Woman in Science: With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the MindZahm, J. A. (John Augustine)
HistoryChristian
Woman in Science: With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind
Zahm, J. A. (John Augustine)
Women -- History; Women scientists
Soon she became an enthusiastic collector and was in a short time the
happy possessor of a herbarium which contained many new species of
plants which she had discovered during her frequent botanical
excursions. From making collections for her private herbarium, she was
gradually led to make collections for the schools and colleges of her
native country, as well as for the museums and learned societies of
various parts of Europe. Many public institutions owed to her cordial
cooperation some of the choicest treasures in their herbaria, and not a
few botanical writers of her day found in her an intelligent and
sympathetic collaborator.
But Frau Kablick's interest in nature was not confined to plants. She
was an assiduous student of paleontology as well as of botany, and the
many fossil animals and plants named in her honor testify to her success
in the pursuit of her favorite branches of science.
There was nothing of the conventional blue-stocking about this ardent
votary of nature. Strong and healthy, neither wind nor rain interfered
with her fieldwork in botany or paleontology. It was her greatest
pleasure to roam through dark forests and scale high mountains in search
of new species of plants and fossils. And the success which rewarded her
efforts was such that the old and trained naturalists among her male
friends had reason to envy her good fortune as an explorer.
But Frau Kablick never permitted her frequent excursions, or her
devotion to science, to cause her to neglect the duties of her
household. Fortunately, her husband was also an ardent student of
nature, and while his wife was devoting her attention to botany and
paleontology, he was making investigations in zoology and mineralogy.
They spent fifty happy years together in the pursuit of science and
their joint efforts contributed not a little toward the advancement of
the branches of science to which they had devoted their lives with such
well-directed effort and enthusiasm.
As the fruitful life of Josephine Kablick who had shed such luster on
her sex in Bohemia was drawing to a close, a young woman in Germany,
Amalie Dietrich by name, was preparing herself to fill the void which
would be occasioned by her predecessor's death. Her first love, as a
young girl, was plant life, and this was subsequently accentuated by her
husband, who was not only a botanist himself but also one who belonged
to a distinguished family of botanists.
A keen observer and an indefatigable collector, Frau Dietrich soon
became known throughout Europe as a botanist of marked ability and
daring. She was wont, unaccompanied, to climb the highest peaks of the
Salzburg Alps, and spend entire weeks there seeking new species of
Alpine flora. During the day she explored the deep ravines and clambered
along the brambly ledges of beetling precipices, and during the night
she sought shelter and repose in the humble hut of some hospitable
herdsman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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