Brongniart, ALEXANDRE

Brongniart, ALEXANDRE, an eminent French scientist, born at Paris, 1770, became in 1797 professor of Natural History at the Ecole des Quatre Nations, and afterwards in the Museum of Natural History. Appointed in 1800 director of the porcelain manufactory at Sèvres, he held that office for the remainder of his life, and revived the almost lost art of painting on glass. In his Essai d'une Classification des Reptiles (1805), he proposed the fourfold division of reptiles into Saurians, Batrachians, Chelonians, and Ophidians. His Traité Élémentaire de Minéralogie, published in 1807 at the instance of the Imperial University, became a text-book for lecturers. In 1814 appeared his monograph on Trilobites, a name which, as well as a basis of classification for those singular crustacea, naturalists owe to Brongniart. In 1815 he was elected a member of the Academy, and shortly after made a careful study of the geology of Italy and Switzerland, and of Scandinavia. In 1829 he published the Tableau des Terrains qui composent l'Écorce du Globe, and in 1835 he collaborated with Cuvier in preparing the admirable Description Géologique et Minéralogique des Environs de Paris. In 1845 appeared his Traité des Arts Céramiques. He died October 7, 1847.—His son, ADOLPHE THÉODORE, was a botanist of some note. He was born in Paris (1801), in 1833 became professor of Botany at the Jardin des Plantes, and in 1852 was made inspector-general of the Scientific Faculties of France. He died in 1876. His principal work is the Histoire des Végétaux Fossiles (2 vols. 1828-47).