The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1888-04-07

HEROES OF SCIENCE.
Self Sacrificing Men Wit Have
Advanced Human knowledge.
Remarkable Episodes in the
Lives of Great Scientists.

One evening few years ago
schooner dropped anchor in an unknown
bay on the east coast of New Guinea
A boat put off from the vessel, landed
a man and his portmanteau on the
beach, aud put back again. The
schooner at once sailed away, leaving
that solitary figure on the beach in the
darkness. No white man had ever Wis
itcd that savage coast before, and no
man inspired by less lofty purpose
would thus have ventured among the
utterly unknown savages of Astolabe
bay. The man was DR.. Miklucho
Maclay, the Russian ethnologist, and
his burning zeal to add to human know
ledge led him, like many other heroes
of science, to forcgo all comfort and
hazard his life. For two years DR..
Maclay lived among these savages, f.el-
ing amply repaid for all his terrible
sacrifices by the wealth of scientific
facts he was able to collect.
While DIR. Maclay, the only scientific
man who has travelled extensively in
the Western Pacific, is to-day at work
in his Russian home preparing for pub
LEGATION the large additions he has made
to chronological knowledge, another
learned and modest man in Germany is
writing the story of his seven years.
wanderings in Central Africa. DIR.
Junkcr also is an ethnologist, and his
consuming desire to enrich the science
he loves has led him to make almost I'M
exampled sacrifices. With all the
luxurics of civilized life at his command,
he has turned his back upon everything
that makes life pleasure to most mon,
and plunged into the depths of Africa,
where he has lived for seven years
among the MAN MAN, the MonEuttu
and other tribes of the Welle -Makua
and Upper Nile basins. DIR. Junksr is
probably the only scientific man who
has thus far selected field il Africa
for the purpose of attempting ex-
haustive studies there, and who has
made that field his home year after
year, completely cut off from corgenial
human companionship, living in native
straw huts, and subsisting wholly on
native food, inclu ling fried ants and
similar daiatics OF African cookery.
When Henry Watts died two years
ago it was found that the author OF the
great Dictionary of Chemistry" had
left his family in absolute pcnury. He
had served science with unfagging de-
votion, his experiments aud writings
had made him distinguished among
chemists, but while they gave him rep
utation they yielded from day to day
only the meager sum that sufficed to
supply his frugal wants. w. d. Cooley,
one of the most learned geographers of
the country, whose books are known and
used by all specialists, died in London
tenement three or four years ago in alb
ject poverty. His notable contribu.
tons to physical geography, his bril-
liant deductions with regard to the to-
Biography of Inner Africa at time
when it was a blank on the maps,
his knowledge of African languages and
his numerous contributions to the
literature of his day, though appreciated
and admired, did not suffice to keep the
wolf from the door. Students will bene-
fit for many years to come by the labors
of E. G. Rye, an authority on auto
mology and noted biographer. When
he died last year some learned societies
of England raised a fund to lift his
family above absolute want. There are
in this country scores of sci
entifc specialists who have made
American science respected among the
scholars of the world. Most of them are
poorly paid.
When Stanley pleaded with Living
ston to go home and rest, the grand old
man answered: mo, l must finish my
task. My children's letters affect me
deeply, but cannot bring my heart to
abandon my work. 1 will go on till
finish it." The crown of none of the
worlds heroes is brighter than that
which has been awarded to this simple
minded great man by the common
voice of mankind. Last winter we heard
that Emin Pasha was in dire
need of friends to help
in Central Africa. Every civilized
country heard of his privations with
sympathetic interest, and ample relief
was soon on the way to him. In the
last letter received from him he says
his friends greatly err if they think he
will go home when relief reaches him.
''From the seed l have tried TO SOW"
he writes, "doubtless good fruit will
spring up. The work that Gordon paid
for with his blood l will strive to carry
on. am too much needed here to
think of leaving my post A few years
ago DIR. Holub, the botanist, unable to
get financial aid at homo landed in
South Africa with 81 in his pocket and
with the firm purpose of spending years
there in scientific labors. BY the prac-
tice of medicine in the diamond fields
he secured the means that enabled him
to give nearly seven years to. explora-
ton and scientific inq uiry. Il New York
Press.