BRASSEUlt DE BOURBOURG, CHARLES ETIENNE, Abbe, b. Sept. 8, 1814; a French archeologist who studied theology at Ghent and was ordained at Rome in 1845. He was appointed vicar-general at Boston, Mass., in 1846. From 1848 to 1863, he spent nearly all his time in explorations in the s.w. United States. Mexico, and Central America, and in 1864 lie was archeologist to the French expedition to Mexico. He is known for careful and philosophical study of indigenous American languages. In 1864, he announced that he had discovered in old archives at Madrid a key to inscriptions on the Central American monuments, and subsequently published a grammar and vocabu lary of the Aztec tongue. One of his more important works is a History of the Civilized _Nations qf Ilexico and Central America during the ago prior to Clerietopher Columbus ; written from original documents entirely unedited, taken from the ancient archives of the aborigines, containing words of the heroic period in history of the Toltec empire." A bibliophilist of the day says of Brassenr de Bourbonrg: "It is very difficult to assign the place which this extraordinary man will occupy in the annals of science, for his works are to-day nearly as great mysteries as the hieroglyphs his labors have illustrated. His
industry in his researches into the history of the Aztec races is something not less than marvelous. When he had, with heroic sacrifice of all personal ease, accepted the life of self-immolation of a missionary to the Indians of Mexico; had studied for years the relics of Aztec. picture-writing; had learned and systematized in great treatises their modern dialects; the immense works which he then printed upon the history of the pre-Cortesiau races, made scarcely a ripp'e on the quiet of the scientific world. He stands alone in the vast temple of learning which he has restored, if he did not erect. No human being can contest his solution of Aztec pictographs, nor does there exist one who can prove it to be true. His numerous volumes have at least this merit—they have done much to perpetuate the memory of a wonderful race."