THE SCIENTILIC LABORS OF EDWARD LARTET/ 



By Dr. P. Fischer. 



The Geological Society ot France has always paid due respect to the 

 metaory of the men who have taken an active part in its transactions 

 and whose scientific reputation ought in justice to be perpetuated. 

 M. Gervais, president of the society, has already expressed the uni- 

 versal regret caused among us by the death of 31. Lartet, and one of 

 his pupils may now be allowed to review the labors of the estimable man 

 whose loss we deplore. 



Edouard Auiand Isidore Hippolyte Lartet was born on the 15th of 

 April, 1801, in the department of Gers, at Saint Guiraud, near Castelnau- 

 Barbareus. He was descended from a family which had settled in the 

 country at a very early date. He was the youngest of five brothers, 

 with whom he was sent, for education, to the Lyceum at Auch, and he 

 was one of the three pupils who received the medals awarded to that 

 establishment by the first iSTapoleou. His predilections were for history 

 and archteology rather than the judicial sciences, but, in deference to 

 the wishes of his father, after leaving the college of Audi he entered 

 the law-school of Tonlouse, where he graduated iu 1820. By a singular 

 coincidence, Cuvier, then counselor of state, signed, instead of the min- 

 ister of public instruction, the diploma of a youth afterward to be 

 distinguished in the path which this eminent scientist had opened to 

 ])aleontology. 



In order to perfect him in the practice as well as the theory of his 

 profession, he was now sent to Paris, in company with an elder brother. 

 Here, while fullilling the duties imposed upon him with that fidelity 

 which characterized him throughout life, he foUnd time for his favorite 

 studies. After he had mustered the rudiments of these sciences, he 

 continued to pursue them, and as his store of books was not large he 

 sold those he had read in order to obtain others. When he returned to 

 Gers he was not only prepared for the practice of the law but for The 

 especial researches which afterward rendered his name illustrious. 



M. Lartet, after completmghis law education at Paris, settled in Gers. 

 The practice of his profession was, however, confined to giving advice to 

 the peasants, which was the more highly appreciated because gratuitous. 

 Frequent emanations of this kind from the kindness of his heart consti- 

 tuted a prominent trait of his character. Impelled by gratitude his 

 clients frequently brought him medals of Gallo-Eomanic antiquity wliicli 



*A translation for the Smithsonian Institution of '"Xote, siir la vie et les travans 

 iVfid. Lartet, par M. le docteur Fischer, In a la seance geuerale ainnielle do la Socicto 

 geologiqne de France," from " Yie et travaux d'£douard Lartet: notices et discours 

 publics a Toccasiou des a mort," x'P- 39-55. 



