434 A CHEMIST'S HOLIDAY IN FRANCE. 



1864. the narrative of "JEyes;" and will therefore read you a few 

 memoranda bearing as far as may be on pharmacy, made after 

 a month's ramble among the Alps of Dauphiny. 



Paris. Leaving London, in the latter part of July, in company with 



a friend, I spent two days in Paris, visiting while there the 

 cole de Pharmacie, which, I need hardly remind you, is an 

 establishment of ancient growth, and is much more extensive 

 than our own school in Bloomsbury Square. Besides museum, 

 and laboratories, it possesses a small botanical garden, which is 

 overlooked by the residence of the veteran pharmacologist, 

 Professor Guibourt, Lecturer on the Natural History of Drugs. 

 The professor's private collection is very extensive, and occupies 

 several small rooms in the upper part of- a house in an 

 adjoining street, where we had the pleasure of meeting him, as 

 well as Professor Planchon, of the School of Pharmacy at 

 Montpellier. I may remind you that Paris, Strasburg, and 

 Montpellier are the centres of French pharmaceutical education, 

 these three cities alone possessing Superior Schools of Pharmacy. 



Jardin des We next visited the Jardin des Plantes, which is not distant 

 Plantes. f rom ^ ie j; co ] e j e Pharmacie, and spent some time in inspecting 

 the zoological and botanical collections in the museums. In 

 the garden itself I observed in a sheltered situation against a 

 wall a fine pistachio-tree, with nuts of full size, produced, I was 

 informed, after artificial impregnation, the male tree growing at 

 some distance. Conducted by M. Naudin, we also examined 

 some of the rare Cucurbitacece, for which the garden is famous, 

 as well as a series of beds in which curious experiments on the 

 hybridization of plants were being carried on. A call at the 

 busy establishment of Dr. Mialhe, pharmacien to the Emperor, 

 and a brief visit to the large and bustling wholesale house of 

 M. Dorvault concluded all that could be called pharmaceutical 

 in my visit to Paris ; and I shall therefore pass at one jump to 



Grande Char- the Grande Chartreuse, that famous monastery near Grenoble, 

 founded by St. Bruno in the eleventh century, and of which our 

 London Charterhouse was originally a branch. I need not here 

 tell of the magnificent alpine scenery amid which the monastery 

 is situated, nor of the austere habits of the monks, nor of the 



