IN EUROPE — SWITZERLAND. 
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fallen into a nervous state, he reposed unwillingly for some 
months. In the midst of this repose, however, he employed 
himself usefully in compiling a universal Nomenclator of all 
the Genera of the Animal Kingdom, for which vast work he 
has collected more than 17,000 words, of which already more 
than 700 have proved to be used in duplicate. To render more 
perfect this well-conceived undertaking, he has resolved to 
submit the respective classes to those who are more especially 
devoted to one or other of them ; and he has done me the 
honour of requesting my revision of the ornithological portion, 
in which he has already collected 1700 genera, to be followed 
by the Ichthyology which I have also in hand. I now exhibit 
to the section a slight specimen of this work. This learned 
naturalist intended to have spent the summer among the 
mountains in his vicinity, then to publish another part of his 
Poissons Fossiles, and then to anticipate the arrival of this 
Congress, being desirous of first visiting with me the Maritime 
Alps ; but the projects which he meditated were interrupted 
by the unfortunate episode of his illness. Under such a man 
who can doubt of the daily advancement of the Neufchatel 
Museum, patronized as it is by the patriotic feeling of those 
learned citizens, and assisted by M. Coulon ? Geneva, that 
focus of civilization, is not confined to sheltering illustrious 
botanists ; once the abode of the two Decandolles, of Duby, of 
Moricand, and others, she now boasts of a Pictet, who, not 
content with the fame which he acquired by the study of 
Insects, has now given us excellent illustrations of new Verte- 
hrata, preserved in the flourishing museum of that city. The 
oriental plague in Syria has carried off Dr. Otth, the pride of 
Berne, where idly repose his collections and precious manu- 
scripts, which, in a less turbulent and more studious city of 
Switzerland, would have been already published, as a rare 
treat to the cultivators of natural science. All Switzerland is 
peopled with active naturalists and adorned with museums. I 
will rest a moment at Zurich, where the Saxon, Oken, has his 
peaceful abode, and continues to edit the Isis, perhaps the 
most scientific journal of natural history, not in Germany 
merely, but in the Avhole world. He has lately finished his 
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