BARON CUVIER. 25 



third secretary, appointed at a time when these 

 secretaries quitted their office every two years. 



In the spring of 1798, M. Berth oUet having 

 been charged by Buonaparte to seek for savans 

 to accompany the expedition to Egypt, proposed 

 to M. Cuvier to form one of the number. This, 

 however, he refused, from the conviction, that he 

 could better serve the interests of science by re- 

 maining amid the daily improving collections of 

 the Jardin, where his labours could be syste- 

 matic, than by making even a successful travel. 

 He always felt happy afterwards in having thus 

 decided ; the propriety of which resolution no 

 one can attempt to dispute. 



About this time, one of M. Cuvier's pupils, 

 M. Dumeril, who had zealously followed all his 

 lectures, asked permission to publish the notes 

 he had taken in the lecture room. These, in 

 M. Cuvier's opinion, would have formed a very 

 imperfect work, and he preferred going over the 

 whole again, devoting himself to the general and 

 philosophical notices, and those parts which 

 treated of the brain and the organs of the 

 senses. M. Dumeril chiefly undertook the de- 

 tails of myology and nevrology. The two first 

 volumes of the " Le9ons d' Anatomic compar^e" 

 appeared in 1800, and met with the greatest 



