This celebrated chemist and mineralogist, upwards of forty years director of the porcelain manufactory of SÈvres, was born at Paris in 1770. His father was justly celebrated for his attainments in the fine arts. His mind developed itself in the midst of that brilliant society belonging to the end of the eighteenth century, which his father was accustomed to draw around him. He there derived, from conversations with Franklin, the germ of that mild and practical philosophy which he never abandoned; and from those of Lavoisier his earliest notions of chemistry, which formed one of the foundations of his scientific career. He gave early indications of that clearness of elocution which formed one of his merits as a professor; and it is related that Lavoisier himself took pleasure in listening to a lecture on chemistry delivered by Brongniart even when he was scarcely fifteen years of age. He studied in the Ecole de MedÉcine, where he was thrice enrolled; and when every Frenchman was called to the frontier, he was connected to the army of the Pyrenees in the capacity of an apothecary. A stay of fifteen months among these mountains gave him the opportunity of studying a rich and varied field of nature, as a zoologist and botanist. He likewise made geological observations, which, at a later period, took their place in the science, and which he often took pleasure in recalling; but there he encountered dangers which his youth did not suspect, and he was imprisoned under suspicion of having favoured the escape of the skilful naturalist, Broussonnet, who avoided certain death by fleeing by the breach of Rolland. Restored to liberty after the 9th Thermidor, Brongniart returned to Paris, and, in 1800, was nominated director of the porcelain manufactory of SÈvres, on the recommendation of Berthollet. At nineteen years of age, Brongniart was one of the founders of the SocietÉ Philomatique, which, at the period of proscription for all of a higher class, kept alive the sacred fame of science. He died in 1847, and at his funeral, on October 9th, M. Elie de Beaumont delivered an Éloge, whence these details have been derived.