AJfNIYEESART ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xlix 



1857, laid before us sound reasons for doubting the propriety of a 

 minute classification founded on such an assumption ; and Oppel 

 himself appears, after long holding sternly to this view and all its 

 consequences, to have passed through a remarkable ordeal on read- 

 ing Darwin's work on the origin of species. Inclined as he was, at 

 first, to take his stand on the great importance of the most minute 

 specific diff'erences of which his accurate study made him a master, 

 he was nevertheless won over by the philosophical conclusions of 

 the great naturalist, and, as we are informed by his friend Yon 

 Hochstetter, became at length a thorough Darwinian. 



In 1858 he was appointed assistant to Wagner, conservator of 

 the palseontological collection at Munich, and in 1861 succeeded 

 him in that post, and became Professor of Palaeontology. In this 

 office he worked with untiring energy; he wrote papers on the 

 Crustacea of the White Jura, on new Ammonites, and on the fossils 

 collected by the Schlagintweits in the Himalaya, entered on the 

 subject of Alpine geology, and described the Yils limestones, the 

 Posidonomya-beds of the Alps, &c. His last work was the esta- 

 blishment of a ^' tithonian " etage, founded upon numerous species of 

 Ammonites, and comprising the boundary beds between the Jui'a 

 and the Chalk ; and this was to be preliminary to a larger work, 

 which, unfortunately, he did not live to complete. The Museum, 

 which came to him in a somewhat neglected state, he worked at 

 with indefatigable zeal, and by enriching it with the great Hohen- 

 egger Collection (from Teschen), of above 100,000 specimens, and 

 with that of Oberndorfer, from Kelheim, raised it to the rank of one 

 of the richest in Europe. 



In private as in public life Oppel was one of the most considerate 

 and retiring of men. At the Royal Academy of Sciences he could 

 never be persuaded to speak ; for he conceived that the gift was de- 

 nied him to put into clear and popular language the substance 

 and general results of his studies. He adhered, both in his teach- 

 ing as professor and in his pursuits, to the simple, dry routine of 

 steady work. Uncommunicative to general acquaintances, he was 

 beloved among a small circle of friends and colleagues ; and his 

 appearance of failing health appears ,to have alarmed them in the 

 autumn of 1865, when he attended the meeting of naturalists at 

 Geneva. In the beginning of December he had the misfortune of 

 losing his youngest child, and a few days after was attacked by 

 typhoid fever, which carried him off on the 22nd of December. 



The death of Oppel aroused a deep feeling of sorrow at Munich, 

 especially among the members of the Academy and the University, 

 who all esteemed and loved their modest colleague. 



Dr. I^rLS VON T^oedenskiold died on the 21st of February, 1866, 

 at Prugard, near Helsingfors, in the 73rd year of his age. He was 

 a pupil of Berzelius, and at an early age practised himself in minera- 

 logical and geological excursions to such good purpose that he 

 was enabled in 1820 to publish an octavo volume at Stockholm on 

 the mineralogy of Finland. He has since been well known through- 



VOL. XXIII. d 



