John Reinhold, a celebrated naturalist and geographer, and an accomplished scholar and linguist, was born on the 22d October 1729, at Dirschau, in Polish Prussia, where his father was burgomaster or mayor. His family was of English descent, and had quitted Great Britain in the time of Charles I.

At the age of fourteen he was placed for a year at the public school of Marionwerder, and was afterwards admitted into the gymnasium of Joachimsthal at Berlin. Among his schoolfellows was Pallas, who became so well known for his various researches in natural history, with several others who distinguished themselves in literature and science. He applied himself with diligence to the study of the ancient and modern languages, and in particular of the oriental languages, as connected with divinity. He continued the same pursuits at the university of Halle, which he entered in 1748. After three years, having completed his theological studies, he resided for two years more at Dantzig, preaching as a candidate. In 1753 he obtained a small benefice at the neighbouring town of Nassenhuben, and the next year he married his cousin Elizabeth Nikolai; but he still found leisure to improve himself in natural philosophy, geography, and the mathematics. His increasing family having become too expensive for his income, he accepted the proposals of the Russian consul at Dantzig, and agreed to superintend the establishment of the new colonies at Saratof on the Volga. The consul received the thanks of the reigning favourite, Count Orlof, for his judicious selection of a person so well qualified; but our adventurer was not satisfied with his success in the undertaking, and, in 1766, he resolved, somewhat suddenly, to try his fortune in England, whether he proceeded well recommended, but with exhausted finances. Soon afterwards, however, he received a gratuity of 100 guineas from the Russian government, and he obtained some remuneration from the booksellers for his translations from the German and the Swedish. He declined a proposal of Lord Baltimore, who offered him the management of his large estates in America, preferring the appointment of a teacher of modern languages and natural history in the dissenting academy of Warrington, where he found a more interesting society than would have been attainable in any part of the New World. He was not, however, very popular as an instructor; and he was soon after this engaged to accompany Mr Dalrymple, who was going out as governor of Balambanjan, near Borneo; but the plan was never executed. In 1772 he was appointed naturalist to the expedition under the command of Captain Cook in his second voyage of circumnavigation; and he took with him his son George, then seventeen years old. For this undertaking Forster was abundantly qualified as a man of science and an accurate observer, though his temper and conduct were not always such as to make him agreeable to his shipmates, nor was he uniformly considerate and humane in his intercourse with the uncivilized inhabitants of the countries which he explored. After the return of the expedition, there were repeated discussions and disputes respecting Forster's share in the intended publication of the narrative of the voyage. Two thousand pounds, which had been granted by government for the plates of the work, were to have been equally divided between Cook and Forster for this purpose; but Forster's performance of his part of the undertaking was disapproved, and he was deprived of the advantage which he expected to have derived from the plates. It is possible that he may have expressed himself incautiously respecting the conduct of the expedition; perhaps also he may have been thought deficient in accuracy of idiom; for he was more fluent than correct or elegant in the various languages which he was in the habit of speaking and writing. He was, however, supposed to be concerned in the account of the voyage which was published by his son; and this participation was considered by his opponents, and even by many of his friends, as an infringement of the conditions of his engagement; besides that many offensive remarks and a few inaccuracies were introduced into the work, some of which were afterwards candidly admitted and corrected by his son. All these circumstances made Forster's residence in England by no means agreeable, and his pecuniary embarrassments became so pressing that he