228 Royal Society. 



Alexander Brongniart, the son of a distinguished architect, 

 was born at Paris in the year 1770. In early youth he derived his 

 love of science, not only from his father, but also from his father's 

 friends, Franklin, Lavoisier, and other eminent men of the day. 

 He received his earliest lessons in science at the Ecole des Mines, 

 and afterwards at the Ecole de Medecine. At the age of twenty, 

 he came to England, and visited the mines of Derbyshire. On 

 his return to his own country, he published a memoir on enamel- 

 ling, M'hich induced M. Berthollet, several years later, to recom- 

 mend his appointment to the ofhce of Director of the manufactorj'- 

 of Sevres. At the time of the French Revolution, he had the mis- 

 fortune to 1)6 suspected of the offence of favouring the escape of 

 M. Broussonet, and w'as thrown into prison. More fortunate however 

 than so many others who were arrested in that terrible time, he 

 escaped with his life, and, after his release, returned to Paris and be- 

 came a Mining Engineer. He subsequently was appointed Professor 

 of Natural History at the Ecole Centrale des Quatre Nations ; and in 

 the year ISOO, commenced his superintendence of the manufactory 

 of porcelain at Sevres, an office filled by him for the long period of 

 nearly half a century. 



In the year 1807, appeared M. Brongniart's 'Traits Elementaire 

 de Mineralogie,' a work of great importance and merit. 



M. Brongniart did not confine his scientific researches to mine- 

 ralogy. Zoology also attracted his attention and pi-ofited by his 

 labours, and a community of pursuit brought him into close relation 

 with the illustrious Cuvier. 



In the year 1808, he revisited this country and studied its fresh- 

 water formations, a study of great importance with reference to a 

 work published by him, in conjunction with M. Cuvier, after his 

 return to France, on the Geology of the Environs of Paris. 



In consequence of the great service he had rendered to science, 

 he was elected a member of the French Academy in the year 1815. 

 Two years later, he visited Switzerland, the AIjjs and Italy, where he 

 extended his geological fame by fresh observations ; and in 1822, he 

 published the second and enlarged edition of his Geology of the 

 neighbourhood of the capital of France. 



In the year 1824, he made a journey in Norway and Sweden, and. 

 in the course of it studied the more early fossiliferous deposits, and 

 brought together the materials for a memoir on erratic blocks. 



Other geological questions occupied his thoughts, and among 

 them were the interesting pliEenomena of volcanos, and especially of 

 Vesuvius. 



Such is a brief account of the scientific cai'eer of this zealous and 

 active philosopher, as exhibited in the touclning address delivered 

 after his death by his friend M. Elie de Beaumont. Science was not 

 however his only, or 2:)erhaps his principal occupation, though it 

 might be supjjosed that he had little leisure for any other. On the 

 contrary, he diligently discharged for forty-seven years the duties of 

 the director of a great national manufactory, and during the later 

 years of his life, he j)ublished two important works on the potter's 



