Biographical Notice of Dr. Fischer. 393 
authorities and inhabitants of the district. His loss is the more 
to be regretted, inasmuch as it disappoints those hopes held forth 
y my predecessor last year, in allusion to the geological discov- 
eries to be expected from Dr. Stanger, who was to have underta- 
ken an official geological exploration of the province of Natal. 
* * * * * * * 
The only loss we have sustained amongst our Foreign Associ- 
ciates is that of Dr. Gorruetr Frrepricn Fiscuer pe WaLDHEIM, 
Professor of Natural History in the University of Moscow. He 
was born at Waldheim, in Saxony, on the 15th October, 1771, 
and studied mineralogy at Freiberg, with Leopold von Buch and 
Baron von Humboldt, completing his medical studies at the Uni- 
versity of Leipzic. At Paris he subsequently attended the lectures 
of Cuvier, and carefully studied the natural-history collections of 
the French Museum. He had already given evidence of his ex- 
tensive learning by numerous publications, when, in 1800, he was 
appointed Professor of Natural History at the Central School of 
Mayence. On his arrival there, however, he found that the chair 
had been given to another; and with that power of adaptation 
which belongs to true genius, he at once accepted the office of 
Librarian, which for a time led him away to other studies, partic- 
ularly typographical antiquities. On_ this subject he published 
several valuable works until 1804, But he did not, in the mean 
time, neglect his favorite pursuit ; he founded at Mayence a Natu- 
ral History Society, of which he became the Secretary, and in 
1804 published his ‘ Anatomie der Maki un der ihm verwandten 
Thiere.’ In the same year he was appointed Professor and Di- 
rector of the Museum of Natural History at Moscow, where a 
new field was opened to his talents, in which he had labored with 
zeal and energy during the remainder of his life. In the year 
1805 he founded the Society of Naturalists of Moscow, and pub- 
lished the first volume of his ‘ Description du Muséum d’Histoire 
Naturelle,’ the copper-plates of which he engraved with his own 
This Museum, for the establishment and improvement of 
which he had so strenuously exerted himself, was destroyed during 
the conflagration of the city in 1812. Such a calamity would 
have gone nigh to overwhelm an ordinary man. Dr. Fischer rose 
above the circumstances, and with redoubled ardor immediately 
set to work to replace, as far as possible, the treasures which had 
been lost. Such were his efforts, and such was the success with 
which they were attended, that in a very few years the new Mu- 
seum had again acquired a valuable collection of objects of natu- 
ral historv. He had now begun to direct his attention more ex- 
clusively to the study of fossil zoology, or as it is now called, 
Paleontolocy. In the ‘ Bibliographia Zoologie et Geologie’ of 
Agassiz, published by the Ray Society, there are no less than 150 
notices of separate works and memoirs In Journals and Transac- 
Sxconp Serres, Vol. XX, No. 60.—Nov., 1855. 
