Cuvier’s Historical Eloge of Werner, % 
gated his doctrine, and spoke of his person with respect and with 
tenderness. 
It was thus, that in a few years the small school of Freyberg, 
intended only at first to form some miners for Saxony, renewed 
the spectacle of the first Universities of the middle ages, — -that 
scholars flocked to it from every country in which any civiliza- 
tion exists, — and that, in the most distant countries, men far 
advanced in life, and philosophers who had already obtained ce- 
lebrity, were seen addressing themselves to the study of the 
German language, solely that they might be in a condition to 
hear, in their own person, this great oracle of Geology. 
A fame so rare, has deservedly placed Werner on the list of 
our foreign associates ; — it demands this day this tribute of our 
regrets ; — it will dispose you, I doubt not, to listen with some 
indulgence to the history of a life, altogether secluded, — altoge- 
ther devoted to science, — perhaps altogether monotonous, — but 
the labours of which have been rewarded by such great renown, 
Abraham Gottlob Werner was born on the 25th September 
1750, at Wehrau on the Queiss, in Upper Lusatia. From his 
earliest years, he saw himself surrounded by objects which were 
to form the occupation and the glory of his life. His father, 
who was the director of a forge, used to give him brilliant mi- 
nerals of different sorts as playthings ; and before he could pro- 
nounce their names, the child had accustomed himself, whilst 
occupied in heaping, in throwing, or even in breaking them, to 
compare them together, and to recognise them by their more 
marked appearances. 
From that time, he kept during his whole life, some of those 
specimens ; and when he shewed his collection, after it had be- 
come one of the richest in Europe, he never failed to point out - 
these small beginnings of it, as if he had wished to express a 
sort of gratitude to those first sparks from which such great 
lights had proceeded. 
He was intended for the employment of a miner; and as the 
regulations of Saxony require that those who are to enter on this 
branch of service should be regularly licensed, he proceeded, 
after having attended a course of Metallurgy at Freyberg, to 
follow out that of Jurisprudence at the University of Leipsic. 
A 2 
