200 MEMOIRS OF 



greater lustre than he has received from it; and 

 that these researches, which, perhaps, excited 

 the pity and contempt of some of his contempo- 

 raries, will make his name resound, at an age to 

 which his rank and liis ancestry alone would not 

 have transmitted it. The history of thirty cen- 

 turies clearly teaches us, that great and useful 

 truths are the sole durable inheritance which 

 man can leave behind him." 



The next in the list of great names is that of 

 Pallas, the enlightened and sagacious traveller 

 of the north of Asia, the inhabitant of the 

 Crimea, and the learned and indefatigable na- 

 turalist. 



The ^loges of M. Parmentier and Count Rum- 

 ford are combined, and commence with a sort of 

 introduction to the useful labours of each ; la- 

 bours which bore so strongly on the means of 

 affording warmtli and nourishment to the poorer 

 classes. The former, who had learned the value 

 of the potato as an article of food in the prisons 

 of Germany, overcame the prejudices entertained 

 against them in France, where they were said to 

 produce leprosy, fevers, and no one knows what 

 diseases. His mode of rendering them popular 

 and desirable was curious ; for he began by cul- 

 tivating them in the open fields, and causing 



