172 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
escape some sufferings. But it was child's play, we must 
own, compared with the task which is imposed on the poor 
naturalist, who reduced to the slenderest pittance and com- 
pelled to economise on the last farthing, sees himself obliged 
to substitute his own almost superhuman efforts, for the means 
which he lacks. ** Wretched money !” thus sorrowfully cried 
Aucher-Eloy in one of his letters. What would he not have 
accomplished for science, if, from the commencement, he had 
received, I will not say the liberal encouragement which the 
British government bestows on those individuals whom she 
sends out to explore, but even the small assistance which the 
French budget too parsimoniously places at the disposal of 
our ministers. Still, it is but justice to admit, that, at this 
period, Aucher-Eloy was little known, and the distance which 
lay between him and the public offices in Paris, precluded all 
probability that his plan, not announced beforehand, could 
claim the attention of those in power. When once his 
earlier collections were received in France, the value of such 
a traveller began to be understood. M. Adolphe Brongniart 
had consented, in that spirit of liberal patronage which dis- 
tinguishes the professors of the Museum, to become the 
depositary of the greater part of his collections and always 
exerted himself to effect the sale of them. M. De Candolle, 
whose death is now mourned by all the scientific world, had 
been much struck with the number and interesting nature 
of those new species, with which Aucher-Eloy had enriched 
the truly classical Prodromus, and both these eminent per- 
sons, joining their efforts to those of M. Naudin, procured 
for him some assistance from the Museum and the Minister 
of Public Instruction. Part of the funds thus obtained 
reached the hands of our traveller, during the course of his 
last expedition, the remainder arrived too late. 
These unfavourable circumstances exhibit in the strongest 
light the merits of his enterprize, and the mind is filled with 
respect and astonishment when contemplating the immense 
extent of his collections, the excellent preservation of the 
different specimens which they contain and the order and 
