244 Biographical Account of M. Senebier [Oct. 



While Senebier was thus pursuing with so much assiduity his 

 experiments on vegetable life, he was not inattentive to the pro- 

 gress of the other departments of chemical science. In 1784 

 he published his " Analytical Researches on the Nature of 

 Inflammable Air ; " he devoted a portion of his time to meteoro- 

 logical observations, successively translated the two works of 

 Spall.an?ani on generation and on digestion, and at the same 

 time he drew up " The Literary History of Geneva." In the 

 year 1787, a periodical work was established under the title of 

 " The Journal of Geneva," to which Senebier is stated to have 

 been a very liberal contributor ; and in the following year he 

 undertook the more difficult and laborious task of writing the 

 article Vegetable Physiology for the French Encyclopaedia. On 

 this work he probably thought it necessary to bestow a degree 

 of minute attention which was not customary with him, so that 

 it was two years in being completed. Shortly after this period, 

 Geneva became involved in those political revolutions which 

 convulsed the whole of Europe ; and Senebier, who was little 

 adapted, either by his disposition or his profession, for taking 

 an active part in these turbulent transactions, retired into the 

 country, where he remained, as it appears, in a state of complete 

 seclusion, for nearly 10 years. Part of this time he employed in 

 reprinting in an enlarged form his treatise on vegetable physio- 

 logy, which appeared in 1800, extended to five octavo volumes. 

 During the same period he translated Spallanzani's travels, and 

 his work upon respiration : he contributed to the Journal de 

 Physique, and other periodical works, a number of memoirs on 

 various topics ; but, for the most part, connected with vegetable 

 physiology, and in conjunction with his friend Huber published 

 an essay on germination. 



This appears to have been one of the lafit of his published 

 works ; but in the list which is appended to the etoge, we find 

 that a number were left in MS. and some of them of consider- 

 able size. His death was occasioned by a rheumatic affection 

 of the left hand and arm, which terminated in a caries of the 

 bones : amputation of the limb was had recourse to, but without 

 success, as the operation was succeeded by a fatal haemorrhage, 

 which appeared to be connected with an ossification of the 

 valves of the heart. He died at the age of 70 years, and left 

 behind him the reputation of a man of great moral worth and 

 much literary industry. After making all the reasonable deduc- 

 tions for the feelings of friendship which appear so conspicu- 

 ously in the composition of his eulogist, we cannot doubt that 

 Senebier was a person of the most amiable dispositions, and the 

 most pure and upright intentions. He does not appear to have 

 possessed much strength of character, although there is no cir- 

 cumstance recorded which would lead us to suppose that he 

 manifested any remarkable deficiency in this respect, still less 

 that he degenerated into, any culpable weakness.. 