was at one time in confinement for debt. He was, however, set at liberty in 1780, by the munificence of the king of Prussia, who furnished him with the means of satisfying his creditors, and established him at Halle, as professor of natural history, and inspector of the botanical garden. The year after he took the degree of doctor of physic in the university. He was not always on the most cordial terms with his academical colleagues, and he was too fond of accusing them in his reports to his superiors. His circumstances were also much embarrassed by his unfortunate propensity to play, which absorbed the whole earnings of his labour. He, however, considered the eighteen years that he spent at Halle as the happiest of his life. He was much afflicted in his old age by the premature death of his two sons; indeed his health seemed to be impaired by his grief, and he died on the 9th December 1793. Professor Kurt Sprengel has written an account of his life, containing a just encomium on his various talents and acquirements, though somewhat too flattering with regard to his moral character. He appears to have been master of seventeen different languages; and he was as extensively acquainted with things as with words, being as much indebted for his various knowledge to his industrious and accurate observation of nature, as to his great reading and his profound learning. He was long intimate with Buffon, and greatly admired his writings; and he was in constant correspondence with Linnæus and his son, the latter of whom gave the name of Forstera to a new genus of plants, in compliment to the two botanists who had discovered it in New Zealand. In conversation he was witty, but frequently too satirical; and his unguarded sallies created him many enemies. He became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries soon after his arrival in England; in February 1772 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1775, upon his return from the South Seas, the university of Oxford conferred on him the honorary diploma of a doctor of laws. His principal publications are these:

1. Specimen Historiae Naturalis Volgensis, Phil. Trans., 1767, p. 312, containing a geographical description of the country about Saratof, and an ample enumeration of its various productions. 2. An Introduction to Mineralogy, or an accurate Classification of Fossils and Minerals, 8vo, London, 1768; with a Translation of Lehman's Halotecnik, intended principally as a text-book for a course of lectures delivered at Warrington. 3. A Catalogue of British Insects, 8vo, Warrington, 1770. 4. A Translation of Kalm's Travels into North America, 3 vols, 8vo, Warrington and London, 1770, 1771. 5. Osbeck's Voyage to China and the East Indies, translated from the German; with a Fauna and Flora Sinensis, 2 vols, 8vo, London, 1771. 6. A Translation of Bossi's Travels in Louisiana, with Notes, and a Systematic Catalogue of all the known Plants of English North America; together with an Abstract of Lotting's Travels, 2 vols, 8vo, London, 1771. 7. Novae Species Insectorum, Centuria I, 8vo, London, 1771; consisting chiefly of English insects, together with a few foreign ones, arranged according to the Linnaean system, with the adoption of two genera from Geoffroy. 8. An Account of the management of Carp in Polish Prussia, Phil. Tr. 1771, p. 310, in a letter to the Honourable Daines Barrington. It appears that the carp is a kind of staple commodity of that country. 9. An Easy Method of Assaying and Classing Mineral Substances, with a Translation of Scheele's Experiments on Sparry Fluor, from the Memoirs of the Swedish Academy, Svo, London, 1772. 10. Translation of Bougainville's Voyage, 4to, London, 1772. 11. Epistle ad J. D. Michaelis, 4to, Göttingen, 1772, containing remarks on this author's Speciegeographie Exteria. 12. An Account of the Roots used by the Indians in the neighbourhood of Hudson's Bay to dye Porcupines' Quills, Phil. Tr. 1772, p. 54; the Galium tinctorium and Helleborus trifolius. 13. An Account of several Quadrupeds from Hudson's Bay, Phil. Tr. 1772, p. 370; describing a collection of specimens sent to the Royal Society from the Factory at Hudson's Bay. 14. An Account of the Birds sent from Hudson's Bay, p. 382. 15. An Account of some Curious Fishes sent from Hudson's Bay, Phil. Tr. 1773, p. 149, addressed to T. Pennant, Esq. These papers were published during the author's absence with Captain Cook. 16. 