these 

 travels led him to the department of science the investigation of 

 which constituted the principal labour of his life, and especially 

 contributed to his scientific fame, namely the study of the lower 

 forms of animal life, and especially the world of microscopic orga- 

 nisms, whose richness and variety *were previously unsuspected. 

 And it was not only to the living forms that Ehrenberg devoted his 

 attention ; he also demonstrated their wide diffusion in the rocks 

 of former periods of the earth's history, and became the founder of 

 microscopic palaeontology, which has been of essential aid to the 

 geology of the sedimentary rocks. With the greatest care the 

 objects of numerous observations were united by him into a coUec- 

 tiou which is unique in its kind, and which will remain at once as 

 an important aid to study and as a monument of the indefatigable 

 industry of a German savant. 



Ehrenberg was born on the 19th April, 1795, at Delitzsch in the 

 province of Saxony. Up to his fourteenth year he attended the 

 school of his native place; in 1810 he obtained a free scholarship 

 in the Pforta Academy, where he had several men of note (as, for 

 example, Leopold von Eanke) among his associates ; and he left this 

 institution in 1835 to study theology at Leipzig, in accordance with 

 his father's wish. But even in the midst of his classical studies at 

 the Academy, he had already devoted his hours of leisure to inves- 

 tigations in natural history ; and this bent of his mind led him when 

 he had been a year at the University, to exchange the study of the- 

 ology for that of medicine. He completed his academic studies in 

 Berlin, where he attained his degree of Doctor of Medicine on the 

 5th November, 1818, his inaugural dissertation bearing the title 

 " Sylvse mycologicoe Bcrolinenses." 



In the two following years we find the young doctor engaged with 

 his friend Hemprich in sketching plans for a great journey of inves- 

 tigation to some distant part of the earth ; and the wishes of both of 

 them were fulfilled in the year 1820, when General von Minutoli, 

 who was on the point of starting on an antiquarian journey into 

 Egjq^t, requested the Berlin Academy of Sciences to recommend him two 

 young naturalists as companions. The Academy selected Ehrenberg 

 and Hemprich. Their journey in common extended into the Libyan 

 desert as far as the oasis of Jupiter Ammon (Siwah) ; but after their 



* [For the original of this notice we are indebted to the kindness of 

 Prof. C. Rammelsberg. — Ens. ] 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Vol. xix. 8 



