Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Under Buffon's charge the Jardin du Roi complex was expanded
in size and he oversaw a collecting policy that increased the diversity
of plants grown on the site and the numbers of plants containedwithin
its herbarium. He built laboratories for scientfic work and glasshouses
for the exotic plants and he designed and laid out the maze or
'Labyrinth' as it is still known today. He was not averse to trying to
lose visiting dignitaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas
Jefferson within its leafy twisting paths. He later clashed with
Jefferson over his opinions regarding the nature of the fauna of the
New World - in 1766 Buffon had suggested that because of unfavour-
able climatic conditions, American mammals were less numerous
and weaker than their Old World counterparts, and he even went so
far as to suggest that Native Americans were weaker than Europeans.
Naturally, Jefferson could not agree! In time Buffon became a major
player in French scientific circles and was elected to the prestigious
Acad´mie Fran¸ aise in 1753, and he remained in charge of the Jardin
du Roi until his death in 1788.
HISTOIRE NATURELLE
Buffon is best known for his encyclopaedic Histoire naturelle, ge
´
ne
´
r-
ale et particulie
`
re avec la description du cabinet du Roi that ran to an
immense forty-four volumes. The first was published in 1749 and by
the time he died, he had published a further thirty-five volumes.
Subsequently an additional eight volumes were prepared by Buffon's
subdemonstrator in the Jardin du Roi, Bernard Germain
´
tienne de la
Ville, Comte de Lac´p`de (1756-1825) and others. The series included
discourses on zoology, nutrition, classification (he did not accept
Carl Linnaeus' (1707-1778) binominal system now in global use),
geology and human biology, as well as containing accounts of numer-
ous animal species. It was sensational and ran to at least 52 editions in
France and became widely distributed in Europe and North America,
with editions in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and English appear-
ing in the late 1700s. It proved to be a great money spinner for Buffon
who had acquired the financial rights to his work in 1767. Three