17. He translated Grainger's Travels and Riedesel's Travels, in conjunction with his son George. 18. He made a Catalogue of the Animals and Plants represented in Catesby's Carolina, with the Linnaean names. 19. Characteres generum plantarum, quos in stiure ad insulas maris australis collocantur J. R. et G. Forster, folio, London, 1770, containing descriptions and figures of 75 new genera. 20. Liber singularis de Bysso antiquorum, quo ex Egyptiaca lingua res vestiaria antiquorum, imprimis in sacro codice occurrere explicatur, Svo, London, 1776. The object of this essay is to prove that the byssus of the ancients was cotton, and not fine linen, in which the author succeeds without difficulty; and he states, that all the cloths enveloping the mummies that he has been able to examine are uniformly cotton. In his Egyptian etymologies he is learned and ingenious, but, like almost all other Egyptian etymologists, extremely precipitate. 21. Observations made during a Voyage Round the World, on Physical Geography, Natural History, and Ethic Philosophy, especially on the Earth and its Strata, Water, and the Ocean, the Atmosphere, the Changes of the Globe, Organic Bodies, and the Human Species, 4to, London, 1778. This highly interesting work was published by subscription; and a French translation of it was added as a fifth volume to that of Cook's Voyage, 4to, Paris, 1778. 22. Description of the Yerba Capensis, Sved. Trans., 1778, p. 108. 23. Translation of Von Troil's Letters on Iceland, Svo, London, 1780. 24. On Buffon's Epochs of Nature, Göttingen Mag. 1780, i. i. p. 140. 25. On the Tiger-Cat of the Cape, Phil. Trans. 1781, p. 1; the Felis Capensis, found from Congo to the Cape, and capable of being tamed like a cat. 26. Historia Aptenodytes, Commentat. Gott. vol. iii. p. 121; the penguin, a genus peculiar to the southern hemisphere. 27. Zoologia Indica-Selecta, Latin and German, fol. Halle, 1781, 4to, London, 1790; 2d edit. Halle, 1795. 28. Account of a New Insect, Naturforscher, vol. xvii. p. 206, Halle, 1782; a species of cancer. 29. A Picture of England for 1780, continued to 1783, Svo, 1784; German, Svo, Dessau, 1784; giving some amusing particulars of many of the principal public characters at the time of the American war, but frequently satirical, and sometimes unjust. 30. Essays on Moral and Physical Geography, 3 vols. Svo, Leipzig, 1781, 1783; continued by his son-in-law Matthias Sprengel. 31. A Collection of Memoirs relating to Domestic Economy and Technology, Svo, Halle, 1784. 32. On the Albatross, Mem. Sav. Etr. vol. x. p. 563; the Diomedea. 33. History of Discoveries and Voyages in the North, Svo, Francfort on the Oder, 1784; English, London, 1786, Fr. Paris, 1788; containing a most extensive and elaborate collection of relations of all the attempts which had been made to explore the arctic regions. 34. Project for abolishing Mendicity, especially at Halle, Svo, Halle, 1786. 35. Enchiridion Historiae Naturalis inscribens, Svo, Halle, 1788; an extremely useful collection of definitions of the terms employed in the description of birds, fishes, insects, and plants, after the manner of the Philosophia Botanica of Linnaeus; it is dedicated to his son George, by whose infantine curiosity he was first impelled to the study of natural history; and it was chiefly arranged during the leisure hours of his voyage round the world. 36. A Memoir on the Badjar Cit. Mem. Acad. Berl. 1788, 1789, p. 90; the Manis pentadactylus. 37. Magazine of Modern Voyages and Travels, translated from various languages, with Remarks, 16 vols. Svo, Halle, 1790, 1798. 38. An edition of Bergius über die Leckereien, a work on diet, with notes by Forster, Kurt, and Sprengel, 2 vols. Svo, Halle, 1792. 39. A Letter to Schreber on the Persea, Magazin für die Botanik, vol. v. p. 234. 40. Onomatalogia nova systematis oryctognosiae vocabulis Latinis expressa, folio, Hal. 1795. 1 page. 41. Observations and Truths united to Probabilities, or Materials for a new Essay on the Theory of the Earth, Svo, Leipzig, 1798; one of the last of our author's publications, which is considered as a good elementary work on geology. (Sprengel's Memoir; Eyrics in Biographie Universelle, vol. xv. Svo, Paris, 1816; Aikin's General Biography, vol. iv. 4to, London, 1803; Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, vol. xiii. Svo, London, 1814.) (L. L.)