M. Frederic Cuvier. 3 



lege de France, were all anxious to press him into their ser- 

 vice ; and he on his part no sooner found himself settled in 

 these honourable situations than he lost no time in taking 

 under his kind protection both his father and brother, in 

 other words, his whole family, for he had lost his mother in 

 the year 1793. 



Gladly accepting the kind invitation of his brother, M. F. 

 Cuvier came to Paris towards the end of the year 1797. 

 Here a new world opened to his view. He now discovered 

 how much time he had lost, and undoubtedly with regret, but 

 without discouragement. He immediately attended lectures 

 upon natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural history ; and, 

 in the year 1801, co-operated with M. Biot in researches con- 

 cerning the properties of the voltaic pile, which led to impor- 

 tant results. In the year 1802, he undertook the principal 

 management of the Journal de la Societe d 1 encouragement pour 

 V Industrie Nationale. 



Influential circumstances, however, as I have already hint- 

 ed, speedily infused a new and more permanent energy into 

 his plans. For it was impossible to live with Baron Cuvier, 

 constantly and familiarly, in fraternal intimacy, without be- 

 coming a naturalist ; and it was by undertaking a work for his 

 brother that M. F. Cuvier made his first essay in natural 

 history. The museum of comparative anatomy which had 

 been commenced by Buffbn and Daubenton, was at the time 

 receiving immense accessions under the fostering care of M. 

 Cuvier, so as to become, in fact, a new creation ; for this the 

 great naturalist required a catalogue, and for its preparation 

 he applied to MM. F. Cuvier and Duvernoy. 



M. F. Cuvier undertook the description of the skeletons ; 

 and this was the origin of his great work upon Les dents des 

 mammiferes, a work of fundamental importance in zoology. It 

 is, in truth, a most complete study of characters derived from 

 the teeth, and the most able application of these characters 

 used in the formation of genera. By this skilful application, 

 M. F. Cuvier produced a great change in many of the orders 

 of the mammalia, especially in the carnassiers and rodents ; 

 and those changes he introduced are now adopted by nearly 

 all zoologists. 



