24 ALEXANDEB VON HUMBOLDT. 



his labours have greatly contributed towards a more accurate 

 knowledge of Crustacea. 



Georges Cuvier, whose name stands unrivalled among zoolo- 

 gists, was born at Montbeliard in 1769. While at the cele- 

 brated Academia Carolina, at Stuttgart, he forsook his original 

 intention of studying law, and devoted himself to the pursuit of 

 natural history, in which he soon achieved brilliant results. 

 For some years he filled the post of tutor in a noble family in 

 Normandy, and in 1795 was called to Paris on his appoint- 

 ment as Professor in the College de France, where in 1798 he 

 was chosen Professor of Comparative Anatomy. He died at 

 the age of sixty-three, and science in its various branches of 

 zoology, comparative anatomy, physiology, and physics, has 

 never gained so much from the labours of any one man as from 

 those of Baron Cuvier. The following sketch has been written 

 of him by Professor Grans of Berlin : ] ' He was possessed of a 

 tone of mind eminently German, and a range of knowledge 

 that was truly marvellous in its comprehensiveness. His great 

 penetration and vast powers of observation were unaccom- 

 panied by that impulsiveness characteristic of the French 

 mind, which from its contracted nature sees only one side of 

 a subject, to the exclusion of every other. In political life, 

 therefore, where this natural impulse and quickness of appre- 

 hension are pre-eminently requisite, Cuvier, much as he might 

 have desired it, could never have hoped to excel. His qualities 

 were more those of an administrator than a statesman : his 

 extensive knowledge rendered him indispensable in the council 

 chamber, where he was often able to show the fallacy of an appa- 

 rently incontrovertible statement, by adducing facts which would 

 otherwise have been overlooked. His extensive acquirements 

 enabled him to render valuable assistance to the Government 

 under every administration, equally under that of M. de 

 Villele as under Louis Philippe ; for notwithstanding his in- 

 aptitude for political life, his vast stores of knowledge seemed 

 to render him indispensable to the service of the State.' 



Achilles Valenciennes, a young man of remarkable attain- 

 ments in zoology, occupied a position of yet closer intimacy 



Cans, < Riickblicke auf Personen und Zustiinde ' (Berlin 1836), p. 18. 



