Library of the Imperial Leopoldine-Caroline Academy of Natural Curiosities

PREFACE.

another reason for publishing this catalog, which was not the least among the others: that I might render individual and public thanks to all and each of the associates of our Academy, even those still living, for those remarkable benefits with which they have promoted this institution. At the same time, I wish to declare how zealously and diligently I have labored so that the memory of this munificence may be transmitted to posterity, and that some monument to their individual glory may exist eternally among them. Before all others, however, a most grateful spirit must be rendered to that Illustrious Man, Christoph Jakob TREW, the most skillful Director of our academic journals original: "Ephemeridum". For he has not only helped me most faithfully until now and lightened the burden of protecting and promoting the health and growth of our Academy, but by inserting his own most learned commentaries into our Acts original: "Actis"—not without great labor and expense—he has brought no common honor and ornament to them. Finally, in the last two years, he has benevolently transferred to our Academy all those books of which he had duplicates in his own most well-stocked and extensive library, and he has increased the same collection with so many rare and venerable works that, through his generosity alone, we now possess a library richer by four hundred and forty-three volumes.

Nor does the most deserving man regarding our library, the Most Excellent Johann Hieronymus KNIPHOF, merit any less gratitude. For ever since he undertook its care (which he assumed ten years ago, when I myself was departing from Erfurt), his labor has been so great, and his zeal in organizing the library and arranging the other matters pertaining to it so diligent, that one would easily believe a substantial salary was attached to this duty, although on account of