tiary of Holland, who alone could suspend M. Brugmann's operations, and obtain a revocation of his orders. The application succeeded to their wish; it was agreed that an equivalent should be furnished from the duplicates of the Museum; and this new collection, consisting of a series of 18,000 specimens, was, in the opinion of M. Brugmann himself, more precious than the Cabinet of the Stadtholder.

The Emperor of Austria behaved himself like a gentleman in causing M. Boose, his gardener at Schoenbrun, to transport to Paris such plants as were wanting in the King's Garden; he also presented to the Museum two beautiful collections; one of fungi, modelled in wax, with the greatest ac curacy of form and colour; and the other of intestinal animals, formed by M. Bremser. Several wrought stones of price were returned to Coleridge's friend," that good old man the Pope;" and objects of natural history, and books belonging to individuals, which had been sent to the Museum in the time of the emigration, and which were considered as a deposit, were restored with the permission of the govern, ment,

For two years after the peace, a reduction took place in the annual grants, from 300,000 francs to 275,000; but soon after, matters were placed on their former footing; and since the administration of M. Lainé, extraordinary funds have been granted for building the new menagerie, and other operations.

Buffon had obtained permission from the King to send naturalists into foreign countries; and the travels of Commerson, Sonnerat, Dombey, and Michaux, had procured considerable accessions to the Garden and Cabinet. Since the new organization, the two expeditions, commanded by Captain Baudin, had doubled the collections. At the restoration the government continued the same advantages, and ordered travellers to be sent into regions little known, to examine their natural productions. Considerable remittances have already been made from Calcutta and Sumatra, by MM. Diart and Duvaucel; from Pondicherry and Chandernagor, by M. Leschenault; from Brazil, by M. St Hilaire; and from North America, by M. Milbert, M. Lalande, who visited the Cape, and penetrated to a considerable distance

into the country, has lately brought back the most numerous zoological collection since that of Peron. Many other travellers, without any special mission, have also proved their zeal for science, by transmitting numerous and valuable collections, both in zoology and botany.

These fortunate circumstances have hitherto happened at indeterminate periods; but a measure lately adopted by the government, insures, for the future, their regular annual recurrence. According to a plan submitted to the King by M. de Cazes, a yearly sum of 20,000 francs has been appropriated to the support of travelling pupils of the Museum, to be appointed by the professors. During the first year they are to prepare themselves under the direction of the professors; and are then to be sent to such other countries as promise the most abundant harvest of discoveries in natural history. They are required to keep up a constant correspondence with the Museum; and to transport the natural productions of Europe to other quarters of the globe. Unfortunately, the first use of this munificence has been productive only of regret. Of the four travellers commissioned in 1820, two fell victims to their zeal, on arriving at the place of destination. M. Godefroy, from whose extensive knowledge important services were expected, perished in a fray with the natives on landing at Manilla; and M. Havet, a young man distinguished by sound erudition and nobleness of character, died of fatigue at Madagascar. He had studied the language of that island, and was recommended to one of the kings, whose two sons were residing in Paris for their education. It was expected that he would have made known the productions of a country, the interior parts of which have never been explored by any naturalist.

We have now detailed the principal improvements and acquisitions of the Museum; and shall nèxt notice the progress of instruction, and the professors to whom the teaching of the different branches of natural history was confided, after the new organization, which, as we have already mentioned, took place towards the end of last century. The mineralogical chair was at first filled by M. Daubenton, who had professed that science during twenty years, in the College of France.

It is unnecessary to say how much the Museum in particular, and the sciences in general, were indebted to his cooperation with Buffon. He assembled and disposed all the contents of the former cabinet; and when specially intrusted with the mineral collection, he bestowed the utmost pains upon its arrangement; passing his mornings in the gallery, in examining specimens, answering questions, and attending to the observations of his pupils. Every person listened with respect to this patriarch of natural history, who, at the age of eighty-four years, retained all the force and clearness of his intellect, and that freedom from prejudice which rendered him always accessible to truth. He died on the 31st December, 1799, and was buried in the scene where he had spent his life, and where every object recalls the memory of his services.

M. Dolomieu, who had been long celebrated as a mineralogist, and as the founder of geology in France, was chosen by the professors as Daubenton's successor. This learned man, whom love of science had determined to join the expedition to Egypt, had been thrown into prison at Messina on his return, on a most groundless and absurd suspicion of his having been accessary to the invasion of Malta. The powers that interfered in his be half had been unable to loosen his chains, or to soften the rigours of his captivity, and the professors were ignorant of the probable period of his deliverance; but they preferred leaving the chair vacant for a time, to foregoing an opportunity of rendering justice to a man, whose elevated character, and devotion to science, had not shielded him from the most ridiculous calumnies, and the most odious perse cution. M. Dolomieu was liberated on the 15th of March, 1801, by an article in the treaty between France and Naples. He hastened to Paris, and, on his first appearance in the Amphithea tre, was received by the audience with an enthusiasm which manifested their opinion of his merit, and their interest in his sufferings. He delivered a course of lectures, and then set off upon a mineralogical tour among the Alps; but his constitution was injured by the hardships which he had previous ly undergone, and he died at Neuchatel in the Charolois, on the 26th of November, 1801.

