582 
OBITUARY. 
certainly  existed  such  writings.  On  this  point  he  spoke  (for  him)  most  free- 
ly,— but  when  I  suggested  publication  I  could  not  get  him  beyond 
smiles." — London  Pharm.  Journal. 
M.  Aime  Bonpland. — This  celebrated  French  naturalist  died  a  short 
time  since  at  San  Borja,  Brazils,  at  the  age  of  eighty -five.  M.  Bonpland 
was  born  at  Rochelle  in  1773.  He  was  the  son  of  a  physician,  and  was 
brought  up  to  his  father's  profession,  but  the  political  events  of  the  early 
Republic  compelled  him  to  enter  the  navy.  He  made  a  long  cruise  as  a 
naval  surgeon,  but  took  the  earliest  opportunity  of  returning  to  Paris  to 
pursue  his  studies.  There,  at  the  house  of  M.  Corvisart,  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  a  young  German  of  about  his  own  age,  who  afterwards  be- 
came known  to  the  world  as  the  celebrated  Alexander  de  Humboldt.  These 
young  men  became  intimate  friends;  and,  when  M.  de  Humboldt  under- 
took his  expedition  to  the  equinoctial  regions  of  the  New  World,  M.  Bon- 
pland accompanied  him.  During  this  journey  M.  Bonpland  collected  and 
classed  upwards  of  six  thousand  plants  which  were  then  unknown  to  bo- 
tanical writers.  On  his  return  to  France  he  presented  his  collection  to  the 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  and  received  the  thanks  of  Napoleon  I.,  who 
granted  him  a  pension.  The  Empress  Josephine  was  very  fond  of  Bon- 
pland. She  made  him  her  factor  at  Malmaison,  and  often  sowed  in  her 
garden  there  flower  seeds  which  he  had  brought  from  the  tropics.  After 
the  abdication  at  Fontainebleau,  M.  Bonpland  urged  the  Emperor  to  retire 
to  Mexico  to  observe  events.  A  few  weeks  after  tendering  this  fruitless 
advice,  he  sat  by  the  death  bed  of  Josephine,  and  heard  her  last  words. 
Her  death  and  the  definitive  fall  of  the  Empire  leaving  him  nothing  to  de- 
sire in  France,  he  returned  to  South  America,  and  became  a  professor  of 
natural  history  at  Buenos  Ayres.  Subsequently  he  travelled  across  the 
Pampas,  the  provinces  of  Santa  Fe,  Chaco,  and  Bolivia,  and  penetrated  to 
the  foot  of  the  Andes.  Being  there  taken  for  a  spy,  he  was  arrested  by 
the  Governor  of  Paraguay,  and  was  detained  a  prisoner  for  eight  years, 
till  1829.  On  his  release  he  directed  his  steps  towards  the  Brazils,  and 
settled  at  San  Borja,  where,  in  a  charming  but  humble  retreat,  surrounded 
by  orange  groves  and  European  shrubs,  he  remained  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  receiving  with  pleasure  all  French  travellers  who  visited  him. 
He  was  the  author  of  (among  other  works)  "  Les  Plantes  Equinoxiales/' 
»  La  Monographic  des  Melastonies,'7  "  Description  des  Plantes  rares  et  de 
la  Malmaison/'  "  Vue des  Ccrdilleres  et  Monuments  Indigenes  del'  Amer- 
ique and,  jointly  with  M,  de  Humboldt,  "  Voyage  aux  Regions  Equi- 
noxiales  du  Nouveau  Continent." 
The  name  of  Bonpland  is  associated  with  the  history  of  the  cinchona 
barks,  this  botanist  having,  in  conjunction  with  Humboldt,  visited  the 
bark  districts  about  the  year  1790,  and  described  several  of  the  species  of 
cinchona. — Ibid. 
