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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 176. 



randt as physiological assistant in 1859. 

 He went there in the March of that year. 

 His chief work here was to show that land 

 plants could be raised in aqueous solutions 

 of nutrient salts, but he was busy at the 

 same time with other phj'siological experi- 

 ments. ' Die Entdeckungen lagen damals 

 am Wege ' was his opinion, ' die Botaniker 

 trieben andere Dinge.' Even then Nageli, 

 for instance, described Sachs' researches as 

 belonging to the chemistry of agriculture ; 

 there was as yet no talk in Germany of the 

 chemistry of plant-physiology. 



In summer he started work at four 

 o'clock in the morning, and by so doing 

 found time during the years 1859 and 1860 

 to study the earlier plant physiologists be- 

 sides doing his own work. These literary 

 studies caused him, in 1860, to suggest to 

 Hofmeister that they should edit a large 

 hand-book of botany, in which the collected 

 results of what we now call * general ' bot- 

 any should be critically set forth. The 

 Sandhucli der physiologischen JBotanik re- 

 mains, as is well known, a fragment ; vari- 

 ous collaborators who had undertaken cei-- 

 tain parts drew back, and Hofmeister fell 

 ill and died in 1877 without being able to 

 complete his share ; but in spite of all mis- 

 haps the four volumes that appeared rank 

 among the most valuable productions of 

 more recent botanical literature. Sachs 

 had frequently to give addresses at agricul- 

 tural meetings and so gained the useful 

 knowledge that he had a natural gift for 

 public speaking. 



In the winter of 1860-61 he was invited 

 to become the head of the recently estab- 

 lished agricultural department of the poly- 

 technic at Chemnitz. His position there 

 bristled with difficulties, and he welcomed 

 the proposal that he should accept the chair 

 of botany and natural history at Poppels- 

 dorf, near Bonn, whither he removed in 

 1861. Here he married and in time became 

 the father of two daughters and a son. 



As regards science the six years spent at 

 Bonn are among his most fruitful. Be- 

 sides a number of other works, it was here 

 that his ' Experimental Physiology ' was 

 written and the ' Text-book ' begun. His 

 lectures were highly appreciated, and at the- 

 end of two years he was relieved from lec- 

 turing upon mineralogy and zoology ; hence- 

 forward he dealt only with physiology 

 during the winter, and in the summer de- 

 livered special lectures on agricultural 

 plants. There was but little intercourse 

 between him and the botanist Schacht, who 

 was then at Bonn, but who was already in 

 bad health, and whose temperament was 

 thoroughly uncongenial to his own. With 

 Schacht's successor, Hanstein, on the con- 

 trary, friendly relations ensued. On 'New 

 Year's Eve, 1866, he received the news 

 that he had been called to Freiburg im 

 Breisgau as successor to De Bary ; he went 

 there in April, 1867. A small salary and a 

 poor garden formed two undesirable ele- 

 ments in his life at Freiburg, and after 

 three terms he willingly left to go to Wiirz- 

 burg. There, as we know, he remained, in 

 spite of brilliant offers to move elsewhere. 

 As early as 1869 he received a call to 

 Jena, in 1872 to Heidelberg, in 1873 

 to Vienna, in 1877 to Berlin, where later 

 they tried to obtan him for the Agricultural 

 College ; he was also invited to Bonn 

 under tempting circumstances. When 

 Nageli retired, the professorial chair at 

 Munich was offered him. It is much to be 

 regretted that he did not accept one of these 

 invitations whilst his health was still good, 

 especially as the climate of Wiirzburg is 

 hardly favorable to nervous constitutions. 

 It may, perhaps, have been the needs of his 

 family, which pressed heavily upon him, or 

 attachment to all he had acquired at Wiirz- 

 burg and dislike to the loss of time and 

 strength inseparable from each change of 

 place, that kept him there. The govern- 

 ment testified its appreciation by investing 



