Lesley.] ^^0 f May 19, 



baptized Pierre Jean Edouard, but his pubiiciitions and his literary cor- 

 respondence show that he had dropped the first two names, and few per- 

 sons were aware of his liaving any other personal designation than Ed- 

 ward. 



His fallier's name was Jean Desor, and his mother's maiden name was 

 Christine Albertine Foucar. 



"Desor" Avas originally "Des Horts," meaning "of the gardens." 

 A Catholic branch of the family Des Horts still reside at Marsillargues, in 

 the south of France, on the route from Lunel to Aigues Mortes. From 

 this little village many Protestant families were chased into exile, by 

 Louis XIV, in 1685. M. Fritz Berthoud in his "L'Hiver au Soleil," de- 

 scribes how, in one of their journeys to the Mediterranean coast, Desor 

 and he stopped to make the acquaintance of this scene of persecution. 



Jean Desor, at Friedrichsdorf, conducted one of those manufactures 

 ■\vhich France lost by the folly of her so-called Great Monarch. He died 

 and left his two boys to the care of their mother ; but she, too, worn out 

 with misery and loneliness, died, and they grew^ up as best they could. 



Young Desor's education was, however, on the whole a good one ; and 

 the peculiar constitution of his native town gave him this advantage : 

 French and German were alike his mother-tongue. This made it easy 

 for him, when the time came, to lead a useful life in Paris, and to settle 

 finally at Neufchatel, where both languages are spoken alike by all. 



He acquired a good knowledge of English, also. Several years of resi- 

 dence in the United States made our language as familiar to his ear and 

 tongue as his own native dialects. Although he never overcame the dif- 

 ficulty of pronouncing such sounds as th, and always spoke of sick and 

 siti rocks, he nevertheless wrote English in a singularly pure style, and 

 spoke it with admirable precision and force. His long intercourse with 

 Italian geologists and his frequent residences in Italy gave him command 

 of the Italian language. 



Ilis earlier education was gained at the gymnasium in Hanau. Thence 

 he was transferred to the University of Giessen, and commenced, his stud- 

 ies for the legal profession, which he afterwards continued at the Univer- 

 sity of Heidelberg. His elder brother adopted the career of a physician. 



At Giessen also was educated Desor's colleague in science and life-long 

 bosom friend, Karl Vogt, who was six years his junior, and who still sur- 

 vives to mourn his loss. Vogt afterwards studied chemistry with Liebig 

 at Heidelberg, and (1835) anatomy and physiology with Valentin at Berne, 

 wiien Desor was already established with Elie de Beaumont in Paris. 



As his forefathers had been persecuted out of France into Germany for 

 their religious and political heresies, so Desor and his brother were driven 

 back from Germany into France by persecution, on account of their en- 

 thusiastic sympathy with the revolutionary excitement of 1830, which 

 pervaded all Europe, the principles of which were elaborated in the uni- 

 versities of Germany, and preached and practised by the entire burschen- 



