S26 Biographical Memoir of Horace Be^iediet de Saussure. 



Horace Benedict de SaussiTre was born at Geneva, on the 

 17th February 1740, His mother was a sister of the wife of 

 Bonnet, and he soon become one of the favourite pupiis of that 

 philosopher. His father left some writings on agriculture. The 

 happy penetration of his mother prescribed for him laborious 

 exercises at an early age, which so little retarded the progress 

 of his education, that he distinguished himself at college at the 

 age of seven, became a candidate for a mathematical chair at 

 twenty, and at twenty-two was appointed professor of philoso- 

 phy. His pretensions in these tv.^o departments of science suffi- 

 ced of themselves to shew that his studies were at once varied 

 and profound. Of this he gave an additional proof, the same 

 year, by choosing a question in vegetable physiology as the sub- 

 ject of his first essay, entitled Observations siir VEcorce des Feu- 

 illes et des Petales, which he dedicated to Haller, and published 

 in 176S. In this essay he described the cortical net-work which 

 envelopes these parts, the regular pores with which it is perfo- 

 rated, their communication with the internal substance, and 

 their influence upon the nutrition and respiration of the plant. 

 It was a beautiful supplement to his uncle's work on leaves ; 

 and this small performance alone has assigned to Saussure an 

 honourable station among botanists. 



Occupied afterwards with objects of greater importance, and 

 which required more laborious exertions, he always reposed with 

 pleasure upon those of his first predilections. In the midst of 

 his journeys in the Alps, upon the most precipitous summits, 

 while engaged in those profound meditations which embraced 

 all that nature presents to us of the vast and magnificent upon 

 the globe, he carefully collected the smallest flower, and noted 

 it with pleasure in his book. He seemed to dwell with compla- 

 cency on the view of these living beings in the vicinity of the 

 vast ruins of nature. It was with botany that he terminated his 

 writings, as he had commenced them ; and after having sub- 

 mitted to the Natural History Society of Geneva, in 1790, some 

 observations on the motion of a tremella of the baths of Aix, he 

 also read, in 1796, a few months before his death, conjectures 

 on the cause of the constant direction of the stem and root at the 

 moment of germination. 



