346 Biographical Sketch of Adanson. [May, 



Aix, who gave him the advantage of a college education. He 

 soon displayed considerable talents ; and from his quickness in 

 the performance of his academic exercises, he attracted the 

 attention of the celebrated naturalist Needham, who was attached 

 to the institution in which the young Adanson was placed, and 

 who appears to have determined the future pursuits of his pupil, 

 by presenting him with a microscope. The possession of this 

 instrument awakened in him the most ardent passion for making 

 observations ; and he commenced, at a very early age, a train of 

 researches into the various departments of science which he 

 pursued without intennission through a long life of 70 years. 

 Botany veiy early engaged his particular attention, and he 

 became a zealous student in the " jardin des plantes," so that 

 at the age of 19 he had already written a description of some 

 thousand species of plants, and devoted not merely the whole of 

 the day, but even a portion of the night to his favourite study. 



His ardent mind soon engaged him in a much more active 

 and arduous scene ; when only 21 years of age he embarked for 

 the coast of Africa, for the purpose of examining the interior of 

 Senegal. The motives which induced him to fix upon this 

 situation are not a little singular and characteristic of his turn of 

 mind. He informs us that he selected it " because it was, of 

 all the European establishments, the most difficult to penetrate, 

 the hottest, the most unhealthy, the most dangerous in all other 

 respects, and, consequently, the least known to naturalists." 

 His constitution and physical powers, no less than his acquired 

 habits, rendered him well adapted for this perilous undertaking ; 

 and during five years, which he spent in Africa, it appears that he 

 went through a quantity of mental and corporeal labour, which, 

 perhaps, no other individual could possibly have accomplished. 

 This period he spent entirely deprived of society, and the great- 

 est part of it absolutely in solitude, a circumstance which tended 

 to promote the original peculiarities of his disposition. Natu- 

 rally of an austere temperament, and little disposed to enjoy the 

 intercourses of social life, he always preferred meditating upon 

 his own ideas to the communication of them to others ; and so 

 much was this feeling fostered by his residence in Senegal, that 

 he returned from this countiy in a state which rendered him 

 almost unable to impart his knowledge to the world, or to profit 

 by the information of his contemporaries. 



About the time when Adanson returned from his voyage, Lin- 

 nseus and Buffon were rapidly advancing to that rank in public 

 estimation to which they were each of them, although veiy differ- 

 ent in their genius and character, so justly entitled. Our young- 

 naturalist, however, seems to have paid little attention to either 

 of them, and to have been as little captivated by the scientific 

 accuracy of the one, as by the eloquent descriptions of the other, 

 He determined to pursue a system of his own, at which he 

 laboured with the utmost diligence ; but it was of an almost 



