Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/717

Rh would have been sufficient to give him an honorable position in science for all time.

"The second period begins in Grätz. Some contributions to the knowledge of the prehistoric vertebrate fauna of Steiermarck resulted from Schmidt's keen observations of Nature during an excursion in the Alps. But the Adriatic, so near, enticed him into new paths, and offered an inexhaustible field for work in the sponges. Aside from his contributions to the theory of the Bathybius and to the systematics of the Gephyrea, the sea sponges constituted the object of his studies during the whole period of his residence in Grätz, and were the occasion of yearly journeys to the Adriatic coasts. The results reached by Schmidt in this field placed him in the foremost rank of contemporary investigators, while his occupation with the sponges marked the completion of a revolution in his view of Nature by converting him to Darwinism. After his work the characteristic fluid form of the sponges became a classic subject in the study of the transmutation theory.

"At the time of the appearance of Schmidt's first work on the sponges of the Adriatic (in 1862), just enough of their anatomy and physiology had been made known through individual labors, especially those of Lieberkühn, to prove their animal nature; and then, also, the sponges first found a place in the fifth edition of Schmidt's Handbook of Comparative Anatomy. But any one who undertook either in the Adriatic or the Mediterranean to make his way through the immense wealth of the forms would have found himself without help of any kind. It was therefore Schmidt's purpose to lay the basis, through exact description and definition of the forms, for continued investigation through which the study might be further advanced. He carried out this purpose, recognizing in the skeleton parts what survived amid the changes, clearly defining the species and genera, nineteen of which were new, and brilliantly demonstrating his talent in systematization. While in the first supplement, in 1864, which brought up the histology of the sponges, he still acknowledged himself an adherent of the old school, he expressed the hope in the second supplement that science might some time come upon the track of the genealogical relations of species; and, in the memorable rector's address of November 15, 1865, he openly signalized his passage to the new theory, and proclaimed it, with all the youthful enthusiasm and carelessness as to consequences characteristic of his nature, as the gospel of the research of the future.

"The idea of utilizing the great reproductiveneness of the sponges for artificial cultivation was suggested to Schmidt during his studies of the Dalmatian fauna, and his experiments in this