Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/663

Rh fewer bursting levees to-day. The great engineer died March 8, 1887.

Dr. Engelmann's meteorological investigations were of the utmost importance, and are fully recorded in the Transactions. He was not, however, the only worker along this line. Dr. Wislizenus was devoted to the same subject. Among his observations was an extended series upon atmospheric electricity. While his work did not lead to that practical application which he had hoped, the record of his experiments is interesting and valuable. Under Prof. Francis E. Nipher there was organized the Missouri State Weather Service, one of the most creditable State organizations ever established. As long as the direction of this service remained local, Professor Nipher was in charge. The scope of the service included the whole State, and the plan involved the appointment of one observer for each county. Work was begun in December, 1878. Some of the results of this State weather service were contributed to the academy and published in its Transactions. Thus, in 1888, there appeared a summary of the results of ten years of labor, including important rainfall maps. Even more important was the Magnetic Survey of the State undertaken by Professor Nipher, and carried on almost wholly at his own expense. The annual reports of this survey regularly appeared in the Transactions.

Dr. Frederick Adolphus Wislizenus, whose name has so frequently been mentioned in this sketch, was born May, 1810, at Koenigsee, in Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, the son of a Protestant minister who was perhaps of Polish descent. In 1828 young Wislizenus began the study of medicine at Jena, pursuing the work at Göttingen and Würzburg. On account of political difficulties he was obliged to go to Switzerland to finish his education, and in 1834 graduated from the University of Zurich. In 1835 he removed to New York to practice his profession. He was there at once a physician, political pamphleteer, and poet. In 1837, with certain friends