AMERICAN 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS. 
[SECOND SERIES.] 
Arr. XVII.—E tract from a Discourse pronounced by M. Eure 
DE Beaumont at the funeral of M. Auexanpre Bronenrart, 
October 9, 1847.* 
_ M. Bronentarr was born at Paris in 1770. His father was 
justly distinguished in the fine arts ; and the intelligence of the son 
was developed in the midst of that brilliant society, which at the 
close of the last century his father had collected around him. He 
drew from the conversations of Franklin the germ of a mild and 
practical philosophy, from which he never departed; and from 
Lavoisier, the first notions of chemistry which was in part the 
foundation of his scientific career. 
te early exhibited that clearness of elocution, which was one 
of his merits as a Professor, and it is related that Lavoisier himself 
Was pleased to attend a lecture on chemistry given by the young 
Brongniart when but fifteen years old. He early finished his 
first scientific studies in the School of Mines of Paris, founded 
by Louis XVI, where M. Sage taught him mineralogy. 
At twenty years of age, in 1790, he made a scientific tour. 
He visited England, where the mines and picturesque regions of 
Derbyshire made a vivid impression upon him, and where t 
collected the elements of a memoir upon the art of enameling, 
which was his debut, in the art of pottery and porcelain. His 
uncle, Demonstrator of Chemistry in the Garden of Plants, select- 
ed him as assistant and taught him practical chemistry. 
studied also in the School of Medicine, where he took three “ in- 
Scriptions :” and when the first requisition called all Frenchmen to 
Li aoe a 
* Translated for this Journal from the “ Institut,”’ Oct. 13, 1847. 
Szcoxp Srrizs, Vol. V, No. 14.—March, 1848. 21 
