Karl Vogt, a German naturalist, born in Giessen, July 5, 1817, where his father, a well known author of valuable medical works, was a professor in the university. He studied medicine, and in 1839 went to Neufchatel, where he spent five years in studying natural history with Agassiz and Desor. Of the Histoire naturelle des poissons d'eau douce, published by Agassiz, Vogt claims to have written the first volume and most of the second. He wrote Im Gebirge und anf den Gletschern (1843); Physiologische Briefe (1845); Lehrbuch der Geologie und Petrefactenkunde (1846; 3d ed., 1868-72); Naturliche Geschichte der Schopfung des Weltalls (1851); and Zoologische Briefe (1851). In 1847 he became extraordinary professor of natural history at Giessen. In 1848 he engaged with great ardor in the revolutionary agitation which pervaded Germany, was a democratic member of the Frankfort parliament, and lost his professorship and was obliged to leave Germany. Since then he has lived mostly at Bern and Nice. In 1852 he was appointed professor of geology at Geneva, and in 1853 at Bern. In 1856 Prince Napoleon invited him to join his expedition in the northern Atlantic. Among his works, that which has excited the most attention is Kbhlerglaube und Wissenschaft (1855), which has been widely attacked as atheistic.

He has since published Studien zur gegenwdrtigen Lage Europas (1859); Die Mnstliche Fischzucht (1859; 2d ed., 1875); Grundriss der Geologie (1860); Untersuchungen über die Absonderungen des Harnstoffs (1861); Nordfdhrt entlang der norwegischen Kuste nach dem Nord-Cap (1863); Vorlesungen uber den Menschen, seine Stellung in der Schopfung und in der Geschichte der Erde (1863); Vorlesungen uber nutzliche und schadliche, verlcannte und verldumdete Thiere (1864); Ueber die Mikrocephalen oder Affenrnenschen, (1866); Sechs Vorlesungen über die Darwin'sche Theorie (1868); and Politische Briefe an F. Kolb (1870).