At the meeting of the German scientists and naturalists in Bonn, in 1857, Mohr's interest was so much drawn toward the problems of geology that he henceforth devoted much study and research to geological investigations. Besides a series of excellent popular essays in "Westermann's Monatsheften," in 1866 appeared from his fruitful and highly appreciated pen "A History of the Earth," in which he advanced and sustained novel views on the origin of anthracite coal, the deposits of lime in the seas through the agency of plants, the occurrence of magnetic iron in basalt, and of metallic iron in meteorites, etc.
Mohr's works and writings, extending over a wide sphere of the physical and applied sciences, are characterized by strict scrutiny, clearness, and attractiveness; his attainments, learning, and eloquence were widely appreciated; during many years he delivered popular lectures on various branches, or special topics, or problems of chemistry or geology, at Coblentz, Bonn, Cologne, and other cities, and these lectures drew large audiences of the most cultured classes of society; the present accomplished Empress of Germany was, during her many years' residence in Coblentz, among his devoted hearers. His popular essays in "Westermann's Monatsheften" in "Gaea," in the "Cologne Gazette" and other German journals, were ever-welcome literary contributions of the highest order, and also entered largely into the literature of other nations. Distinctions and honors, never courted by his independent and stern character, were not wanting for him, both at home and abroad. Among American societies, the American Pharmaceutical Association and the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy had elected him an honorary member in 1868.
One year before his death, Mohr delivered, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the "German Apotheker Verein" in Coblentz, in September, 1878, his last address to the representatives of his original vocation an oration—which obtained a wide and just fame for its masterly exposition of the past, the present, and the future mutual relations of chemistry, pharmacy, and medicine, and of the accomplishments of pharmacy for the progress and growth of the other two.
Risen like his famous contemporaries Woehler, Heinrich Rose, Wiggers, Liebig, and others, from the ranks of pharmacy, and carried far off from her special sphere by his application and labors during an active career, Mohr again and again betook himself to his alma mater, and, perhaps more than any one of his collaborators contributed to maintain the high place and reputation of German pharmacy in the domain of physical research; and, among the many eminent scholars and investigators of his time whose names adorn the records of advance in sciences and arts, Friedrich Mobr's name will be an imperishable one in the history of pharmacy and of her offspring chemistry.
