Jean Jacques Elisee Reclus[9] was born on March 15, 1830, at Ste. Foy la Grande, in the Gironde, the son of a Protestant minister. He was the eldest but one of twelve children, and early became acquainted with want and distress, a circumstance which, in conjunction with his warm and affectionate heart, sufficiently explains his later social views. Educated in Rhenish Prussia, he attended the Protestant Faculty at Montauban, in Southern France, and then the University of Berlin, where he studied geography under Ritter. At present Reclus is regarded as one of the best geographers, and is the author of the famous and much admired _Nouvelle Geographie Universelle_, in nineteen volumes, and of the great popular physical geography _La Terre_, which has also been translated into German. His student life and also his stay at Berlin coincided with the stormy period of the Revolution of 1848, and Reclus eagerly accepted the views of the political and social Radicalism of that day. The _coup d'etat_ of December 2, 1851, compelled him to leave France; he fled to England, visited Ireland, and then from 1852 to 1857 travelled in the United States, North America, Central America, and Colombia. Returning to Paris, he devoted himself to a scientific arrangement of his studies during his travels, but at the same time took a more and more active part in the social and political movements of the day. Thus he was one of the first authors in France who eagerly supported the war of the Northern States of America for freedom, and defended Lincoln. When the American Minister in Paris wished to express his recognition to the savant, then living in extremely modest circumstances, by the present of a considerable sum of money, Reclus angrily rejected it. During the siege of Paris in 1870, Elisee Reclus joined the National Guard, and was one of the crew of the balloon under Nadar who endeavoured to convey news outside Paris. As a member of the International Association of Workmen, he published in the _Cri du Peuple_, at the time of the outbreak of the 18th March, 1871, a hostile manifesto against the Government at Versailles. Still belonging to the National Guard, which had now risen, he took part in a reconnaissance on the plateau of Chatillon, in which he was taken prisoner on the 5th of April. After seven months' imprisonment in Brest, during which he taught his fellow-prisoners mathematics, the court-martial in St. Germain condemned him, on 16th November, 1871, to be transported. This sentence caused a great outcry in scientific circles, and from different quarters, especially from eminent English statesmen and men of letters, among them being Darwin, Wallace, and Lord Amberley, the President of the French Republic was urged to mitigate his punishment. Accordingly, Thiers commuted the sentence of transportation on 4th January, 1872, to one of simple banishment. Reclus then proceeded to Lugano, but soon afterwards lost his young wife there, whom he loved