brary and all, were plundered; fo that the empty fhell is all that remains of its former fplendour. The mob cut and carried off the heads and arms of the ftatues, which the Prince had been fo many years in collecting. In many of the rooms are yet to be feen part of the fmall cells, in which those who were doomed to the guillotine were immured, during the bloody reign of the terrorists.

"The roads begin to improve, as you approach Paris. The fucceffive profpects on every side seem to vie with each other in richness and variety: they furpass whatever imagination can conceive. The mildness of the climate, groups of vineyards, highly cultivated orchards and kitchengardens, all contribute to render the fcene delightful; and peaches, apples, pears, plums, cherries, and walnuttrees, flourish in the open fields in the greateft abundance.

"From Chantilly I travelled through Lufarche, Echouen, and St. Denis, and arrived in Paris in the afternoon of the 19th of August." P. 60.

"THE Polytechnic School has two very large and fine chemical laboratories, befides two of inferior extent, and fome mechanical workshops. The director and adminiftrator have lodgings, at free coft, in the school.

"As a ftranger, I have attended feveral lectures, among which was the analytic, by Lagrange. Whatever this great man fays, deferves the higheft degree of confideration; but he is too abstract for youth. In the examination of these lectures, it has been found that he has difcovered a new demonftration of the firft principles of the differential calculus; and his Solution des Equations numériques, de tous les Degrés, Paris, 1797, merits attention.

"I have heard Prony's hydraulic lectures, particularly on the motion of fluids through pipes, and on the undulation of water. This extraordinary man has the most impreffive and captivating delivery which can poffibly be conceived. In the courfe of the laft year he printed a text-book of his lectures, containing theorems and problems relating to his fubjects, and a sketch or skeleton of the lectures themVOL. V.-No. XLIII.

felves. In the 7th year, Prony began a courfe, in which he propofed to demonftrate hydraulic theories in general. I have heard fome of thofe lectures, which were excellent; but I fear that few of his hearers (about twenty in all) will be able to keep pace with him.

"I have heard Fourcroy read on the fermentation of wines, and on the nature, quality, and preparation of alcohol. He made different experiments, to show that the flame of burning alcohol contains a variety of colours, fuch as purple, violet, and green; the last of which appeared on mixing with it a solution of vitriol of copper. Fourcroy's delivery is fine, orderly, and emphatic; but perhaps a little too rapid for fome youths beginning the ftudy. When he had finished, he proceeded, in pursuance of a certain order, to examine from eight to fixteen pupils.

"I have heard Hafenfratz lecture on electricity, lightning, and thunder. He concluded with an historical detail of all the fyftems of electricity; but paffed over Symmer's theory, or the dualistic fyftem, entirely. He adopted the theory of Epinus, which was become prevalent in Paris. Hauy has fince attacked the fyftem of Epinus, relative to electricity and magnetism. He denies that the peals or claps of thunder proceed from the electric fpark, which flies from one cloud to another, and burfts or ftrikes through the interjacent air, and infists that it comes from a vacuum, produced by the condensation of exhalations, which are converted into rain: if fo, there never would be any peals or claps of thunder which would not be accompanied with rain. I have also heard Hafenfratz lecture on machines.

"The object of those lectures ought to be whatever relates to machinery, practical mechanics, and the different modes by which the motions of the machines can be made to produce the different effects, fo as to attain the object. I have not heard enough of those lectures to enable me to say how far this object may be attained. Hafenfratz is deficient in delivery. Once in each decade he conducts his pupils to fee the machines, the management of the manufactures, the rooms where the arts are carried on, and where mechanics work. I accompanied him in

one of his mechanical excurfions, which are exceedingly useful, and furnish the pupils with ideas which they could not obtain in lecture-halls or libraries.

"It was peculiarly enacted, that each of the pupils should have 1200 livres a year, but this was decreed in the times of the affignats: fo that those 1200 livres in paper yielded very little money; and notwithstanding the affignats are called in, the pupils received little more than 200 livres a year, which amounted in the whole to 72,000 livres a year annually. The minifter of the interior, in the 7th year, defired the fum of 394,133 franks, for the ufe of the Polytechnic School; and certainly the pains and expense of the government are well beftowed on an inftitution which will furnish the state with fo many public fervants and use ful fubjects." P. 104.

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

"WAS formerly called Jardin du Roi; but received its prefent name by a decree of the National Convention of the roth of June 1793. One end of it extends to the Seine: it confifts of a botanic garden, library for natural history, a menagerie, or collection of foreign animals, and an amphitheatre or lecture-room.

