Biographical Notice of Haiiy. 365 
ences, but he had attended the course of Brisson in the 
college at Navarre, and acquired some taste for exper- 
imental physics. Among his new confreres in the college 
ef Lemoine was Lhomond, a man of profound knowledge, 
and yet more modest and pious than he was learned. This 
person had limited himself to the instruction of the sixth, 
and had composed works only for Children ; but they were 
remarkable for an uncommon clearness, anid a simplicity 
of tone conformable to the character of the author. 
The young Haiy soon became the friend of the respect- 
able Lhomond, entrusted him with the secrets of his con- 
science, and felt for him the tenderness of ason. He took 
eare of his business, comforted him in his sufferings, and 
accompanied him in his walks. Luhomond loved to her- 
borize, but Haiiy had yet no idea of botany. The indus- 
trious friendship of the young professor enabled him to fill 
up, in a very short time, this blank in his information, in 
order that he might be more agreeable and useful to his 
friend. Atthe first herborization, he could name the plants, 
and assign them their botanical characters; very soon he 
was on a level with his companion, and from that time-eve- 
ry thing was common between them, even to their amuse- 
ments. 
The College of Cardinal Lemoine is near the Garden of 
Plants ; and it was natural that Hatiy should often choose 
it for his promenade. Seeing one day a crowd of auditors 
pressing in to the attendance of a lecture of Daubenton, on 
mineralogy, he wished to hear this professor, and was char- 
med to find, in this part of natural history, subjects of the- 
ory more analogous to his taste for the physical sciences, 
than the pursuits of botany. ‘The comparison of these two 
varieties of the productions of nature, excited in his mind 
a train of reflections which led the way to his discoveries in 
crystallography. How is it, said he, that the same stones and 
the same salts should show themselves in cubes, in prisms, in 
needles, without the change of asingle atom in their composi-~ 
tion, while the rose has always the same petals, the gland the 
same flexure, the cedar the same height and developement ? 
He was occupied with these ideas, when examining one day 
some minerals at the house of his friend, M. Defrance, he 
awkwardly, though luckily, let fall a beautiful group of 
prismatic crystals of calcareous spar. Some fragments 
