An toine- Laurent Jussieu. 25 



During the concluding half of his life, the most fixed pur- 

 pose of M. de Jussieu was to bring out a new edition of his 

 great work. Unfortunately, his bodily energies naturally di- 

 minished in proportion as the materials of the science aug- 

 mented ; he overtook only a small part of this magnificent 

 work, but the fragments even exhibit an uncommon profun- 

 dity which would have established the reputation of any other 

 individual. These fragments form a series of memoirs, which, 

 from the year 1804 to 1820, and almost uninterruptedly, were 

 inserted in the Annales du Museum. More than a half of the 

 author's primitive families are there reviewed ; each of them 

 is examined in detail, and in each the genera of which it is 

 composed. In the year 1798, M. de Jussieu had not been 

 able to avail himself of the great work of Gasrtner upon Fruits. 

 On this occasion, he made it the term of comparison, and the 

 touchstone of all the new alliances which suggested themselves. 

 In studying the diiferent kinds of corn, Gsertner had thrown 

 the light of anatomy upon that very organ from which M. de 

 Jussieu had derived the chief foundation of his arrangement. 

 When applied to the science of relations, the observations of 

 M. Gsertner assumed a new and unexpected importance ; M. 

 de Jussieu employed it to shed new light upon the calculation 

 of characters, upon the formation of families, and on that art, 

 so little known previously in botany, of applying the one to the 

 other of those mainsprings and resources, viz. anatomy and 

 arrangement, on which alone was, henceforward, to depend the 

 future progress of the science. 



M. de Jussieu relaxed from his more severe labour by pub- 

 lishing some productions of another kind, but still having 

 natural history, or, what expi-esses the same idea in different 

 words, the JarcUn cles Plantes, for its object. I here allude 

 to his Memoires sur le Museum. The Jardin Hoyal, originally 

 founded under Louis XIII. by an edict of the year 1626, was 

 at first nothing more than 2i garden for medical plants. This 

 was at the time its legal title ; and its museum was nothing 

 more than a useful drug-shop. M. de Jussieu dwells upon the 

 insignificant commencement of this drug-shop, which has 

 since become the most magnificent establishment devoted to 

 the studv of nature that is to be found in the world. He re- 



