long. That variety of form and character which we now behold—those innumerable species—are yet but fragments from an immense past; they no more constitute a whole or a harmony, in so far as we see them, than the distribution and forms of our continents and islands. The latter are a simple phase of an immense history—unintelligible by themselves, and not yet to be understood. But grand laws have produced them; and even these laws, mighty and remote though they are, are gradually approaching the sphere of distinct vision. Shall we then, simply because we cannot yet discern their relationship, consider all those multitudinous species as fixed and independent entities! Do those fragments belong to no majestic whole? Cuvier shut up the inquiry; he thought the prosecution of it, if not illegitimate, at least hopeless. Buffon did not. He ventured to pronounce the word "mutability" in reference to species; and he did so because he bowed before the energies of Nature, exercised through an unfathomable past.—Enough as to Buffon, unless, in powerful although partial support of the estimate ventured on above, we subjoin the words of his most illustrious successor:—"On the other hand, he gave by these very hypotheses an immense impulse to geology. First of all, he caused it to be felt that the actual state of the globe is the result of a succession of changes, the traces of which may be discerned; and thereby he turned the attention of observers to such phenomena as seemed likely to enable them to reach back to those changes. By his own observations, also, he advanced the science of Man and the Animals. His ideas as to the influence exercised by the delicacy and development of each organ on the nature of the different species, are conceptions of genius, which form the basis of all philosophical Natural History, and which have rendered services to Method so high, that their author may well be pardoned for the harsh words he has written concerning that art. Buffon's views of the degeneration of animals, and the limits which climates, mountains, and oceans assign to each species, are imperishable discoveries that are daily confirmed more and more, and they have given to the researches of travellers that fixed basis which previously was wholly wanting. Finally, Buffon has rendered to his country one of the greatest services that could be rendered; he popularized science by his writings, interested the great and powerful, who from that time have aided its advance, and so produced effects that have come down to our times, and will be of incalculable value through the future. A few errors ought not to induce us to withhold our just tribute of admiration, of respect, and above all of gratitude; for men have long owed him those gentle pleasures flowing to minds still young from their first glance over nature, and those consolations experienced during the fatigues of life, when our thoughts rest on the spectacle of that immensity of beings peacefully obedient to eternal and necessary laws."—(Cuvier.)
The "Histoire Naturelle" is one of those works which astonish by their spaciousness. Beginning with a cosmogony, which Buffon afterwards corrected and completed in the "Epoques de la Nature," he passes to a philosophical review of the general phenomena of Animated Nature. Treating then of Wan, the Quadrupeds, and very strikingly of the Apes, he enters next on perhaps the most superb portion of the work—that extensive treatise on the Birds; and an elaborate account of the Mineral Kingdom terminates his labours. The several portions of this vast undertaking are unequal in merit—the section on Minerals being least worthy of consideration now. The deficiencies of Buffon's plan need not be pointed out; they have been supplied recently, in a way worthy of the subject, by a magnificent publication "Suites a Buffon."
The "Histoire Naturelle" has had many editors. The great edition, however, is still Buffon's own—the original quarto. It is impossible to speak with too much contempt of the productions by Castel and Sonnini. Had these men edited the grand Hebrew Lyrics, they would have changed the metre to some modern sing-song, and probably added stanzas of their own! Buffon has truly said, "le style est l'homme." Certainly his works are the history of his mind and its growth. Naturalists, in their own systematic treatises, may take advantage of his discoveries, but let them leave these works and their author alone! The edition by Lamouroux is a good one; but the only really unexceptionable work is that by Flourens, in twelve large and handsome volumes. Still we rejoice in Buffon's own volumes, and welcome them with infinite pleasure in any library.
