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science for which they were distinguished. After subjecting the lists 

 to a severe scrutiny, he finds that Switzerland carries away the palm, 

 in respect of the number in proportion to its population, of the 

 recipients of these academical honours. England he considers to be 

 the country most favourably conditioned for intellectual culture, 

 especially due to the facility with which its language may be acquired 

 for reading purposes. This led to an analysis of the chief European 

 languages, with the result that, owing to its " comparatively simple 

 declensions and conjugations, its facility for forming compound words, 

 and its abundance of short declamatory expressions, English is likely 

 to become the universal language of the future." 



By editing the autobiography of his distinguished father, A. de 

 Candolle has enriched the history and literature of science. The 

 father was a man of genius and varied attainments, a lover of society, 

 and an excellent talker, who cultivated the acquaintance of the most 

 intellectual people in France and England during the first forty yearn 

 of the present century, and his autobiography contains instructive 

 anecdotes, often racy and never injurious, of not a few of the most 

 eminent men of his time. 



A. de Candolle's professional career as a botanist began in 1831, 

 when he was appointed Honorary Professor of Botany in the Academy 

 of Geneva, assistant to his father as Director of the Botanical Gardens, 

 and conductor of the students' herborizations. In 1841, on his father's 

 death, he succeeded him in the chair, which he held till 1850. In 

 1835 he published, as a class book, his ' Introduction a 1'Etude de la 

 Botanique,' an excellent work, conceived and executed in the spirit of 

 his father's ' Organographie Vegetale.' It was reprinted in Belgium, 

 and translated into German and Russian. 



A. de Candolle's labours were not confined to botany, for through- 

 out the active period of his life he was engaged in civic duties. As 

 early as 1834 he was elected a representative of the Council of Geneva, 

 later a member of the Constituent Assembly, and lastly of the Grand 

 Council from 1862 1866. In all movements for the improvement 

 of the city and well-being of his fellow-citizens and countrymen, 

 especially the financial and charitable, he was a zealous and judicious 

 advocate, and he published many well reasoned papers on these and 

 kindred subjects. He was the first to advocate the Referendum in 

 financial affairs, and the use of postage stamps in his canton, and 

 subsequently in the Confederation. He was a zealous supporter of the 

 Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve, of the Societe 

 Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles, of the Societe des Arts, and the 

 Societe de Lecture, and a perennial contributor to the ' Archives 

 des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles.' Of separate publications and 

 articles in scientific and other journals, M. Micheli* enumerates 235, 

 * ' Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles,' Geneva, December, 189?. 