"The botanic garden which belongs to it is three hundred and twenty toifes, or fathoms, long, and one hundred and ten in breadth. It is partitioned lengthways, that is, from its entrance down towards the Seine, by three very fine alleys; and interfected across by various others, which terminate in the public promenades or walks. The different fquare divifions thus formed, are used for plantations, and are at prefent all enclosed with railwork. The green-house and orangerie were formerly in pretty good order, and separated into rooms and spaces but a new green-house and orangerie are now additionally erected, and they are very conveniently difpofed. Here is a great abundance of foreign plants and trees, and from hence all the botanic gardens of the Central Schools are fupplied with feeds and with trees as foon as they can be transplanted. From the fame highly cultivated spot, the cultivators of land can procure

economic and nursery trees, and ever the indigent poor can obtain plants when they can be spared.

"Captain Baudouin, in his travels into different parts of the world, had collected a great variety of natural cu riofities; and presented the whole to the nation, on condition that he should be furnished with a fhip to convey them to France. The English government confented that this thip thould perform her voyage without moleftation. Meanwhile the English had taken poffeffion of the island of Trinidad, where this extenfive and famous collection had been left. When Captain Baudouin arrived at Trinidad, în order to bring away his collection, the Englifh would not give it up, on pretence that their government had confented to the fafety of the expedition by fea, and not by land. However, this and the former expeditions were not altogether fruitlefs; for Baudouin has brought into the botanic garden about one thousand different kinds of live plants, befides affortments of feeds, and a confiderable herbarium.

"The gallery for natural history is a building fituated on the right hand, as you enter the botanic garden from the street. On the second floor of this building are four large apartments, where fishes, birds, fhells, infects, minerals, earths, and ftones are depofited on fhelves, furnished with glass fronts. The inner apartment is allotted to vegetables, and contains fpecimens of trees, together with the herbarium of Tournefort.

"Vaillant prefented to the Museum a part of his birds. But feveral perfons, who had certain knowledge of the fact, affured me, that Vaillant referved for himself the most fingular and curious.

"The gallery is open to the public the firft, fourth, and feventh days of every decade, when it is crowded by all forts of people, who come there. not for inftruction, but merely to view the place, by way of amusement. A certain number of veterans and invalids are then ftationed in different places about the rooms, in order to see that the drawers are not broke open, or the curiofities in any manner injured or deftroyed. Before this regulation took place, a diamond was ftolen from thence, in the time of the revolution. Every fecond, third, fifth, fixth, eighth,

and

and ninth days of the decade, this gal lery is open for fuch only as are defirous of studying natural hiftory.

"The excellent Lacepede, who is not lefs kind and obliging than eminent for erudition, gave me a letter to Lucas, keeper of the gallery, who, with great civility, fhowed me every thing that was curious and remarkable in this museum, and particularly the collection of quadrupeds, which is never exhibited to the public. Here I had a fecond view of fome fingular objects, which I had feen at the Hague one and twenty years before, in the Stadtholder's collection, fuch as the fea-horse, zebra, elephant, orang-outang, and a variety of monkeys. There are likewife to be seen in this museum, a lion, a tiger, a leopard, an uncommonly large dog from the Pyrenées, and a fine skeleton of a cameleopard, whofe height from his fore-foot to the top of his crown is fixteen feet.

"All these and many other quadrupeds, and fome large birds, are exhibited to view in an apartment on the third floor, or rather on a part of the garret formed into an apartment. The remaining part of the floor has the appearance of a large hall; above are fkylights, and on each fide are dens for wild beafts." P. 148.

"Juft below the entrance from the city into the botanical garden, and on the left hand, there is to be seen a plantation of trees and fhrubs, which rife up to a confiderable height, and have a beautiful appearance. In this fine grove formerly flood, under a noble cedar of Libanon, a marble buft of Linnæus, the Swedish naturalift, and the inventor and founder of the modern fyftem of natural hiftory. This buft was destroyed at the time when the peuple fouverain amufed themfelves with fpreading ruin and devaftation. The cedar of Libanon, either by a cannon-ball or fome other violence, then loft its majeftic top. Thofe Vandals deftroyed every memorial and monument, without any difcrimination whatever. They even demolished the tombs, and dug up the bodies of the moft meritorious of their country men; not exempting that of the great Turenne himself, who had been, more, than once, the deliverer of France. His facred remains, in which was ftill vifible the wound of the cannon-ball by which he fell in the fervice of his

country, were treated by thofe barbarians in the most inhuman and contemptible manner. The mortal part of that great general lay in the mufeum, fhamefully expofed among the skeletons of quadrupeds and birds; till it was removed by the orders of Francis de Neufchateau, and placed in an apartment of the amphitheatre, where it is fet upright in a glass cafe.

