Biographical Memoir ofM. Claude Louis Richard. 205 

 scales as the stamina ; according to Adanson, the scales were only 

 the anthers, and the small horns were their filaments. Jacquin 

 regarded the anthers aS* placed in the interior of the cells of the 

 scales. According to M. Desfontaines, the black corpuscules were 

 the true anthers ; and the slits of the pistil, opposite which they 

 are placed, performed the office of stigmata. Amid these dif- 

 ferent opinions of the most celebrated men, M. Richard fear- 

 lessly brought forward his own. He endeavoured to shew that 

 the capital is the stigma ; that the little black bodies which ad- 

 here to it are parts or divisions of it ; that the cells of the pen- 

 tagonal body are the anthers, and that it is their agglutinated 

 powder that forms the small masses of threads which terminate 

 the little black bodies. If all botanists have not yet considered 

 these determinations as demonstrated, most of them at least ad- 

 mit that they are the most probable that have been proposed. 



An opportunity now presented itself to M. Richard of rea- 

 lizing the scheme which he had nourished from his childhood. 

 M. Necker and M. de Castries were desirous of sending, to our 

 American colonies, a man qualified to propagate there the pro- 

 ductions of India, which Poivre and Sonnerat had obtained for 

 them at the risk of their lives, as well as to make known such 

 of their own native productions as it might be possible to con- 

 vert to some use. The Academy, on being requested to point 

 out to them such a man, made choice of M. Richard ; and 

 Louis XVI., who had seen him when quite a child, and was 

 personally acquainted with most of the individuals of his family, 

 approved, with pleasure, of his nomination. It is well known 

 that that unfortunate prince was fond of and cultivated geogra- 

 phy. He did M. Richard the honour of several times sending 

 for him to his cabinet, and shewing him on a map of Guyana, 

 the districts whose examination seemed to him likely to present 

 the greatest interest ; the rivers whose course he wished to be 

 better laid down, and other objects, to the knowledge of which 

 he attached importance. These audiences, these directions, 

 given by the king himself, together with the promises of the mi- 

 nistry, could not fail to raise, to a still higher pitch, the natural 

 ardour of our young naturalist. Full of courage and hope, and 

 without caring, in the smallest degree, about the precautions and 

 formalities which would have rendered the engagements entered 



