Junghuhn

(Franz Wilhelm), traveller and naturalist, b. Mansfeld, Pru ia 29 Oct 1812. His father was a barber and surgeon. Franz studied at Halle and Berlin. He distinguished himself by love for botany and geology. In a duel with another student he killed him and was sentenced to imprisonment at Ehrenbreitster for 20 years. There he simulated madne and was removed to the asylum at Coblentz, whence he escaped to Algiers. In ’34 he joined the Dutch Army in the Malay Archipelago. He travelled through the island of Java making a botanical and geological survey. In ’54 he published his Licht en Schaduwbeelden uit de binnenlanden van Java (Light and Shadow pictures from the interior of Java), which contains his ideas of God, religion and science, together with sketches of nature and of the manners of the inhabitants. This book aroused much indignation from the pious, but also much agreement among freethinkers, and led to the establishment of De Dageraad (The Daybreak,) the organ of the Dutch Freethinkers Union. Junghuhn afterwards returned to Java and died 21 April, ’64 at Lemberg, Preanges, Regentsch. His Light and Shadow pictures have been several times reprinted.