BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON STELLER^ 

 By F. A. Colder 



Ceorg Wilhelm Steller was born in Windsheim, Franconia, 

 on March lo, 1709. After graduating from the schools of his 

 native city he went to the universities of Wittenberg, Leipzig, 

 Jena, and Halle, where he studied theology and the natural 

 sciences and specialized in medicine and botany. In 1734 he 

 went to Berlin to work under Professor Ludolf and to take an 

 examination, which he passed with high honor. He was now 

 ready for a position, but Cermany had none to offer him. The 

 only opening that presented itself at that time, and which he 

 accepted, was that of surgeon on an army transport that was 

 about to leave Danzig for Russia with a number of invalided 

 Russian soldiers. This is how it came about that Steller found 

 himself at St. Petersburg in the winter of 1734. 



Soon after his arrival he became the physician of the Arch- 

 bishop of Novgorod. This position provided him with a home, 

 but it did not give him an outlet for his energy and an oppor- 

 tunity for his talents. Steller desired to go to Siberia as a member 

 of Bering's second expedition and there make his reputation. 

 With that in view he asked the Academy of Sciences to send him 

 to Kamchatka as botanist. His friend the Archbishop, as w^ell 

 as others, backed him for the position, and in August, 1737, the 

 Senate, on the nomination of the Academy, appointed him 

 adjunct in natural history at a salary of six hundred and sixty 

 rubles a year and ordered him to proceed to Kamchatka. 



With such bright prospects before him Steller felt that he 

 was in a position to marry the lady of his choice, the attractive 



1 Material for the study of the life of Steller may be found in the 

 biographical publications listed in the bibliography at the end of the 

 volume. 



