This cabinet or Museum was formed in 1778 by M. SAGE, who had then
spent eighteen years in collecting minerals. When he began to employ
himself on that science forty-five years ago, there existed in this
country no collection which could facilitate the study of mineralogy.
Docimacy vas scarcely known here by name. France was tributary to
foreign countries thirty-seven millions of livres (_circa_ £1,541,666
sterling) a year for the mineral and metallic substances which she
drew from them, although she possesses them within herself. M. SAGE
directed his studies and labours to the research and analysis of
minerals. For twenty years he has delivered _gratis_ public courses
of chymistry and mineralogy. For the advancement of those sciences,
he also availed himself of the favour he enjoyed with some persons at
court and in the ministry, and this was certainly making a very
meritorious use of it. To his care and interest is wholly due the
collection of minerals placed in this building. The apartment
containing it has, by some, been thought to deviate from the simple
and severe style suitable to its destination, and to resemble too
much the drawing-room of a fine lady. But those who have hazarded
such a reproach do not consider that, at the period when this cabinet
was formed, it was not useless, in order to bring the sciences into
fashion, to surround them with the show of luxury and the elegance of
accessory decoration. Who knows even whether that very circumstance,
trifling as it may appear, has not somewhat contributed to spread a
taste for the two sciences in question among the great, and in the
fashionable world?
However this may be, the arrangement of this cabinet is excellent,
and, in that respect, it is worthy to serve as a model. The
productions of nature are so disposed that the glazed closets and
cases containing them present, as it were, an open book in which the
curious and attentive observer instructs himself with the greater
facility and expedition, as he can without effort examine and study
perfectly every individual specimen.
The inside of the Museum is about forty-five feet in length,
thirty-eight in breadth, and forty in elevation. In the middle is an
amphitheatre capable of holding two hundred persons. In the
circumference are glazed cabinets or closets, in which are arranged
methodically and analytically almost all the substances known in
mineralogy. The octagonal gallery, above the elliptical amphitheatre,
contains large specimens of different minerals. To each specimen is
annexed an explanatory ticket. One of the large lateral galleries
presents part of the productions of the mines of France, classed
according to the order of the departments where they are found. The
new transversal gallery contains models of furnaces and machines
employed in the working of mines. The third gallery is also destined
to contain the minerals of France, the essays and results of which
are deposited in a private cabinet. The galleries are decorated with
tables and vases of different species of marble, porphyry, and
granite, also from the mines of France, collected by SAGE. The cupola
which rises above, is elegantly ornamented from the designs of
ANTOINE, the architect of the building.
This Museum is open to the public every day from nine o'clock in the
morning till two, and, though it has been so many years an object of
curiosity, such is the care exerted in superintending it, that it has
all the freshness of novelty.
In a niche, on the first landing-place of the stair-case, is the bust
of M. SAGE, a tribute of gratitude paid to him by his pupils. SAGE'S
principal object being to naturalize in France mineralogy, docimacy,
and metallurgy, he first obtained the establishment of a _Special
School of Mines_, in which pupils were maintained by the State. Here,
he directed their studies, and enjoyed the happiness of forming
intelligent men, capable of improving the science of metallurgy, and
promoting the search of ores, &c.
For a number of years past, as I have already observed, SAGE has
delivered _gratis_, in this Museum; public courses of chymistry and
mineralogy. He attracts hither many auditors by the ease of his
elocution, and the address, the grace even which he displays in his
experiments. If all those who have attended his lectures are to be
reckoned his pupils, there will be found in the number names
illustrious among the _savans_ of France. Unfortunately, this veteran
of science has created for himself a particular system in chymistry,
and this system differs from that of LAVOISIER, FOURCROY,
GUYTON-MORVEAU, BERTHOLLET, CHAPTAL, &c. The sciences have also their
schisms; but the real _savans_ are not persecutors. Although SAGE was
not of their opinion on many essential points, his adversaries always
respected him as the man who had first drawn the attention of the
government towards the art of mines, instigated the establishment of
the first school which had existed for this important object, and
been the author of several good analyses. On coming out of prison,
into which he had been thrown during the reign of terror, he found
this cabinet of mineralogy untouched. It would then have been easy,
from motives of public utility, to unite it to the new School of
Mines. But the heads of this new school had, for the most part,
issued from the old one, and SAGE was dear to them from every
consideration. It was from a consequence of this sentiment that SAGE,
who had been a member of the _Academy of Sciences_, not having been
comprised in the list of the members of the National Institute at the
time of its formation, has since been admitted into that learned
body, not as a chymist indeed, but as a professor of mineralogy, a
science which owes to him much of its improvement.
The new School of Mines is now abolished, and practical ones are
established in the mountains, as I have before mentioned. While I am
speaking of mineralogy, I shall take you to view the