112 MEMOIRS OF 



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

 labours up to that period. 



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

 vols, the African traveller, to whom the world owes the 

 Flora of Owaree and Benin ; and who, after w^-estling 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- 

 w^here more strongly manifested than in his euiogium 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, w^hich 

 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 wdth 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 civihzed people : they 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 v>'hen 



