Andre Michaux was bom in the Park of Versailles, in 1746, and soon evinced . a taste for agriculture and botany, which was fostered by his early patron, the court physician, M. Lemonnier. In 1777, he studied botany under Bernard de Jussieu, at Trianon; and in 1779, he was studying in the Jardin des Plantes. Soon after this he went to England, and returned to France with a great number of trees, which were planted in the gardens of M. Lemonnier, and of the Marechal de Noaillea, where they succeeded perfectly. He often used to take from these gardens a packet of grafts, and, going through the woods of Versailles, he would graft them on the trees already there. In 1780, he went to botanize on themountains of Auvergne with several botanists, among whom were Lamarck and Thouin. Michaux was the most active of all of them; besides his musket, haversack, portfolio, and several specimen boxes, he carried in his pocket seeds of the Cedar of Lebanon, which be sowed in favorable situations. Soon afterwards, he went to the Pyrenees, and travelled in Spain; and, in a short time, accompanied the nephew of the celebrated Rousseau to Persia, the latter being appointed Consul to that country in 1782. He went to Aleppo, Bagdad, the Tigris, the Euphrates, Bassora, and many other places, sending home numerous seeds to Thonin, Males-herbes, and others.

Persia at that time was a prey to civil wars, and Michaux, plundered of everything by the Arabs, was supplied with the means of continuing his journey by M. de la Touche, the English Consul at Bassora, though France and England were at that time at war; M. de la Touche, his biographer observes, thinking that a naturalist who travelled for the good of humanity, ought to be protected by every nation. In this part of the world Michaux remained two years, traversing mountains and deserts from the Indian to the Caspian Sea, and proving that the provinces situated between 35° and 45° of latitude in the East, have supplied most of our trees, exclusive of those which belong to America. He here verified the fact first noticed by kaempfer, that the male flowers of the date will keep during the year, and yet impregnate the female. He seut home sculptured ruins from the palace known as that of Semiramis, near the Tigris, and various other antiques, and objects of natural history. He returned to Paris in June, 1785, and was chosen soon after to go to the United States, to collect seeds of trees and shrubs; to establish an entrep6t for them in the neighborhood of New York; and to get them sent from that to Rambouillet, which was destined to receive them.

He was also commissioned to send home American game. He arrived at New York in October, 1785; established a garden there; traversed New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland; and, after the first year, he sent home twelve boxes of seeds, and five thousand young trees, together with some Canadian partridges, which afterwards bred at Versailles. In September, 1789, he went to Carolina, making Charleston his depot; he traversed the Alleghany Mountains, and the whole country north and south, leaving his son at Charleston, in charge of the gardens there. From this place he sent home numerous seeds, and many hundreds of young trees. In April following, he set out to reconnoitre the sources of the Savannah, and there he discovered Magnolia auricnlata, Robinia viscosa, Asalea v. coccinea, a Kalmia, a, Rhododendron, and many oaks and other trees not before known. The manner in which he travelled, his intercourse with the native Indians, and the accidents he met with, are extremely interesting. Whenever he discovered a new plant, it inspired him with such enthusiasm, that he no longer felt fatigue. The discovery of a new Pavia, and of the Pinckneya pubens, gave hint great pleasure. He arrived at New Providence in February, 1799, and returned to Charleston in May of the same year.

He afterwards visited the highest mountains of Carolina. The dangers be experienced there, convinced him of the necessity of having two guides, because one might perish by the road by a thousand accidents, and it would be impossible for a European to find his way alone through the country. He found in these mountains vast tracts covered with Rhododendrons, Kalmias, and Azaleas, and with forests of trees altogether impenetrable. War, at this time, was declared between France and England, and Michaux was afraid of being forced to leave America. He had been for a long tine occupied with the idea of determining the native place of all the American trees; and also at what latitude they begin to grow rare, and where they disappear entirely. In short, be wished to ascertain up to what height they are found on the mountains, and in what soil they prosper best He considered the native country of a tree to be that in which it is most numerous, and where it acquires the greatest height and thickness. Thus he fixed on Kentucky as the native country of the Tulip-tree, because it there forms vast forests, has a trunk commonly seven feet or eight feet in diameter, and grows one hundred and twenty feet high, thriving in a motet, clayey soil, but not in one that is frequently inundated.

In higher or lower ground, or in"a different soil, these trees become smaller and more rare. It was with a view to trace, in this manner, the botanical topography of North America, that Michaux visited the Floridas, and went as far as Hudson's Bay. He left Charleston in April, 1792; arrived at Quebec in June of the same year; and reached Tadoussac, lat. 52°, in October, one hundred and sixty leagues from any human habitation. He afterwards planned a journey to Mexico, for the benefit of the United States; but, after very many journeys, he returned to Paris by Amsterdam, where he arrived on the 3d of December, 1796, after ten years' ab- sence. He found his friends well, but was grieved beyond measure to learn that the beautiful plantations of Rambouillet, to which he had sent sixty thousand young trees, had been destroyed during the Revolution, and that but a very small number of the trees were remaining. Seeing that tranquillity was restored, he instantly thought of repairing the loss. After unsuccessfully endeavoring to get sent again to America, he was sent to New Holland. He stopped at the Isle of France, and was very desirous of going to Madagascar, in which island he was attacked by the fever, and he died there in November (an ix.), 1803, aged fifty-seven years.

Michaux not only sent many new trees and shrubs into France, but he sent great quantities of the seeds of the more useful species; such as Juglans Paccan, used for making furniture, and which produces the nut oil; Taxodium distichum (the deciduous cypress), suitable for planting in very moist soil: Nyssa Caroliniana, useful for the naves of wheels; Quercus tinctoria, for tanning and dyeing; and Q. virens, which, he says, grows rapidly on the sandy beach, exposed to the stormy winds of the ocean, where scarcely any other tree can exist, and the wood of which is excellent for ship-building; to these may be added the Caryas of Pennsylvania, the Tulip-trees, and the American Ashes, Maples, etc, which, in many parts of France, are preferable to the indigenous trees. The administration of the Museum, aware of the services rendered to natural history by Michaux, ordered his bust to be placed on the facade of the greenhouses, along with those of Com-merson, Dombey, and other travellers who had enriched their collection.

Michaux was too fully occupied in travelling to have much leisure to write; nevertheless, he is the author of Histoire des Chines de l'Amhique Septentrionale, published in 1804: a North American Flora, and a Memoir on the Date Palm. The particulars of his life, at great length, and proportionately interesting, will be found in the Annales du Mustum, torn. iii. p. 191, from which this notice of his life has been abridged.

[A memoir of his son, Francois, who completed the North American Sylva, will be given soon. - Ed].