STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER 2, 
with visiting the foreign botanical gardens and 
museums, and of placing them in communication 
with those of Paris. His travels extended through 
portions of the years 1781 and 1782. 
According to his own statement,* in pursuit of this 
object he collected not only rare and interesting plants 
which were wanting in the Royal Garden, but also min- 
erals and other objects of natural history new to the 
Museum. He went to Holland, Germany, Hungary, 
etc., visiting universities, botanical gardens, and mu- 
seums of natural history. He examined the mines 
of the Hartz in Hanover, of Freyburg in Saxony, of 
Chemnitz and of Cremnitz in Hungary, making there 
numerous observations which he incorporated in his 
work on physics, and sent collections of ores, minerals, 
and seeds to Paris. He also made the acquaintance 
of the botanists Gleditsch at Berlin, Jacquin at Vienna, 
and Murray at Géttingen. He obtained some idea 
of the magnificent establishments in these countries 
devoted to botany, “and which,” he says, “‘ ours do not 
yet approach, in spite of all that had been done for 
them during the last thirty years.” + 
(On his return, as he writes, he devoted all his ener- 
gies and time to research and to carrying out his great 
enterprises in botany; as he stated: “Indeed, for the 
last ten years my works have obliged me to keep in 
constant activity a great number of artists, such as 
draughtsmen, engravers, and printers.” + 
* See letters to the Committee of Public Instruction. 
+ Cuvier’s Eloge, p. viii; also Bourguignat in Revue biog. Soc. Ma- 
lacologique, p. 67. 
¢ He received no remuneration for this service. As was afterwards 
stated in the National Archives, Etat des personnes attachées au Mu- 
