156 Obituary of Alexander Brongniart. 
the frontier, he was attached to the army of the Pyrenees as 
Pharmaceutist. 
The leisure afforded by a sojourn of fifteen months in these | 
mountains, enabled him to study their rich and varied zoology 
and botany. He also made geological observations which after- 
wards proved valuable to science, and which it gratified him 
often to recall ; but he encountered dangers which his youth never 
anticipated, and he was placed in prison on suspicion of having 
favored the escape of the learned naturalist, Broussonnet. 
Restored to liberty after the 9th thermidor, (July 28,) he return- 
ed to Paris, where on the recommendation of Fourcroy and Coque- 
bert de Montbret, who was then engaged in statistical mineralogy, 
he was attached to the agency of mines, in the capacity of engi- 
neer of mines. Soon after he was called to the Professorship of 
Natural History in the Central school of the Quatre-Nations; he 
became a contributor to the best scientific periodicals of the day, 
inality of explanation entirely peculiar, and a perspicuity worthy 
being a model to authors who wish to bring science to the 
comprehension of youth. This book became the text of those fin- 
ished lectures which M. Brongniart gave for along time in the 
Faculty of Sciences as associate of M. Haiiy and which he con- 
tinued at the Museum of Natural History, when he was called to 
succeed this illustrious master. But M. Brongniart was not con- 
1 to mineralogy alone. His works were as various as his 
studies. He continued for a long time to cultivate zoology, and 
his early labors are not forgotten. 
e owe to him the division of the reptiles into four orders, 
and all naturalists, with Cuvier at their head, have adopted from 
him the names Saurians, Batrachians, Chelonians and Ophi- 
dians ; names which appear at this day so natural that they are 
constantly repeated without recalling their anthor. Subsequently 
he introduced the name Trilobites, and he laid the foundation of 
the classification of these singular Crustacea—different from all 
recent forms—in a learned memoir which has been the starting 
point of all the works on this large family. 
Independently of the honor it conferred, M. Brongniart owes 
perhaps to his zoological labors one of the greatest pleasures of 
life, viz., his intimate relation with the illustrious author of 
the “ Régne Animal” and “Anatomie Comparée.” 
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