26 Garden of Plants and National Museum at Paris. 



and recent; the animals preserved in spirits occupy some of 

 the lower shelves; the rest are filled with corallines and 

 sponges ; the cases above are lined with insects. 



Descending the staircase, we pass through those mighty 

 ruins of former ages, the fossils, chiefly collected by Baron Cu- 

 vier; after which come the rocks and minerals. The reptiles, 

 which cover the sides and ceilings of the next apartment, have 

 lately been much extended; and the former library having 

 been appropriated to ichthyology, the books have been moved 

 to the rooms of a deceased professor, and their place is now 

 wholly occupied by fishes. Below these are three entirely 

 new rooms, formed by turning the porter of the gate in the 

 Rue du Jardin du Roi out of his habitation, and converting 

 that and some lecture rooms into a gallery for the heavier 

 quadrupeds, such as elephants, hippopotami, &c., on the 

 ground floor. 



The galleries of botany are scarcely big enough to contain 

 the piles of dried plants brought home by the naturalists of 

 the expeditions of discovery ; and the collection of woods and 

 dried seeds bids fair very soon to exceed the limits assigned 

 to it. The School of Botany, so beautifully arranged accord- 

 ing to the natural system, is three times as large as it was six 

 years back. The wet summer has much injured the parterres ; 

 still, however, the daturas have been placed outside the green- 

 houses ; the salvias, amounting to large shrubs, were still in 

 blossom ; and the flower-garden, the garden of naturalisation, 

 and the medicinal parterres, were all blooming. In short, 

 with the exception of living Carnivora, every department of 

 this wonderful establishment has made the most astonishing 

 progress, even within the last few years, and is now so perfect 

 that we almost wish the treasures of nature exhausted, for fear 

 the least alteration for the reception of additions should be 

 detrimental to its beauty. 



I cannot suppose it possible for an English amateur of 

 natural history to turn from this little world of science and 

 wonder without a sigh of regret — without dwelling on the 

 causes, whatever they may be, which keep his own country in 

 such deep arrears in this respect. That England, which per- 

 fects not only her own undertakings, but the undertakings 

 of other nations, with a hundred fold the opportunity in her 

 commercial connections, which preclude even the necessity of 

 sending out travellers on purpose — that England should be 

 thus outdone by her less enterprising neighbour, is a fact at 

 which I cannot help grieving, but which I do not presume to 

 investigate. I am, Sir, &c. 



27. Burton Street, Nov. 19. . S. Lee. 



