266 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. vm. 



Paris until to-morrow morning, in order to avail my- 

 self of the meeting of the Institute to-day, at which 

 Dr. Buckland and I take our seats for the first 

 time since our election. Yesterday we went to 

 Versailles to pay our respects to Madame Cuvier 

 and Sophie. We found the dear venerable lady 

 at home. . . . She is rather deaf and shows her 

 great age, but the fine features and the benevo- 

 lent, intellectual eyes still remain.' 



Concerning his visit to the Institute, Owen 

 writes to his wife : — 



Steamboat on ye Rhone : September u [1845]. 



' I got up early on Monday morning at Paris, 

 wrote off slick a memoir for the Institute, called on 

 Flourens, the Sec. at the Garden of Plants, who 

 had it forthwith translated, and it was read to a 

 large auditory. . . . My communication was on the 

 discovery of the fossil monkey 3 in the newer ter- 

 tiary deposits of Essex, with the extinct elephant, 

 rhinoceros, &c, the first ever met with in that 

 formation. I exhibited the fossil, and took the 

 precaution before the meeting to compare it 

 (along with De Blainville) with the large collec- 

 tion of monkeys' skulls in the Jardin des Plantes. 

 De B. was quite en accord with me, and they 

 regard the matter here as tres important. Buck- 

 land, Pentland, and I met Elie de Beaumont, 

 Omalius d'Halloy, and some distinguished 



3 Macacus ftliocenns, Owen ; British Fossil Mammals, 1846, 

 p. xlvi. 



