SECOND PERIOD. 29 



From the moment when the charge of the 

 cabinet was given to Bernard de Jussieu , he 

 had bestowed unceasing care upon its arrange- 

 ment and preservation. The extent of his know- 

 ledge , and the facility with which he seized the 

 affinities of bodies, and classed them in their na- 

 tural order, qualified him particularly for this 

 task, rendered more difficult by the increase of 

 the collections; but being diverted by other oc- 

 cupations, and residing at some distance from 

 the garden, he expressed a desire to be replaced 

 in an office which required unwearied activity 

 and ceaseless assiduity. Buff on also felt that his 

 researches in natural history , needed the as- 

 sistance of a man who had still all the ardour of 

 youth, and who possessed in a high degree , both 

 the spirit of method and a talent for observa- 

 tion. Gifted with that genius which seizes the 

 principal characters of objects , and unites them 

 in splendid combinations, he had neither time 

 nor patience for the examination of details ; to 

 which the weakness of his sight was also an ob- 

 stacle. He made choice of his countryman Dau- 

 benton , who was then twenty nine years of age , 

 and who, after studying botany under de Jussieu, 

 and anatomy under Winslow and Duverney , had 

 retired to Montbard, the place of his birth, to prac- 

 tice medicine. Buff on invited him to Paris, and 



