Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/686

666 In this work he was assisted by his only son, Rudolf, who was born in 1857, and who became, in 1870, his father's associate in his work. He was the only apprentice whom the elder man initiated into the mysteries of his art—the only person, therefore, since the death of Leopold Blaschka, in 1895, who possesses the secret of these marvelous productions. Both father and son were diligent and careful students of zoology, and their accurately rendered models met with a ready sale for museums throughout the world, the most complete of these collections being perhaps that which was purchased by the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoölogy.

In 1885 the privilege of constructing for its own use the central portion of the University Museum at Cambridge was offered to the Botanical Department by Mr. Alexander Agassiz, who has carried so far toward completion his father's plans for a Museum of Comparative Zoölogy. Through the advice and cooperation of Mr. Agassiz, and through the untiring zeal and energy of Prof. George L. Goodale, who succeeded Dr. Asa Gray in the Fisher Professorship of Natural History, the large sum necessary for the construction of the building was obtained by subscription, the result being a most satisfactory structure which furnished ample space for laboratories and for exhibition rooms in which to display illustrations of all the chief types of plants. It was now necessary to provide these illustrations, and no means hitherto employed seemed wholly adequate to the desired end.

Flowers in all known states of preservation are apt to lose both color and character, and to become unsightly as well as uninteresting. Even if accurately represented by colored drawings, something is still wanting, as they must fail in expressing at least one of the dimensions of space. Gelatin seemed too perishable a substance to be used, papier-maché was hardly desirable, and the idea of wax models was altogether distasteful. It was a happy inspiration of Prof. Goodale's when one day studying the beautiful glass models in the Zoölogical Museum which led to the solution of the problem. If these marvels of the sea could be copied in glass with such beauty and fidelity, why should not the same medium be employed for the models of flowers?

Acting promptly upon this suggestion, the next step to be taken was a journey to Dresden for the purpose of making the proposition to the artists. At first Dr. Goodale's trouble seemed likely to prove useless, for he found the Blaschkas most unwilling to abandon the making of animal models, which occupied all their time, and for which there was an unfailing demand.

Up to this time, Prof. Goodale had never seen any glass flowers made by the Blaschkas, and it was during this first visit to their home at Hosterwitz, near Dresden, that his attention was drawn