viii PREFACE 



in facilitating the work of collecting data. Intro- 

 duced by him to Professor Hamy, the learned an- 

 thropologist and archivist of the Museum d'Histoire 

 Naturelle, I was given by him the freest access to the 

 archives in the Maison de Buffon, which, among 

 other papers, contained the MS. Archives du Mu- 

 seum. ; i.e., the Prods verbaux des Stances tenues par 

 les Officiers du Jardin des Plantes, from 1790 to 1830, 

 bound in vellum, in thirty-four volumes. These were 

 all looked through, though found to contain but little 

 of biographical interest relating to Lamarck, beyond 

 proving that he lived in that ancient edifice from 

 1793 until his death in 1829. Dr. Hamy's elaborate 

 history of the last years of the Royal Garden and of 

 the foundation of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 in the volume commemorating the centennial of the 

 foundation of the Museum, has been of essential 

 service. 



My warmest thanks are due to M. Adrien de Mor- 

 tillet, formerly secretary of the Society of Anthro- 

 pology of Paris, for most essential aid. He kindly 

 gave me a copy of a very rare pamphlet, entitled 

 Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes, ses Dis- 

 ciples. He also referred me to notices bearing on 

 the genealogy of Lamarck and his family in the 

 Revue de Gascogne for 1876. To him also I am in- 

 debted for the privilege of having electrotypes 

 made of the five illustrations in the Lamarck for 

 copies of the composite portrait of Lamarck by Dr. 

 Gachet, and also for a photograph of the Acte de 

 Naissance reproduced by the late M. Salmon. 



I have also to acknowledge the kindness shown me 



