72 BARON CUVIER. 



tons and anatomical preparations of all kinds ; 

 with eleven rooms in the gallery of anthropology 

 containing every variety of the human species, in 

 casts, mummies, and fossils; with the gallery of 

 zoology containing over two thousand mammalia, 

 belonging to five hundred species, as many reptiles, 

 ten thousand birds, and over twenty-five hundred 

 fishes ; with immense geological, mineralogical, 

 and botanical collections ; all a marvel of industry 

 and learning. 



Cuvier now worked unceasingly. Sometimes his 

 salary was in arrears, but he bore it cheerfully, as 

 he wrote a friend : " You are not to suppose that 

 Paris is so highly favored ; for twelve months' pay 

 are now due at the Jardin des Plantes, and all the 

 national establishments for public instruction, in 

 Paris as well as at Strasburg ; and if we envy the 

 elephants, it is not because they are better paid 

 than we are, but because while living on credit, as 

 we do, they are not aware of it, and consequently 

 are insensible to the pain it gives. You know the 

 saying about the French, that when they have no 

 money they sing. We savants, who are not musi- 

 cians, work at our sciences instead of singing, 

 which comes to the same thing." He is a hero, 

 indeed, who can breast poverty, and work and sing 

 in the midst of hardship. When he published his 

 "Annals of the Museum," he not only drew, but 

 often engraved the plates himself, when he was 

 unable, for lack of means, to hire it done. 



The National Institution was founded in 1796, 



