BORN, INIGO, Baron, a celebrated German• mi • neralogist, was born of a noble family at Carlsburg, in Transylvania, on the 26th of December 1712. At an early period of life he came to Vienna, where he studied in the college of the Jesuits, who, per ceiving the talents of their pupil, prevailed upon him to enter into their order. After remaining a year and a half in this society, lie went from Vienna to Prague, where, according to the custom of the Germans, he studied the law. Having completed his course of -education, he set out on a tour through Hungary, part of Germany, Holland, the Netherlands, and France, and upon his return to Prague he began the study of natural history and mining, and was received in 1770 into the department of the mines and mint of that city. About the beginning of June 1770, Born set out on a mineralogical tour through the Bannat of Temeswar, Transylvania, and Hungary, of which he gave a detailed account in a series of twenty.threc letters addressed to the celebrated Ferber, who pub lished them in 1774. This work was translated from the German by R. E. Raspe, and published at London in 1777. In the first of these letters, dated Temes war, 14th June 1770, he complains of the loss which he sustained in being ignorant of botany, owing to the want of public institutions in which this science might be taught. " Had I," says he, " besides my little mineralogical science, some knowledge in bo tany, my three days travelling over barren heaths, from Ofen to Segiden, and thence to Temeswar, might have perhaps procured me an opportunity to entertain you at least with the names and descrip tions of some plants. 'But, alas ! I am no botanist, though that is not my fault. You well know how fond I am of natural history : but I never met with any proper opportunity to improve in this part of science. Except at Vienna, there is no academy in all the Austrian States in which botany is taught ; nay even at Vienna there is no professor of natural history, For this reason, you need not be astonish ed that natural history is entirely unnoticed and ne glected in Austria,• while the English, French, Swedes, and Russians, for the sake of useful science, examine their own and the remotest countries in the world. But to what purpose these complaints ? You may guess by them the dissatisfaction that will attend me in my journey through the mountains of Bannat, Transylvania, and part of the Carpathian hills. All the riches of Flora, during the finest sea
son of the year, displayed in those parts, will be scarce at all enjoyed by me." Born continued his travels• till the beginning of August 1770, when he had nearly lost his life by de. scending into a mine at Felso-Banya, which brought upon him a disease that embittered the remainder of his life. This accid;nt is so well described in his letter to Ferber of the 22d August 1770, that we are induced to give it in his own words. " My long silence," says he, " is the consequence of an un happy accident 'which was very near putting r.n end to my life. To examine the common firing of •Felso-Banya, and the great effects produced by so small an expellee of wood, I visited the great mine when the fire was hardly burnt down, and when the mine wasuill filled with smoke. An accident muck the tarry somewhat longer in the shaft, by which the smoke went off. In short, I lost my senses, and fif teen hours after, I was restored to myself by blisters and other applications. My lips were swoln, my eyes run with blood, and nay limbs in general lamed. Without the assistance of a skilful, young physician at Nagy-Banya, and the great care of the upper adminis tration inspector Baron G.erham, in whose house I lodge, you would have been deprived of your friend ; and the question is still, whether he is to be saved. A violent coughing, and acute pains in the loins, which alternately put me on the rack, are, I fear, more than sufficient to destroy this thinly framed machine. If that should be the case, then, my friend, I desire you to have my name at least inserted in the martyrology of naturalists." In this wretched state of health, Born travelled with great pain from Nagy Banya to Schemniz, where lie arrived in the begin ning of September, and where his family at that time resided. Here he remained during the month of September ; and it the beginning of October lie set out for Vienna, partly for the purpose of obtain ing medical assistance. In 1771 he went to Prague, where he was appointed counsellor of the royal mines in Bohemia, and where he pUblished, in 1771, a trea tise written by the Jesuit Poda on Mining Machinery. In 1772, he published his Lithorhylacium Bornea num, or a catalogue of his collection of fossils, which he afterwards sold to the honourable Mr Greville for X 1000.