HENSELT, ADOLF VON (1814-1889), German com poser, was born at Schwabach, Bavaria, May 12, 1814. When three years old he began to learn the violin, and at five the pianoforte under Frau v. Fladt. With financial help from King Louis I. he went to study under Hummel in Weimar, and thence in 1832 to Vienna, where, besides studying composition under Simon Sechter, he made a great success as a concert pianist. In 1837 he settled at Breslau, where he had married, but in the fol lowing year he migrated to St. Petersburg, where he became court pianist, acquired a great position, and was ennobled. He died at Warmbrvnn, Silesia, on Oct. so, 1889. The characteristic of Hen selt's playing was a combination of Liszt's sonority with Hummel's smoothness and he was justly regarded as one of the greatest pianists of his time. His best known works are the concerto in F minor and a number of charming studies and salon pieces. HENSLOW, JOHN STEVENS (1796-1861), English bot anist and geologist, was born at Rochester on Feb. 6, 1796. He was educated at St. John's college, Cambridge, and in 1819, during a tour in the Isle of Wight with Adam Sedgwick, developed an interest in geology. His paper on the geology of the Isle of Man appeared in Trans. Geol. Soc. (1821), and on the geology of parts of Anglesey in Trans. of the Cambridge Philosophical So ciety (1821), a society founded by Sedgwick and Henslow. In 1822 Henslow became professor of mineralogy at Cambridge, and two years later took holy orders. In the following year he resigned the chair of mineralogy to succeed to that of botany. To him Darwin largely owed his attachment to natural history, and also his introduction to Captain Fitzroy of H.M.S. "Beagle." In 1832 Henslow was appointed vicar of Cholsey-cum-Moulsford, Berkshire, and in 1837 rector of Hitcham, Suffolk. Henslow died at Hitcham on May 16, 1861. His publications included A Cata logue of British Plants (1829; 2nd ed., 1835); Principles of De scriptive and Physiological Botany (1835) ; Flora of Suffolk (186o, with E. Skepper) .
See the Memoir, by L. Jenyns (1862).