The ingenious observations of Bergmann and Romé de Lisle, had, for several years, fixed the attention of mineralogists on the regular and constant forms of crystals; but they had presented only detached facts, of which M. Haüy divined the cause, and, by the aid of geometry, attained the general results which have changed the basis of the science. He was called, on the 18th December, 1801, to fill a chair for which there could be no competition; and from that time, the instruction has been conformed to the new method. The influence of this method has been felt in foreign countries. The Germans associate the new characters with their own classification; and several works have been published, uniting the principles of Werner and Haüy, or those of the German and French schools.

In regard to Botany, M. Desfontaines has had no occasion to change the method introduced by him in 1786. M. de Jussieu has continued his herborisations during summer, since the year 1770. The course of agriculture is delivered by M. Thouin, with such illustrations as are possible from the practice in the Garden, and the collection of models. He is charged with the correspondence with all the public gardens of France and other countries; and with the yearly distribution of more than 80,000 parcels of seeds, the produce of the Garden, or collected by travellers.

Our limits forbid our entering into any detail regarding the well-known advancements of chemical science, under the successive auspices of Fourcroy, Laugier, Brongniart, and Vaquelin; all of whom were Professors in the Garden of Plants.

The progress of Zoology was less rapid during the greater part of last century, than that of Botany, not so much from any neglect of that science,

as

from the want of resources. Separate descriptions of animals were published, many curious observations were made upon insects, and Linnæus had presented in systematic order, and described in precise and picturesque language, the varieties of animated nature. Nevertheless, the greater part of the animals of the old and new world were imperfectly known from want of opportunities of comparing them, and of observing the differences produced by age and other eircumstances on the

same species. To the collections of the King's Garden, and to the works of which they facilitated the execution, are owing, in a great measure, the wider range and greater exactness of Zoology at the present day. The History of Quadrupeds by Buffon and Daubenton, that of birds by Buffon and Montbeliard, and that of cetaceous animals and fishes, by the Count de Lacépède, made known, with accuracy, the species which Linnæus had only indicated, and many others the existence of which he had not suspected. The galleries of the Museum furnished M. de la Marck with materials for his History of Invertebrated Animals, and enabled M. Latreille to perfect his great work on Insects. M. Cuvier soon after accomplished in favour of Zoology, what M. de Jussieu had done for botany, by founding, upon natural relations and invariable characters, a classification now very generally adopted.

The three chairs for Zoology are still occupied by the professors first appointed to fill them. M. Geoffroy de St Hilaire resumed his lectures on his return from Egypt, where he was employed for four years. He had previously taught the history of all the vertebrated animals for eighteen months, when the law of the 7th December, 1794, at the request of the professors, erected a separate chair for oviparous quadrupeds, reptiles, and fishes; to which M. de Lacépède, who had left the garden two years before, was called in January, 1795. Not contented with completing his course of lectures, M. de Lacepède resumed his former labours in the Cabinet, and soon after, on M. Geoffroy's departure for Egypt, took charge of the birds and quadrupeds, in addition to the objects especially committed to his care. By him the collection of birds, the most magnificent that had ever been assembled, was arranged in beautiful order for exhibition, and rendered classical for the study of ornithology. The celebrity which he had acquired by his works, and by his connection with Buffon, attracted crowds of young men to his lectures, whom he induced to attach themselves to a branch of Natural History which had been little cultivated in France. During ten years his whole time was employed in facilitating the study of a science which owe much of its progress to himself;

and when called to a post under government, which left him no leisure for these pursuits, he insured the solid instruction of his pupils by choo sing for his assistant M. Dumeril, author of the Analytic Zoology, and the co-operator of M. Cuvier in the first volumes of his Comparative Anatomy.

The Chevalier de la Marck, so highly distinguished by his works on invertebrated animals, has for twentyfive years taught the History of Mol lusca, Crustacea, Insecta, and Zoophytes. He has also classed the shells and polypi after a more scientific and exact method, and has characterized all the genera, and determined a great number of living and fossil species. His loss of sight not permitting him to continue his demonstrations, his place is filled by M. Latreille, whose nu merous writings, and especially his great work on the classification and generic characters of crustaceous animals and insects, rank him among the first entomologists of Europe.

