814 Biographical Memoir of Peter Simofx Pallas. 



them in every page ; they are received and consulted, with equal 

 interest, by historians and geographers, by those wlio study the 

 philosophy of languages, and the character of nations. But it 

 is precisely this multiplicity and this diversity of his labours that 

 obliges me, at present, to reduce his eulogiuni almost to a mere 

 table of contents, which it would be impossible for me even to 

 read in full, and for which I entreat, beforehand, the indulgence 

 of my auditors. 



Peter Simon Pallas, Counsellor of State of the Emperor of 

 Russia, Knight of the order of St Volodimir, member of the 

 Academies of Science of Petersburg, London, Berlin, and Stock- 

 holm, and Foreign Associate of the Institute of France, was 

 born at Berlin on the 22d September 1741. His father was Si- 

 mon Pallas, Professor of Surgery in the University of Berlin, 

 and his mother, Susanne Leonard, who was of French extrac- 

 tion, but born in the Colony of French Refugees established at 

 Berlin. 



Being destined by his father for the medical profession, he 

 was, at an early age, instructed in various languages, and made 

 such rapid progress, as, in a short period, to be able to write, 

 with nearly equal facility, in Latin, French, English and Ger- 

 man. This faculty, which is more easily acquired in youth, will, 

 without doubt, every day become more general, more especially 

 as the sciences have ceased to possess a common language, and 

 as there is not a single great empire in Europe in which several 

 are not spoken. It cost so little trouble to the young Pallas, 

 that he was always at the head of his companions in their other 

 studies, and, not content with what his masters assigned him, he 

 occupied his leisure hours in Natural History, and with so much 

 success, that, at the age of fifteen, he sketched ingenious divi- 

 sions of several classes of animals. 



After attending the lectures of Gleditsch, Meckel and RoloflP 

 at Berlin, and of Rcederer and Vogel at Gottingen, he went to 

 Leyden to finish his medical studies under Aibinus, Gaubius 

 and Muschenbroeck. 



At this period, the possession of numerous colonies in both 

 Indies, and the command of the commerce of the world, for two 

 centuries, had accumulated in the Dutch collections the rarest 



