Retrospect of French Literature—Biography. 
natural indigo of Senegal, a celestial blue. 
This discovery was pwecious in every 
point of view, as it had defied the skill of 
the ablest manufacturers which the French 
India Company had sent thither at diffe- 
rent periods, tor this express purpose. 
“Having been requested, in 1753, to 
lay sume of his plans before the Directors 
of that Institution, he accordingly com-. 
municated a project for the formation of 
a colony, which was to cultivate indigo, 
cotton, tobacco of a supenor quality, 
rice, coffee like that of Mocha, pepper, 
ginger, spices, &c.; and these, he ob- 
served, would here acquire a degree of 
perfection which the excessive heat of 
the climate could alone confer. He ob- 
served at the same time, that by payinga 
little attention to the Kings of Galam and 
Bambouc, they might easily obtain per- 
mission to work the rich mines of gdld 
with which those countries abound, and 
thus obtain products far more abundant 
than either Peru or Mexico had ever wit- 
nessed. The precious metals alone would 
produce from ten to twelve millions of 
livres a-year, a sum which might be 
tripled on any exigency; the gum was 
estimated at from eight to fourteen mil- 
lions, while the stave-trade, the sale of 
wax, honey, senna, dye-woods, salt, skins, 
Indian corn, &c. would bring in about 
eight millions: but this union of advan- 
tages was never productive of any for- 
tunate result on the part of France, as, 
the project remained unexecuted. 
“On the 6th of October, 1753, Adan- 
son left Senegal for the express purpose 
of returning with his collection to his na- 
tive country, where he at length arrived, 
after an absence of several years. 
acquisitions, moral, political, and econo- 
mical, were very great, and he was also 
enabled to add thirty thousand different 
species hitherto unknown, to the thirty- 
three familiar to him before: he after- 
wards extended his researches, so as to 
embrace ninety thousand! Soon after this 
Louis XVI. confided his botanical garden 
at Trianon to his care, and he at the sine 
time obtained the patent of Naturalist to 
his Majesty.” 
In 1756, M. Adanson presented his De- 
scription of the Buobab of Seneyl to the 
Academy of Sciences, and in 1757, he 
published his Natural History of that 
country, accompanied with a geographi- 
cal chart, In 1758, he was nominated 
one of the censors of books, by M, de 
Lavignon,- Malesherbes; in 1759, he 
was admitted a member of the Academy 
of Sciences, and in 1760, became F.R, S, 
His 
673 
London. Nearly at the same time, he 
was invited by the Emperor of Germany 
to found an Academy at Louvaiue, in 
conformity to his own plan of natural 
philosophy: he also received a letter 
from Linneus, offering to nominate him 
a member of the Academy of Upsal, in 
Sweden. 
We are told that, in 1761, the Eng- 
lish Minister sent over Mr. Cumming to 
France, with instructions to offer Adan- 
son a very large sum of money, provided 
he would communicate either the origi- 
nal, or even a copy, of his papers rela- 
tive to the productions of Senegal. This 
proposition, however, is said to have beea 
declined on the part of the naturalist. 
Choiseul, then prime minister of France, 
having conceived the idea of forming a 
colony at Cayenne, applied to, and ob- 
tained the assistance of M. Adanson; 
and, in 1766, the Empress of all the 
Russias made hna very liberal offers, pros 
vided he would reside in quality of a Pro- 
fessor at the Unversity of Petersburgh ; 
the Court of Spain afterwards made hin 
a similar proposition. 
In 1767, he uadertook a journey to 
Normandy and Brittany, at his own ex- 
pence, fur the express purpose of becom- 
ing acquainted with the natural history’ 
of these two provinces. In 1773% he read 
to the Academy a memoir exhibiting the 
plan of his Natural Universal Encylopae- 
dia, in one hundred and twenty manu- 
script volumes, adorned with seventy-five 
thousand figured subjects, in folio. The 
_commiussioners who were nominated for 
the inspection of this astonishing work, 
made a very advantageous report on its 
merits. 
As he now possessed the most com- 
plete cabinet in the worid, for it at this 
time comprehended at least seventy-five 
thousand diiferent species of the three 
kingdoms, M. Adanson applied to Louis 
XVI, for apartments at the Louvre, 
where they could be placed and arranged ; 
and Ms Majesty, in 1779, presented hin 
with an additional pension of eighteen 
hundred franks, instead of the lodgings 
he had demanded. 
At the commencement of the Revolu- 
tion, this celebrated man beheld his ex- 
perimental garden trodden under foot; 
and thus, in a single instant, were the 
labours of half a century snatched from 
him. Among other productions, he cul- 
tivated there no less than one hundred 
and thirty different species of the mal- 
berry. 
By degrees, he also experi ‘nced every 
kind 
