26 MEMOIR OF BUFFON. 



periments, Buffon succeeded to M. Du Fay in the office 



of Intendant to the Royal Garden and Cabinet, and, 



as before hinted, this appointment ultimately fixed his 



mind to the pursuits of natural history. He was 



only thirty-two years of age; and when he saw 



such a mass of materials at his command, a great 



part of which was unnoticed by any naturalist, we 



may easily conceive that a mind possessed of such 



enthusiasm, would be led again to a science which it 



had previously studied ; and he entered eagerly into its 



details, calling to his assistance, in some departments 



where he was deficient, the talents of men who were 



capable and worthy of the association. The great work 



now contemplated, was intended to embrace every 



branch of the animal kingdom ; but he thought that it 



Would be incomplete, unless the composition of the globe 



which sustained such a multitude of living creatures, 



should itself be first elucidated, and it was accordingly 



commenced by a history or theory of the earth, which 



he afterwards augmented -by what he termed the 



" Epochas of Nature." The first volume of the 



Natural History of Quadrupeds did not appear till 



174-9, ten years after his appointment as Intendant 



of the Gardens; and the first edition of the whole work 



was not completed till 176*7, occupying its author 



during a period of sixteen years. Year after year he 



also wished to render it more complete; he endeavoured 



to keep pace with the science and its discoveries, and 



we find an additional supplementary volume published 