"Before I take my leave of the Museum for Natural Hiftory, I must obferve, that it contains a great num-; ber of chefts ftill unpacked, which are full of curious objects brought hither from conquered countries. I have been told by men who had every opportu nity of being well informed, that thofe chefts enclofe a collection as interesting and extenfive as that already depofited in the museum, in which there is no room for more objects without additional buildings." P. 158.

CASSINI THE CELEBRATED ASTRO-
NOMER.

"CASSINI went down with us to the caves of the obfervatory, which are very remarkable. The defcent is by one hundred fteps, to the depth of forty feet beneath the furface of the earth. The caves particularly consist of feveral labyrinth paffages of four feet in width, and five or fix in height. In moft places thofe fubterraneous paffages are walled; but in feveral the natural ftone or rock forms the ceiling, in fome places the fides, and in others the floor. Thefe caves are in general very dry, but in fome places, either the ceiling or the floor are moift. In, feveral parts of the ceiling, drops are cryftallized into ftone and ftalactites, and the moifture on the floor is covered with a ftony fcum or membrane. I have feen at Stevens's Cliff, Zealand, the water iffuing in this manner out of a chalk rock, form a concretion, which feemed to be flint covering soft chalk.

"When Caffini was director of the obfervatory, he caufed two apartments to be conftructed, and feparated from the labyrinth by a wall: one of thefe apartments was defigned for obferving the variation of the compass under ground. In the years 1783 and 1784, Caffini found no fenfible difference be tween the variation above and under

D 2

ground

ground. See De la Declinaison et des Variations de l'Aiguille aimantée, par Cafini, à Paris, 1791, p. 245

"In the other apartment was a Reaumur's thermometer, made by Borry, under the direction of Lavoisier."

"Every degree of this thermometer was four inches three lines. Caffini made obfervations by it for three years, and found that the temperature of the earth, or heat of the air under ground, did not undergo a greater change than thres tenths of a degree.

"Thefe labyrinth caves and large paffages under ground, lead to a grate or iron door, from which there was, in ancient times, a communication with the quarries: but no man knows how far, or in what precife direction this paffage extends. This grate was fet up when the obfervatory was firft built. In taking notice of it, Caffini related to us fome of his biflory in the time of the revolution, when his going regularly every day down to thefe caves, in order to obferve the magnetic needle and thermometer, gave rife to a rumour among the then ruling Jacobins and fans-culottes, and which, as ufual, acquired in its propagation confiderable alterations and additions. It was, in fhort, concluded, that provifions, arms, ammunition, and ariftocrats were concealed in the caves of the obfervatory. One morning Caffini was very early taken out of his bed, by three or four hundred Jacobins and fans-culottes, armed with firelocks, fwords, pikes, and cudgels, and forced half-naked to conduct them down to the caves of the obfervatory, in order to examine thofe fubterraneous receffes. Caffini told them that he obeyed them the more willingly, as he was certain the caves contained none of thofe articles which they expected to find in them; yet he muft tell them beforehand, that the caves of the obfervatory led to a faftened iron door or grate, which opened into a hitherto unexplored fubterraneous paffage, which, for aught he knew, might communicate with places in the city; that he was totally unacquainted with those paffages, and of course could not be anfwerable for what might be found in them. Not half dreffed, and furrounded with bayonets, fwords, and pikes, he

was obliged to conduct them through all the caves, and the inextricable windings and meanders of those caves; and this brave band found them, as Caffini had predicted, totally empty. They finally approached the iron door, which they found had been forced open, probably by fome mafons and smiths belonging to the troop, while the reft went in queft of Caffini. They demanded that he should conduct them down into the fubterraneous paffages in the rock: but he reminded them of what he had before faid; adding, that he was perfectly in their power, but that he had rather fuifer death on the fpot, than conduct them down into thofe unknown paffages, for which he neither would nor could be anfire rable, and that he coolly waited for their decifion, even if his den fhould enfue. The most important arong this corps then held a council of war, the refult of which was, that Caifini, gorded by fix men armed with pike, hould return to his apartments, and that the reft should go down into the paffage or cavern. After they had proceeded a good way in, and found nothing, they became tired, returned back again, and fpared the obfervatory for that time. But that edifice has fince been often fearched, and the inftruments, aftronomical conftructions, and apartments of the aftronomers very much injured by fuch vifitations.

