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550 his scientific knowledge. One was upon the invitation of the naturalist Meyer, to Hamburg and Heligoland, where he saw the ocean for the first time; another was to the Harz Mountains. Toward the end of his career at the university, he accepted a call to teach pedagogy and botany at the school of the orphan-house. Fritsche, who was one of his pupils, says of his lectures, "We were of course struck with his foreign dialect, but we also took good notice that he understood his subject." His last excursion from the university was made to Berlin, where he met Ehrenberg the microscopist, Yon Chamisso the circumnavigator, and Schlechtendal the famous botanist, who already knew him well by name from Hegetschweiler's mention of him in his "Schweitzer Pflanzen."

Heer left the university in March, 1831, stood his examination in theology at St. Gall in April, preached his first sermon at Wolfhalden, and was ordained on the 10th of June. His father desired him to devote his life to teaching, and to become the head of a high-school which they would found. Heer himself preferred to take a parish, where his work might give him opportunities for continued scientific investigations. Before a decision was reached, his physical condition demanding recreation, he made some important excursions among the mountains, which were quite adventurous for that time. In January, 1832, he accepted an invitation from Herr Heinrich Escher-Zollikofer, of Zürich, to go and arrange his extensive entomological collection. This was the event that decided the course of his life. He became a member of the Physical Society of Zürich, and read before it his first paper, "On the Red Snow of the High Alps." He formed a connection with Julius Froebel, who afterward lectured and conducted German newspapers in the United States, and published with him in 1834 the first number of a geographical magazine—"Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiete der theoretischen Erdkunde"—of which four numbers, in all, were issued.

Heer had not been many months at Zurich when an invitation came to him to take the pastorate of the parish of Schwande. He was already expressing regret in his letters that his attention was being diverted from theology, and he seems to have suffered a painful hesitation between the possible duty of accepting this call and continuing in his scientific work. He submitted the question to Herr Escher, who replied that the field and influence of the scientific investigator, who had the whole world, was much broader than those of the pastor, which were confined to his parish or his canton. Moreover, the naturalist too can work for God's kingdom. There were many pious pastors, but pious naturalists were, according to his present knowledge, a tolerably rare plant, and therefore the more to be prized and the more necessary to the tribe of the learned. With these conflicting views troubling his mind, he was entertaining plans for a scientific journey to India and the Himalaya Mountains, when, in February, 1834, he