He employed his influence
to form a collection in the Paris Museum of specimens of fish from all
parts of the world, and was so successful in his endeavours that the
number of specimens which at first scarcely amounted to 1,000, in a
few years amounted to 6,000. Of these he dissected a large portion
with a care hitherto unknown, having the advantage of an able
associate in the study of the details in M. Valenciennes; he was thus
enabled in a period of time that may be called short, looking to the
extent of the results, to collect the materials of his great _Histoire
Naturelle des Poissons_, of which eight volumes have appeared, with
their appropriate plates, and for the continuation of which we have to
look to his laborious assistant. The recent embarrassment among the
Paris publishers having occasioned a stoppage in the progress of this
work, M. Cuvier availed himself of this (as the part prepared for the
press was already in advance of the printer) to make preparations
for republishing his _Lecons d'Anotomie Comparee_, of which a second
edition had been long anxiously called for. This design, however, he
was not permitted to complete; but it is to be hoped that we shall not
be long deprived of the edition he had contemplated, and that it will
be accompanied with those beautiful and accurate plates on which he
had bestowed so much pains, and in the execution of which he himself
excelled; for he was a skilful draftsman, and seized external forms
with rapidity and accuracy, and possessed the art of representing
in his drawings the forms of organic tissues in a style peculiar to
himself.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44