Baron von Wailtershausen’s: Work o on Mount iy 169 
Baron Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, now sabout 37 
. years old, was born in Géttingen. His father, a corresponding 
member of the French Institute, and a representative of one of 
the German States at the Congress of Vienna, is still well known 
on the continent of Europe as the author of an important and 
learned history of the Hanseatic cities and their league. From 
the intimacy existing between Géthe and the family of Baron 
Waltershausen, that great poet was his godfather, and gave him 
his own name, John Wolfgang. He was educated chiefly at the 
University of Géttingen, where his father was for some years a 
professor, lecturing with great reputation on History and Politi- 
eal Science, and refusing from his attachment to the place and its 
resources, frequent offers that were made to him of higher posi- 
tions in the service of Russia and other German States. 
But the son so far as intellectual occupation was concerned, 
showed no disposition to follow in his father’s footsteps. From 
__. his earliest youth he discovered a passion for the study of nature, 
and especially of mineralogy and geology. When hardly seven 
years old, in a childish letter to a friend of the family, a distin- 
guished s scholar of this country, who was about to visit Italy, he 
said, “ la am making a collection of mineral stones, and I wish I 
had some lava. If you go to Naples, pray send me a piece from 
Vesuvius.” The passion thus early developed grew with his 
- years, and after the death of his father, who died in his arms in © 
- 1828, and that of his mother, a lady of some accomplishments _ 
-and personal attractions, which followed two or three years later, ‘ 
he found. himself still young, in possession of:a good fortune, 
as and free to devote himself to the pursuit of his favorite sciences. 
His deter wn was at once taken, and he prepared himself by 
the most entebak study, and by personal investigation of the min- 
-eralogy and geology of Gomer: for the enquiries that he i in- 
¢ Rended to make elsewhere. 
_ He was satisfied however, that in onder to do any eg aie for the 
(ubvntioeeatee of the sciences to which he now devoted his life, 
he must avoid the common fault of extending his researches over 
- “too wide a field. After much consideration therefore, he selected 
asingle point, Etna and its neighborhood, as the scene of his la- 
~ bors, determining to remain there until he should have accom- 
- Bed whatever in the present state of knowledge could be un- 
derta for the magma of its eae! phenomena, 
