88 HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM. 



proposal being adopted by the professors , they 

 determined on publishing ten sheets every month, 

 with five or six engravings executed by the ablest 

 artists under the inspection of M. Vanspaen- 

 donck. As a mutual intelligence was necessary in 

 order to vary the subjects, the professors assem- 

 bled weekly for that purpose, and charged 

 M. Deleuze, one of the assistant naturalists, with 

 the collection of the memoirs and the oversight 

 of the press. The first volume , consisting of six 

 numbers, was published in 1802, and the work 

 immediately acquired a reputation which it has 

 constantly sustained. During the cessation of fo- 

 reign intercourse its publication was retarded, 

 but the composition was not the less attended 

 to. To the 20th volume it bore the title of Annals 

 of the Museum, and was continued under that 

 of Memoirs : it now forms twenty-six quarto 

 volumes. Communications of other naturalists 

 are sometimes admitted. 



Though M. Daubenton had been forty years 

 assembling minerals, and since the new organi- 

 sation had received many specimens from foreign 

 countries, the collection was still incomplete, 

 and even inferior to that of several individuals. 

 It might long have remained so, if an opportu- 

 nity had not presented itself of at once rendering 

 it worthy of the eslablishment. 



