Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/658

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

After four years he left his practice with Dr. Wislizerms, and went to Germany to marry Miss Dora Horstmann, to whom he had been engaged for ten years. The following year, in 1840, Dr. and Mrs. Engelmann came to St. Louis. We have already mentioned Dr. Engelmann's interest in the Western Academy of Science in 1836-'37. It was in 1835 that he began the remarkable series of meteorological investigations and records which were kept up continuously for nearly fifty years. In 1842 he published his important monograph upon American Cuscutinæ in the American Journal of Science and Art. The paper caused a true sensation in botanical circles. In 1848 he prepared the report upon the Cactaceæ of Doniphan's Rio Grande and Mexican trip, and later the important reports upon the Cacti of the Pacific Railroad survey and the Mexican boundary. These papers, the standard authority upon this interesting and important family of plants, are a monument of accurate and careful work. Dr. Engelmann was a considerable traveler. He made many journeys to the West and South, and to Europe, always to the profit of botanical science. There existed between him and Asa Gray and Charles C. Parry the kindest sympathy and deepest regard. On many of his journeys Mrs. Engelmann was his companion. Between the two there existed the most delightful companionship and love. Early in 1879 she died, and it might almost be said that he was never happy again. In vain his friends attempted to cheer him. A trip to the Pacific coast in company with C. S. Sargent and C. C. Parry was arranged, but it failed to relieve his depression or to cure his bodily ills. In the summer of 1883 he went again to Germany, but broke down upon the trip and died soon after his return home. It is significant of the man's interest in his work that, while he was ready to go, he longed to live just one year more, that he might finish out his half century of meteorological observations. During his later years, Dr. Engelmann was in the habit of preparing summaries of the observations for each year, making careful comparisons with the records of preceding years, computing averages, drawing diagrams, etc., for presentation at the academy. Dr. Engelmann's interest in the academy never flagged; one of its founders in 1856, he was rarely absent from any meeting if he was in the city; he served as president sixteen times. Though having many opportunities to publish his botanical notes, he loyally preferred the medium of the Transactions of the academy he so much loved and for which he did so much. The bulk of his literary production is scattered through its pages. There are his papers upon cacti, Rocky Mountain pines, North American j uncus, yucca, junipers, firs, agave, oaks, isoetes, the genus Pinus, etc.—papers that rank among the best in American botany. Yet all this work was done, not by a