APPENDIX. 337 



ing, Buffon, in company with his friends, travelled over 

 great part of France and Italy, and even remained for some 

 time in England. On his return, he translated Hales's 

 Vegetable Statics and Newton's Fluxions, and affixed to 

 each of these works a preface which gave early indica- 

 tion of his mental power. His translations were soon 

 followed by works in different departments of physics, 

 geometry, and rural economy ; among these works we may 

 mention the Experiences sur la Force des Bois, Disser- 

 tation sur la cause du Strabisme, and especially the Me- 

 moire sur les miroirs pour bruler a des grandes dis- 

 tances, which contains an account of experiments which 

 realise all that the ancients have said regarding the 

 burning-glasses of Archimedes.* These labours led to 

 his admission into the Academy of Sciences, in his thirty- 

 second year. Hitherto nothing had indicated the fame 

 which he would one day obtain as a naturalist ; but 

 having been appointed to the superintendence of the 

 Jardin du Roi in 1739, Buffon at once recognised all 

 the importance of this position, which had been entirely 

 neglected by the physicians of the king, to whom this 

 office was considered by right to belong. From this mo- 

 ment he laid down that plan of his future studies which 

 was to occupy his entire life ; and in order to construct 

 that magnificent temple to science with which the world 

 is familiar, he summoned to his aid those zealous natu- 

 ralists Daubenton f, Gueneau de Montbeillard, and the 



* The invention by Archimedes of burning-glasses which con- 

 sumed the Roman galleys at considerable distances, when they were 

 engaged in the siege of Syracuse, was always regarded as a fabulous 

 account, until Buffon showed the possibility of such an occurrence; 



f Daubenton, who was born at Montbard in 1716, and died at 



Paris in 1800, was by far the most eminent of Buffon's collabora- 



teurs, for it was lie wbo supplied all the anatomical notices contained 



in the first fifteen volumes of the Histoire Naturelle. One edition of 



VOL. I. Z 



