Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/657

Rh 1869 Dr. Engelmaim advised giving up or selling their share in the lot and purchasing the Mary Institute—the female branch of the Washington University—for the purposes of the academy. Twenty-five thousand dollars would buy the building, of which five thousand was already promised; twenty-five thousand dollars more would be needed for equipment. In 1882, when the society had reached the age of twenty-five years, it was still without a home; it had just moved, however, into the Washington University, where it had a, meeting room and space for its small museum and library free of rent. In 1893 the plan for building was revived, but failed, and to-day (1897), when forty-one years have passed, the society is still homeless. Its interest in the Lucas lot was long since converted into cash, and forms part of its present fund. The Historical Society has become the owner of a well-located building, and the academy occupies quarters at present in it. A meeting room is situated on the ground floor; it is supplied with oil portraits of the presidents and prominent past members of the academy. In upper rooms, not particularly easy of access and not at all adapted to their use, are a reading room and the library. Here, too, is stored away the supply of Transactions held for distribution. No attempt has been made for some years to secure museum collections, and what few specimens the academy owns are either stored away or displayed in some other institution.

Although the publication of the Transactions had at one time been almost discontinued, three volumes had appeared, crowded with important papers. The appearance of the fourth volume is connected with one of the most serious blows received by the academy. This volume was published by Dr. George J. Engelmann as a memorial volume to his father. George Engelmann, who had been with the academy from its start, one of the founders of the old Western Academy in 1836, died in February, 1884.

George Engelmann is a name which will live long in the annals of American science. A native of Germany, he was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, February 2, 1809, and was the oldest of a family of thirteen children. In 1827 he held a scholarship at Heidelberg; in 1830 he was at the University of Berlin, and in 1831 he graduated, an M. D., at Würzburg. His dissertation was upon Plant Teratology; it possessed unusual merit, and attracted wide attention among the masters in the subject. In 1832 he was at Paris for medical study, but in the fall of that year sailed for this country to serve as agent for friends looking to investment in America. At that time the Mississippi Valley was truly frontier. Dr. Engelmann tarried for a time in Illinois, then traveled in Arkansas and adjacent districts, but finally, in 1835, settled at St. Louis to practice medicine