158 Obituary of Alecander Brongniart. 
into the vast domain which his sagacity had surveyed before- 
hand, he became, in a few years, the lawgiver of this part of 
eology, then as novel as it is important, established its law on 
well founded facts, and marching forward in his career, every 
step proved an important discovery. As a conqueror of a new 
order, M. Brongniart set forth in 1817 for Switzerland, the Alps 
and Italy, attended by his son and by M. Bertrand Geslin, one of 
his most accomplished pupils. In these countries, where Saus- 
sure had been already immortalized, he erected, in a manner the 
most surprising, those landmarks which still stand and which 
now are the occasion of discussions only as to details, and with- 
out which, no department of natural history can be perfect. 
Who has not been struck with the boldness, as happy as it is as- 
tonishing, which associated the black limestones of the mountain 
of Fis, in Savoy, with our cretaceous formations in Northern 
rance! In 1822, all the results of this nature that had been 
obtained were grouped in a second (third?) edition of T'he Geo- 
guide and interpreter in a country with whose language he was 
unacquainted. 
On that occasion, M. Brongniart laid the foundations of the 
classification of the most ancient fossiliferous formations. It was 
also during this journey in Scandinavia that M. Brongniart col- 
ted the materials of a memoir upon erratic blocks, which has 
so happily associated his name with those of Saussure and von 
Buch, in the investigation of a phenomenon by which the grand- 
eur of the revolutions of the globe is recorded in the most strik- 
ing manner. 
I must not omit to mention his memoir—so remarkable for 
with which the labors of sixty years have enriched the sciences. 
_M. Brongniart did not confine himself to a single branch ; nor 
did he content himself with theoretical speculations. The cares, 
labors and researches, which occupied him during forty-seven 
years, while he was director of the Royal Manufactory of Por- 
eelain of Sévres, would have honorably filled the life of an ordi- 
nary savant. Being occupied with numerous journeys, the object 
of which was to make him acquainted with all the grand manu- 
factures of the same kind existing in Europe, and with all the 
