Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/664

644 who had been exiled from their own land, he removed to Illinois, practicing at Mascoutah for a time, but finally removed to St. Louis. In 1839 he went into the far Northwest on a fur-trading expedition. While there he spent some time among the Nez Percés Indians. In 1840 he began practice in St. Louis, where his influence among the German population, both politically and otherwise, was great. Some time later he joined a Mexican trading expedition, taking with him a good scientific equipment; he was, however, seized and imprisoned at Chihuahua, and was only liberated on the arrival of Colonel Doniphan's troops there in 1847. He remained with those forces in a professional capacity until they were disbanded in the summer of 1847, when he returned to St. Louis. The next year an official report of the scientific results of this journey appeared at Washington; it was entitled Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, and contains geographical, geological, topographical, astronomical, and barometric observations. He brought home many plants, which were afterward worked out by Engelmann. While in Washington, Wislizenus met Miss Lucy Crane, sister-in-law of Hon. George P. Marsh. In 1849 a cholera epidemic raged at St. Louis, throughout which Dr. Wislizenus labored at his profession. Meantime Mr. Marsh had been appointed minister from the United States to Turkey. In 1850 Wislizenus went there, and at Constantinople was married to Miss Crane. They visited various parts of Europe, and on returning to this country, Dr. Wislizenus, leaving his wife in the East, went himself to Panama, with some idea of settling there. In 1852, however, he returned to this country, and settled permanently in St. Louis. He was one of the founders of the academy, and an honored member of various medical societies. His barometic observations and his collections in botany and mineralogy were of value. While Dr. Engelmann was absent in Europe, in 1858, Wislizenus took charge of his observations, becoming so interested that he afterward continued them for himself until 1881, when failing eyesight interfered with the work. He died September 22, 1889.

There are to-day few, indeed, of the original members of the academy alive. Mr. C. P. Chouteau and Nathaniel Holmes are all. Through a large part of its history Mr. Holmes was the secretary of the academy; not himself a professional scientist nor a large contributor to any definite line, he was a man of wide reading and varied interests. He carefully examined everything that came to the society's library through the long period of his secretaryship, and it was his practice to prepare careful papers upon what he read, papers which added much to the interest of the meetings, and often led to important discussions. While Mr. Holmes is not now a resident of