"C. Bouvard, though a ftaunch and zealous republican, told me, that thofe Vandals once took it into their heads to fell the observatory, and actually wrote in large characters, over the door, Propriété nationale à vendre*.

"The Caffini, whom I have so often mentioned, began, in 1784, to improve the obfervatory, to procure new and fuperior inftruments, and to conduc the obfervations on a better and more accurate plan. He published yearly, from 1785 to 1791, a number or volume of his aftronomical observations on the fixed ftars, fun, moon, and planets, calculated and compared with the best aftronomical tables, in order to afcertain and correct the errors of those tables. He fent thofe numbers annually to other aftronomers, and he had the goodnefs not to forget me. He did every thing, in fhort, that could

be

be reasonably expected from an able, induftrious, and experienced aftrono

mer.

"In the midft of Caffini's celebrated career, the revolution took place. Having been fufpected by the terrorists, he was driven from the obfervatory, which he had fo honourably conducted, and not only deprived of his office and income, but confined in prifon above a year; and he has faved nothing but his life, and a small property, which he inherited from his ancestors, where this worthy man, with his numerous family, exifts upon a feanty income. In the opinion of fome people, the ambition, envy, and egotism of certain other aftronomers, have greatly contributed to drive both Caffini and Jeaurat from the obfervatory." P. 235.

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY, "FORMERLY the King's Library, is fituated in Rue de la Loi, formerly Rue Richelieu, oppofite to the great Opera Houfe. The fouth fide faces the Rue Neuve des petits Champs, and its north fide is in the Rue Colbert. The building of the library, with its appurtenances, is very large, its length in Rue de la Loi being no lefs than eighty-five toifes, and its breadth between the two streets above mentioned, twenty toifes. In the court of the National Library is a fine ftatue of bronze, reprefenting a woman ftanding on one foot, in a very eafy and natural attitude. The principal floor of the building, which furrounds this large court, is entirely filled with books, from the floor to the ceiling; it is furrounded by a flight gallery, from which one can reach the books on the upper fhelves. At the windows, and in different parts of one of the wings, tables have been placed for the accommodation of readers. While the weather continued mild and fair, I always found from forty to fixty perfons, fome of them ladies, reading at thofe tables. The, library is open every day, except the decade days, from ten to two, for the accommodation of readers; but no books are lent out. For fuch as only wish to see the library, it is open from ten to two, every third, fixth, and ninth day of the decade.

"In a small recefs of one of the four fides of the library, is a group of about five feet in height and fix in breadth,

erected in the time of Louis XIV. It reprefents, as far as I could collect, Parnaffus with Apollo and the Muses, and feveral attributes applicable to the æra of that monarch. There are also in the library fome bufts of celebrated French literati, and of others who have contributed to the improvement and augmentation of the library.

"In the other wing of the library, a very large perforation in the floor prefents two large globes, the celestial and the terreftrial, which stand on the floor below, and their upper parts project above the floor of the library. Thefe globes are thirty feet in diameter: the meridians and horary circles are gilded. On the terreftrial globe, the water is coloured blue, and the land white. Cities are painted with red and gold colours, and the mountains with a green ground, and fhaded with brown. The ground colour of the celeftial globe is a light blue, and the figures of the conftellations of a darker blue; the fixed ftars are inferted according to their right afcenfion, declination, and magnitude, and all very thickly gilt. Thefe globes are very well executed, and are the largest I have ever feen. They are a piece of art characteristic of the clofe of the last century, when they were made, and when large globes were in great repute: but they are, in fact, nothing more than an aftronomical luxury, a piece of fcientific profufion of no real effectual fervice; though they muft have coft a very confiderable fum of money.

"Čaperronnier, the prefent librarian, fuppofes the library to contain about 300,000 volumes. It is very incomplete in modern literature; for, fince the year 1789, no new books have been added to it, hot even French, and much lefs foreign productions. Of this laft defcription, feveral capital works feem wanting; fo that in the midft of this great opulence, a kind of literary penury is ftill felt. The national and other libraries have received confiderable augmentations from the libraries of monasteries and emigrants. This is an eafy and a very cheap me, thod of increafing a stock of books.

"The manufcripts, to the number of 80,000, are in more retired apart.. ments. The oriental manuscripts are kept by Langlés; thofe in Greek and Latin by Laporte Dutheil; and those