The same century that witnessed the exploring activity of the Baroness de Beausoleil saw the beginnings of the notable achievements of a daughter of Germany, well known in the annals of science as Maria Sibylla Merian. Born in Frankfort in 1647, she died in Amsterdam in 1717, after a somewhat checkered career, most of which was devoted to the pursuit of natural history. So fond was she of flowers and insects that it is said they told her all their secrets.
After having familiarized herself with the fauna and flora of her native land, she proceeded to investigate the collections of the principal European cabinets of natural history. This only fired her ambition to see more of the world and study Nature where she is seen in her greatest splendor and luxuriance.
She accordingly resolved to undertake a journey to the equatorial regions of South America. Such a voyage can now be made with comparative ease, but in her days it was fraught with discomforts and dangers of all kinds, and one that no woman thought to venture on unless obliged to do so by stern necessity.
But she was set on investigating animals and plants in their own habitats in the glorious and exuberant flora of the tropics and, accompanied by her two daughters, Helena and Dorothea, she embarked for Surinam. Here, assisted by her daughters, who, like their mother, were both skillful artists, the intrepid naturalist spent two years in studying the wonders of plant and animal life that everywhere greeted her delighted vision. All the time not occupied in research work was devoted to sketching and painting those superb insects that are so abundant in tropical fields and forests.[169]
Returning to Holland with her precious scientific treasures, she began the preparation of a work that will long endure as a monument to her knowledge and industry. It was a magnificent volume in folio on the insects of Surinam. It appeared simultaneously in Dutch and Latin, and was subsequently translated into French.
In illustrating this sumptuous work, Frau Merian was greatly assisted by her younger daughter, Dorothea. The etchings and hand-colored reproductions of the gorgeous butterflies and flowers of Surinam commanded universal admiration, and marked a new epoch in book-making. Even to-day this noble volume is eagerly sought by both book-lovers and men of science, for it is not only a work of rare conception and beauty but also one of exceptional accuracy in illustration and statement of fact.[170]
Besides etchings of multiform insects, lizards and batrachians indigenous to Dutch Guiana, there were in this unique volume carefully executed illustrations of plants and trees peculiar to tropical America, such as vanilla, cacao, and the species of manihot which constitutes the staff of life of so large a portion of the population in the basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco.
A new and enlarged edition of this work was published after Frau Merian's death by her daughter Dorothea. The same gifted daughter showed her interest in her parent's work and her devotion to her memory by bringing out a beautifully illustrated edition of her mother's earliest work which treated of the wonderful life-history of silkworms.[171]
The century following that which had celebrated the scientific triumphs of Maria Merian found in Josephine Kablick, born in 1787 in Hohenelbe, Bohemia, a woman who was destined to prove a worthy successor, as a nature-student, of the noted daughter of Frankfort-on-the-Main.
From her tenderest years she exhibited a passionate love for every form of plant life. In addition to this, she had, while yet young, the good fortune of studying under the best botanists of her time.