44 Biographical Sketch of Brisson. [July, 



1756 he published the first two classes, the quadrupeds, and the 

 cetacea; the prevailing character of the work is simplicity, the 

 descriptions and the nomenclature are all marked by this quality, 

 and the whole seems to have been intended to convey the 

 greatest possible quantity of information in the least assuming 

 manner. In 1780 the third part, the ornithology, appeared, a 

 work that contained more original matter and more scientific 

 research than the former, and tended to raise his character to a 

 higher rank as a naturalist. At this period, however, he had the 

 misfortune to lose his friend Reaumur, and from some cause, 

 with which we are not acquainted, Buffon and Daubenton, under 

 whose care Reaumur's cabinet was placed, threw some obsta- 

 cles to his use of it, and by this means almost compelled him to 

 renounce his favourite pursuit. 



Being thus deprived of his former occupation, he accepted an 

 offer, which was made him by the Abbe Nollet, to become his 

 assistant in the lectures on natural philosophy, which he deli- 

 vered in the college of Navarre. In this new situation, he 

 exerted all the energies of his mind upon experimental philo- 

 sophy, which had been before bestowed upon natural history ; 

 and he seemed to have experienced no diminution of his ardour 

 for science, by the change in the department to which he espe- 

 cially devoted himself. He published, in a succession of 

 memoirs, the results of his inquiries on various topics, of which 

 the most important is a paper which he presented to the Aca- 

 demy in 1772, on the specific gravity of metals. This was 

 afterwards expanded into a separate treatise on the subject, 

 which was published in 1787, and is said to have occupied his 

 attention for 20 years ; it is generally admitted to possess the 

 merit of great accuracy in all its parts, and retains its estimation 

 as a work of standard value. Brisson was one of the most active 

 members of the commission that was formed in France to esta- 

 blish a new system of weights and measures ; and it is probable 

 that we are indebted to him for a considerable share of the merit, 

 both of the plan and of the execution, of the method that was 

 adopted. Besides his papers on individual subjects, he was the 

 author of an elementary treatise, and a dictionary of natural phi- 

 losophy, works of established reputation, which were extensively 

 employed in France, and have been translated into other lan- 

 guages. He died of an apoplexy in 1806, and has left behind 

 the well-earned reputation of an accurate and patient investigator 

 of science rather than of a profound theorist, or an ingenious 

 discoverer. What he aimed at he accomplished ; accuracy was 

 his great object ; and ho was more desirous of becoming useful, 

 by removing obstacles in the road to knowledge, than of 

 attempting himself to enter upon any new or intricate paths. 

 His reputation with posterity will principally rest upon his 

 treatise on the specific gravity of metals. 

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