The Correspondence of Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt - DWC - KNAW

Van Heiningen / 24
Physically Reinwardt was not very strong. His physical limitation (respective to
walking) made it difficult for him to participate in botanical excursions.Yet he
knew how to make his students enthusiastic for this field of study.
Reinwardt only published a few treatises, but no textbooks. The older he grew, the
more he postponed the preparation and publication of more comprehensive works.
(De Vriese, 93-95) At various occasions Reinwardt delivered interesting speeches,
for example in the meetings of the‘Eerste Klasse’of the‘Instituut’.In these readings
he always went back to the former experiences and observations, made by him in
the Dutch East-Indies. At the occasion of his retirement as rector of the Leyden
Hoogeschool – on 8 February 1833 – he delivered an impassioned speech on the
progress of geology, which was characterized later on as a ‘masterpiece of style and
language’. (De Vriese, 94)
Shortly after his return to the Netherlands - in 1824 - he married the widow
Calkoen, born J.H.C. van IJsseldijk, whom he got acquainted with during his stay
on Java. He behaved like a good father to the daughter of his wife’s first marriage.
He showed the same love towards the four children of this daughter. His niece
Caroline, his brother’s daughter, was married to Jacob Geel, professor in Leyden
University and one of his close friends.
From the beginning of his scientific career – when he delivered his first lectures in
Harderwijk, he decided that geology and botany had to go hand in hand, just like
Alexander von Humboldt had suggested. This most important general principle of
plant geography marked his various botanical writings. He also tried to find out
the close relationships between the animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom.
(De Vriese, 58-60) Reinwardt collected many rock samples. The most important of
these objects were inserted in the collections of the ‘Rijksmuseum’, after they had
been arranged systematically by A.H. van der Boon Mesch.The rest of what he had
collected remained in his private collection. After his death, most of it was bought
by the ‘Hoogeschool’. (De Vriese, 61-62).
In his memorial address on Reinwardt, Willem Vrolik especially pointed at a
peculiar experience made by Reinwardt in Berlin, on 20 September 1838, at the
occasion of a meeting of the ‘Verein der Naturforscher’. In the evening Reinwardt
had to deliver his speech. That very morning the great Alexander von Humboldt
asked to give him a copy of his speech. When he started to deliver his speech,