BARON CUVIER. 213 



Florence ; seeking the causes of pestilence, and 

 the means of prevention ; making roads, fixing 

 conductors for lightning, and aiding the state by 

 his counsels. France employed him in the de- 

 partments beyond the Alps, as director of bridges 

 and highways ; and in this capacity he caused 

 new roads to be made in every direction, bridges 

 to be thrown over fearful torrents, and two mag- 

 nificent military causeways, which, raised along 

 precipitous crests, supported by arches of pro- 

 digious elevation, and occasionally piercing the 

 bosom of these rugged mountains, have made an 

 agreeable walk of that which was formerly fright- 

 ful to the imagination. 



To these two eloges succeed two funeral dis- 

 courses ; one delivered at the interment of M. Van 

 Spaendonck, the professor of botanical draw- 

 ings at the Jardin des Plantes, an artist whose 

 productions attained the highest perfection ; and 

 the other at the grave of the great astronomer, 

 M. Delambre. The latter was a personal friend 

 of M. Cuvier's ; and in this discourse, which was 

 not of sufficient extent to admit of an enumer- 

 ation of his labours, his excellent character as a 

 man received its just tribute from the lips of his 

 colleague. 



The volume is closed by two of those ad- 

 p 3 



