112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PHILIBERT COMMERSON/'THE KING'S NATURALIST." 



ONE of the, most successful exploring and scientific expedi- 

 tions of the eighteenth century was that of Louis Antoine 

 de Bougainville, which, starting from one of the ports of France 

 in the last days of 1766, passed through the strait of Magellan 

 and entered the south seas, still for the most part unexplored ; 

 sailed through the Paumotu Archipelago, discovering several 

 islands then yet unknown ; visited Tahiti ; touched the New 

 Hebrides, passed the eastern coast of Australia, the Louisiade 

 Islands, and the Solomon Islands ; stopped at New Ireland to re- 

 pair the ships ; passed the northern shore of New Guinea ; visited 

 Booro,in the Moluccas ; and returning, reached St. Malo in March, 

 1769. Not the least among the scientific gains of the expedition 

 were those in botany, and these accrued wholly through the 

 fidelity to science and diligent industry of Philibert Commerson, 

 than whom, says the Edinburgh Review, "no explorer of the 

 globe ever conveyed to Europe so large a number of valuable 

 plants, previously unknown." 



Commerson was recognized in Earope, though personally but 

 little known, as one of the first botanists of the age. He was the 

 correspondent of Linnaeus, the friend of Haller, and the colleague 

 of the two Jussieus. He was the grandson of a retired nobleman 

 of the days of Louis XIY, who had dropped the de distinctive of 

 his rank, and the second son of Georges-Marie Commerson and 

 Jeanne-Marie Mazuyer, and was born at Chatillon-les-Dombes, in 

 Burgundy, November 18, 1727. He studied while a child under a 

 Gray Friar at Bourg-en-Brosse, who became interested in him, 

 and, taking him on his daily walks, inculcated in him the first 

 principles of botany and a love of plants and of natural history. 

 The district abounded in fish ponds, and wandering among them 

 he gained a familiarity with fresh-water fish to which may be at- 

 tributed his subsequent skill as an ichthyologist ; and " his facility 

 in manipulating, preserving, and drying certain fit specimens of 

 the smaller fry, like plants, between sheets of coarse paper, first 

 practiced by him for scientific purposes," was evidently acquired 

 by him during this period. After two years at Bourg, he was- 

 sent to the Benedictine College near Macon, about 1742, to study 

 for the law ; but the scientific books of the abbey library had more 

 attractions for him than the law books, and he was fonder of out- 

 door life than of studying his dry text-books. His father, willing 

 that he should follow in the direction of his tastes, sent him to 

 the University of Montpellier to read for the medical degree in 

 1747. He had already begun the preparation of a herbarium, and 

 spared no efforts to make it the most complete in existence. 