Of Buffon, personally, little is known beyond what we have indicated. Some abbé has alleged recently that there are private letters of his, doing no credit either to his sentiments or his heart. It might seem a primal moral law, that neither charges nor insinuations ought ever to be made, unless they are on the eve of being substantiated. The abbé should have published these letters or been silent. All we know at present is, that the abbé did not like Buffon. He was, as we have said, a stately man, living, generally in full dress, either in the Garden of Plants, or as a retired student at Montbar.—J. P. N.
BUGEAUD DE LA PICONNERIE, Thomas Robert, duc d'Isly, marshal of France, born at Limoges, 15th October, 1784; died at Paris, 10th June, 1849. In June, 1804, he entered the army as a private in the grenadier corps. At Austerlitz, where he evinced great bravery, he was promoted to the rank of corporal; and in the following year he was named sub-lieutenant in the 64th regiment of the line. He took part in the campaigns of Prussia and Poland, and was wounded at Pultusk in November, 1806. He was afterwards sent to Spain with the rank of lieutenant adjutant-major, and remained there with the army of Aragon until 1814. In 1811 he was made lieutenant-colonel, and placed at the head of the 14th regiment of the line; and on his return to France promoted to a colonelcy. At the first restoration he seemed favourable to the cause of the ancient dynasty, but during the Hundred Days he followed the emperor. In 1831 he was appointed a member of the chamber of deputies, and was named field-marshal. He was afterwards sent to Africa, where he signalized himself in a campaign against the Arabs. In 1837, when public opinion was strongly in favour of a partial occupation of Algeria, Bugeaud was intrusted with an important mission to the province of Oran, where he concluded the celebrated treaty of Tafna. In 1840 he was appointed governor-general of the French possessions in Africa, and had not long held this office when he recommended the government to adopt measures for the absolute conquest of Algeria. In three years that project was realized; the whole territory, from the frontiers of Tunis to those of Morocco, was subjugated to France. In May, 1844, hostilities commenced between Bugeaud, as governor of Algeria, and the emperor of Morocco; and in the following July, Bugeaud having completely routed the army of the emperor at Isly, was rewarded with the title of duc d'Isly. In 1847 he was superseded by the duc d'Aumale; and on the memorable 24th February, 1848, was named by Barrot and Thiers to the command of the army and of the national guard of Paris. The president, M. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, afterwards intrusted him with the command of the army of the Alps. He fell a victim to Asiatic cholera in 1849.—G. M.
BUGGE, Thomas, a very able Danish geographer, and second only to Tycho Brahe as an astronomer, was born 12th October, 1740, at Copenhagen, where his father was clerk in a victualling office. His first studies were theological, but he afterwards devoted himself to mathematics, astronomy, physics, and especially mensuration. In 1761 he was sent to Trondheim to make observations on the transit of Venus; in 1777 became professor of astronomy and mathematics in the university of Copenhagen, and in the following year was appointed keeper of the observatory of the Round Tower, of which, in fact, he might be regarded as the restorer. In 1798 he was sent by government to Paris to concert with the directors of the National Institute a uniformity of weights and measures, and soon after he was admitted a member of the Institute. His self-forgetting earnestness to preserve the scientific treasures committed to his care, during the bombardment of his native city in 1807, was rewarded by the office of councillor of state. He was also made knight of the most noble order of Dannebrog, and died 15th of June, 1815. Bugge's labours were unremitting and valuable. The extreme accuracy of the excellent charts of Denmark published by the Academy of Sciences, is mainly owing to him; but still more useful was he in the geographical knowledge which he imparted to young men. The extreme accuracy of his trigonometrical surveys was not alone beneficial to his native Denmark; but by the careful indication of every coast, harbour, island, rock, and sandbank in both Belts and the Cattegat, the navigation of the Danish waters is rendered much more safe. Of his numerous works, all important and highly valuable, may be briefly mentioned—"De forste Grunde til den Sphæriske og theoretiske Astronomie samt den Mathematiske Geographie," Copenh. 1796; "De forste Grunde til den rene eller abstracte Mathematik," 3 vols., 1813-14. His
