Vill PREFACE 
in facilitating the work of collecting data. Intro- 
duced by him to Professor Hamy, the learned an- 
thropologist and archivist of the Muséum d’ Histoire 
Naturelle, I was given by him the freest access to the 
archives in the Maison de Buffon, which, among 
other papers, contained the MS. Archives du Mu- 
séum , i.e., the Procts verbaux des Séances tenues par 
les Officters du Jardin des Plantes, from 1790 to 1830, 
bound in vellum, in thirty-four volumes. These were 
all looked through, though found to contain but little 
of biographical interest relating to Lamarck, beyond 
proving that he lived in that ancient edifice from 
1793 until his death in 1829. Dr. Hamy’s elaborate 
history of the last years of the Royal Garden and of 
the foundation of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, 
in the volume commemorating the centennial of the 
foundation of the Museum, has been of essential 
service. 
My warmest thanks are due to M. Adrien de Mor- 
tillet, formerly secretary of the Society of Anthro- 
pology of Paris, for most essential aid. He kindly 
gave me a copy of a very rare pamphlet, entitled 
Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes, ses Dis- 
ciples. He also referred me to notices bearing on 
the genealogy of Lamarck and his family in the 
Revue de Gascogne for 1876. To him also I am in- 
debted for the privilege of having electrotypes 
made of the five illustrations in the Lamarck, for 
copies of the composite portrait of Lamarck by Dr. 
Gachet, and also for a photograph of the Acte de 
Naissance reproduced by the late M. Salmon. 
I have also to acknowledge the kindness shown me 
