AUGUSTIN-PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 



De Candolle was born at Geneva on the fourth day of 

 February, 1778 ; he commenced his distinguished career as a 

 botanist in Paris in the later days of the French republic ; 

 he continued it at Montpellier until 1816, when he returned 

 to his native Geneva, where he died in September, 1841, — 

 on the fifth day of that month, according to the opening para- 

 graph of his son's preface to this volume, 1 — on the twenty- 

 fifth according to the note by the same excellent authority at 

 the close of the Memoir, p. 489. We cannot account for the 

 discrepancy ; but the former is without doubt the true date. 



The twenty-one years which have elapsed since his death 

 have thinned the ranks of those who knew De Candolle, either 

 personally or by correspondence. The " Theorie Elemental re," 

 the " Organographie," and the " Physiologie Vegetale " have 

 played their part, and have long ago passed out of general use. 

 Yet, thanks to their influence, but more especially to the " Pro- 

 dromus," the name of De Candolle is still perhaps the most 

 prominent one with the cultivators of the science in general the 

 world over, — is associated, not indeed with the profoundest 

 depths, but with a larger amount of botany than any other 

 name except that of Linnaeus. These are the personal mem- 

 oirs of an industrious, highly useful, prosperous, and honored 

 life. Begun at middle age, perhaps mainly for the writer's 

 own satisfaction, or that of his family, and continued at con- 

 siderable intervals down to his last year, and evidently with 

 a growing expectation of future publication, — they have ap- 

 peared none too soon to secure the most interested but rapidly 

 narrowing circle of readers. The outer circle, however, is as 



1 Memoires et Souvenirs de Augustin-Pyramus De Candolle. Merit par 

 lui-meme. Geneva and Paris, 1862. (American Journal of Science and 

 Arts, 2 ser., xxxv. 1. 1863.) 



