Museum of Natural History at Paris. 105 



at each vacancy two parents would then be accommodated.* 

 The professors have the final nomination of the officers (em- 

 ployes) of the establishment, and the regulation of then- 

 salaries; an effectual guarantee against the grievous evil of 

 sinecures, and the scandal of enormous emoluments, amongst 

 these officers ; and yet many of these latter have rendered 

 greater service to science than certain of the professors. We 

 shall one day have no reason to thank that institution, which 

 imposed on Cuvier the burthen of sinecures to the amount of 

 60,000 fr., and condemned Laurillard, his preparator, to a sti- 

 pend of 2000 fr. The state supported Cuvier; the voice of 

 Cuvier in the conclave fixed the remuneration of Laurillard. 



The building is occupied by collections from the three 

 kingdoms of natural history, and the mansions of the profes- 

 sors. It is divided into the galleries of zoology, anatomy, and 

 mineralogy; a menagerie, a botanic garden, and enclosures 

 appropriated to botanical and, as they say, agricultural demon- 

 strations ; green-houses and orangeries, where exotics are 

 cultivated at great expense ; and, lastly, a library. 



The allowance for this establishment is 360,000 fr. (about 

 14-, 000/.) per annum. Such an establishment, supported by 

 such an allowance, should doubtless be a nursery, so to speak, 

 of discoveries and their applications; but for more than six 

 years the legislature has had ample opportunity of learning 

 that it can but serve as the grave of all the discoveries for- 

 warded to it from the four quarters of the globe. 



There is no catalogue to define the value of this national 

 property, and guide the researches of the student. The bales 

 are opened at the pleasure of the professors, who select from 

 them such objects as come under their department, and take 

 charge of forwarding them to their destination, without taking 

 the precaution of cataloguing them, and thereby covering 

 their own responsibility and that of their officers. A professor 

 has the right of carrying home, and even of lending, a speci- 

 men of the greatest importance, and of returning it to the 

 collection at his convenience. He is not at all bound to place 

 the collection under his care within the reach of students ; he 

 may even, under pretences of which he alone is judge, refuse 

 them the use of it altogether. He is granting them a par- 

 ticular favour in opening the drawers of the cases to them, 

 and he grants it only, as may be imagined, to those who will 

 thank him for it. Most of the collections are unclassed, and, 

 so far, useless to the student ; others are so incomplete, that it 



* At this very time one father has united the votes for his son and two 

 sons-in-law : his grandchildren are not yet adult ; but their place is marked 

 in the museum. 



Vol. I. — No. 2. n. s. i 



