26 Garden of Plants and National Museum at Paris. 
and recent; the animals preserved in spirits occupy some of 
the lower shelves; the rest are filled with corallines and 
sponges; the cases above are pane with insects. 
Descending the staircase, we pass through those mighty 
ruins of fomrer ages, the fossils, ciiatip collected by Baron Cu- 
vier; after which come the rocks and minerals. The reptiles, 
which cover the sides and ceilings of the next apartment, have 
lately been much extended ; and the former library having 
been appropriated to ichthyology, the books have been moved 
to the rooms of a deceased professor, and their place is now 
wholly occupied by fishes. Below these are three entirely 
new rooms, formed by turning the porter of the gate in the 
Rue du Jardin du Roi out of | “his habitation, and converting 
that and some lecture rooms into a gallery for the heavier 
quadrupeds, such as elephants, hippopotami, &c., on the 
ground floor. 
The galleri ies of botany are scarcely big enough to contain 
the piles of dried plants brought home by the ae oe of 
the expeditions of discovery ; and the collection of woods and 
dried seeds bids fair very soon to exceed the limits assigned 
to it. The School of Botany, so beautifully arranged Hecoue 
ing to the natural system, is three times as large as it was six 
years back. ‘The wet summer has much injured the parterres ; 
still, however, the daturas have been placed outside the green- 
houses; the salvias, amounting to large shrubs, were Hla in 
blossom; and the flower- warden, the oarden of naturalisation, 
and the medicinal parterres, were all blooming. In short, 
with the exception of living Carnivora, every department of 
this wonderful establishment has made the most astonishing 
progress, even within the last few years, and is now so perfect 
that we almost wish the treasures of nature exhausted, for fear 
the least alteration for the reception of additions should be 
detrimental to its beauty. 
I cannot suppose it possible for an English amateur of 
natural history to turn from this little world of science and 
wonder without a sigh of regret—without dwelling on the 
causes, whatever they may be, which keep his own country in 
such deep arrears in this respect. That England, which per- 
fects not only her own undertakings, but ae ingen takings 
of other nations, with a hundred fold the opportunity in her 
commercial connections, which preclude even the necessity of 
sending out travellers on purpose — that England should be 
thus outdone by her less enterprising neighbour, i is a fact at 
which I cannot help grieving, but which I do not presume to 
investigate. Iam, Sir, &c. 
27. Burton Street, Nov. 19. S. Leer. 
