Biographical Sketch of Alexander Brongniart. 93 



formea one of his merits as a professor ; and it is related 

 that Lavoisier himself took pleasure in listening to a lecture 

 on chemistry delivered by Brongniart, when he was scarcely 

 fifteen years of age. He soon concluded his earliest scientific 

 studies at the School of Mines in Paris, which Louis XVI. 

 had founded, and where Sage taught him mineralogy. At 

 twenty years of age, in 1790, he undertook a scientific journey. 

 He visited England, where the mines and picturesque scenery 

 of Derbyshire made a strong impression on his mind, and from 

 whence he brought back the elements of a memoir on the art 

 of enamelling. His uncle, who was chemical demonstrator in 

 ihe Jardin des Plantes, took him to be an assistant, and ini- 

 tiated him in the practice of chemistry. He likewise studied 

 in the Ecole-de-Medecine, where he was thrice enrolled, and 

 when the first requisition called every Frenchman to the fron- 

 tier, he was connected with the army of the Pyrenees, in the 

 capacity of apothecary. A stay of fifteen months among these 

 mountains gave him the opportunity of studying a rich and 

 varied field of nature, as a zoologist and botanist. He likewise 

 made geological observations which, at a later period, took 

 their place in the science, and which he often took pleasure in 

 recalling ; but he there encountered dangers which his youth 

 did not suspect, and he was imprisoned under suspicion of hav- 

 ing favoured the escape of the skilful naturalist Broussonnet, 

 who avoided certain death by fleeing by the breach of Hol- 

 land. Restored to liberty after the 9th thermidor, he re- 

 turned to Paris, where, on the recommendation of Fourcroy 

 and Coquebert de Montbret, then occupied with statistical 

 mineralogy, he waS attached to the agency of mines, in the 

 capacity of mining engineer. Soon after he was called to 

 the Professorship of Natural History in the central school of 

 Quatre-Nations ; he became a contributor to the best scien- 

 tific collections of the period ; and a little after the 18th bru- 

 maire, in 1800, he was nominated director of the Porcelain 

 manufactory of Sevres, on the recommendation of Berthollet. 

 When the imperial University was organised, M. Brong- 

 niart was entrusted with the composition of an elementary 

 treatise on mineralogy. This work, which appeared in 1807, 

 was one of the best, and, in particular, one of the clearest 



