On the changes of the Vegetable Kingdom, ^'c. 97 



But you do 'not expect of me, gentlemen, that I should re- 

 mind you, in this short sketch, of all the treasures with 

 which the labours of sixty yeai's have enriched the sciences. 



M. Brongniart by no means confined himself to a single 

 branch. Neither did he limit himself to theoretical specu- 

 lations, The cares, labours, and investigations which occu- 

 pied him for forty years, as the Director of the Royal Manu- 

 factory of Porcelain at Sevres, would have worthily filled up 

 the life of an ordinary man of science. He undertook nu- 

 merous journeys, in order to become acquainted with the 

 great manufactories of the same kind in other parts of Eu- 

 rope, and all the sources from which they derive their first 

 materials ; and thus obtained the elements of a beautiful geo- 

 logical and chemical memoir on the Kaolins, which lately 

 appeared. Faithful to his earliest researches on the art of 

 enamelling, he revived at Sevres the almost lost art of paint- 

 ing on glass, the magnificent results of which we have all 

 had occasion to admire. 



M. Brongniart, at nineteen years of age, was one of the 

 founders of the Societe Philomatique — a society as scientific 

 as unpretending, whose device is Science et Aviitie. It was 

 the centre of many useful communications, and, at the period 

 of proscription for all of a higher class, kept alive the sacred 

 flame of science.* 



On the Changes of the Vegetable Kingdom in the different Geo- 

 logical Epochs. By M. Adolphb Brongniart. 



The changes which have taken place in the nature of liv- 

 ing beings, since their first appearance on the globe till the 

 period when the surface of the earth, haA'ing assumed its 

 present form, has been covered by the creation which now 

 occupies it, constitute one of the most interesting depart- 

 ments of geology : it is the history of life and its metamor- 

 phoses. 



The progress of modern geology presents to us the surface 



* From L'Institut, No. 7iy, p. 33G. 

 VOL. XLIV. NO. LXXXVJI.— .IAN. 1818. 