The course of geology in the Mu `seum is now distinct from that of mi neralogy. The chair was first filled by M. Faujas St Fond. Without the precise characters afforded by mineralogy, the geologist cannot ascer tain the genera and species in their pure state, nor discern the elements of an aggregate body, and the alteration of the primitive forms by the mix. ture of different substances; but the history of the great masses which cover the globe, the relative situation and different formation of rocks, of subterranean fires, and volcanic productions, of thermal waters, of fossil bones and shells found at different depths, forms a peculiar science, founded on innumerable observations, and exempt from the systematic absurdities that have disgraced the theory of the earth. If the science, notwithstanding the facts with which M. Faujas had enriched it, was not sufficiently advanced for the establishment of positive laws, he at least had the merit of rendering it popular, and of contributing to its progress since the commencement of the century. He died at his estate of St Fond, near Montelimar, on the 18th of July 1819, at the age of seventy-eight.

M. Cordier, an Inspector of the mines, and the pupil and travelling companion of Dolomieu, was named by the professors of the Museum, and

by the academy of sciences, to succeed M. Faujas, in September 1819. In his lectures he contents himself by exposing the actual state of the globe, by a connected view of facts ascertained by observation; and he insists particularly on the mineral riches of France, and the means of rendering them subservient to the progress of the arts and to the wants of society.

As it is necessary in general to adapt instruction to the greater number of pupils, the professors cannot in their courses enter into minute details, nor expose discoveries and principles which would be understood only by men versed in science; for these objects the annals of the Museum already noticed form an appropriate medium of communication. In this work, M. Haüy has fixed the characters of different minerals recently added to his Cabinet, and shewn the simplicity of the laws of chrystallography, and the advantage of analytic formulas; MM, Fourcroy, Vaquelin, and Laugier, have communicated the most important results of their experiments in the chemical laboratory; M. Desfontaines has described new genera of Plants, that have bloomed in the garden or been found in the herbarium; M. de Jussieu has defined the characters of the principal natural families, with such additions and corrections as the progress of the science has rendered necessary; M. Thouin has explained in detail the management of the seed beds and plantations, and the processes of grafting; MM. Geoffroy and Lacepède have published new genera of quadrupeds,reptiles, and fishes; M. de la Marck has described the fos sils of the environs of Paris; M. Cuvier has made known the anatomy of Mollusca, and the skeletons of extinct animals, whose bones he had collected; and the professors in general have contributed extracts from their corre spondence with other establishments, or with travellers and foreign naturalists.

Two thousand pupils yearly attend the lectures of the Museum, of whom a few only become distinguished na turalists; but all acquire a share of useful knowledge and a talent for observation. It has been said by Bacon, that ignorance in philosophy is preferable to superficial knowledge; and it cannot be denied that shallow notions of history and philosophy are

often employed to sap the foundations of morality and politics. But it is otherwise with the knowledge of nature; in this unbounded science every acquisition is useful, from the simplest perception to the deepest researches, and from the minutest details to the most general views; the study of it accords with every age, with every disposition of mind, and every profession in life; it yields assistance to agricul ture, medicine, and the arts, and pow erfully contributes to the wealth of nations. As its object is to ascertain and connect facts, and not to investigate causes, it is free from the uncertainty of hypothesis; and if observation is sometimes incomplete, nature is always at hand to dissipate doubt, and to rectify error.

But to obtain the results that may be hoped from it, and spare the stu dent the laborious researches of his predecessors, there must exist a repo sitory of knowledge, from which he may borrow to enrich it in his turn. This repository is the Museum founded by monarchs, adorned by men of genius, and governed by enlightened administrators, it has hitherto resisted every shock, escaped amid every scene of devastation, and excited the admiration of rival nations. The warrant of its duration is its utility, and the protection of a sovereign, whose glory can only increase as the progress of knowledge shall render more evident the wisdom of his institutions.

The expenses of the garden in 1789, were 104,269 francs, and those of the menagerie at Versailles, 100,000 francs; making a sum of 204,269 francs; at present the current expenses of the establishment are 300,000 franes. But in 1789, the Garden con→ tained only 43 acres; it now consists of 79. The galleries of Natural His tory have been raised one story, and nearly doubled in length, and a library of more than 12,000 volumes has been added to the collection. The buildings at present are to those of the former period in proportion of seven to one, and the extent of the agricultural, horticultural, and botanical culture, is as nine to one. The collection of living plants has been doubled; that in the herbarium is six times as great. The collection of birds and quadru peds is twenty times more numerous; that of fishes, formerly insignificant, is now the most extensive in the world;