112 MEMOIRS OF 



Seze will be found a very admirable resume of M. Cuvier'a 

 labours up to that period. 



The third volume begins with the eloge of M. cle Beau- 

 vois. the African traveller, to whom the world owes the 

 Flora of Owaree and Benin ; and who, after wrestling with 

 the storms both of this continent and those of America, 

 died in consequence of the sudden changes to which a 

 European climate is so frequently liable. In this biography 

 are some remarkable passages concerning slavery. 



M. Cuvier's brotherly feeling, his gratitude, if I may 

 so express myself, towards all promoters of science, is no- 

 where more strongly manifested than in his eulogium on Sir 

 Joseph Banks, the distinguished and munificent patron of 

 scientific labourers. The travels and adventures of Sir Jo- 

 seph are here related with vivacity ; and the famous dis- 

 pute about points and buttons to electrical conductors, which 

 placed him at the head of the Royal Society, and which, in 

 other hands might have afforded much scope for ridicule, is 

 touched on with a delicacy peculiar to M. Cuvier's disposi- 

 tion. Nor is this eloge less remarkable for the honourable 

 testimony given to a nation which has been but too often 

 regarded with jealousy, and which has but too often met 

 these sentiments with a reciprocal feeling. " The savans 

 of England," says the Baron Cuvier, ' : have taken an equal- 

 ly glorious part in those mental labours which are common 

 to all civilized people : the) 7 have confronted the eternal 

 frosts of either pole ; they have not left a corner of the two 

 oceans unvisited ; they have increased the catalogue of na- 

 ture tenfold ; heaven has been peopled by them with plan- 

 ets, statellites, and unheard-of phenomena ; we may al- 

 most say that they have* counted the stars of the milky 

 way. If chemistry has assumed a new aspect, the facts 

 they have furnished have essentially contributed to this meta- 

 morphosis. Inflammable air, pure air, phlogistic air, are 

 due to them ; they have discovered the decomposition of 

 water, and a number of new metals have been produced 

 by their analyses. The nature of fixed alkalies has only 

 been demonstrated by them ; mechanism, at their voice, 

 has given birth to miracles, and placed their country above 

 all others in almost every species of manufacture." 



The mineralogist, M. Duhamel, appeared at a time when 



