LAMARCK, JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE ANTOINE DE MONET, Chevalier de, a most dis tinguished French naturalist, was b. of a noble family at Barentin, in Picardy, Aug. 1, 1744. He was intended for the church, but preferred the army. An accidental injury, which placed his life in danger, put a stop to this career, and he became a banker's clerk. His first scientific pursuit was that of meteorology, from which he turned tei botany, and attempted to introduce a new system of classification, which he called the analytical system, but which met with little acceptance. In 1778 he published his Fiore Frunfaise (3 vols.), which was afterwards made the basis of the work of Decan dolle. Shortly after, he was appointed botanist to the king, and tutor to the son of Buffon, with whom he visited foreign countries, and inspected their botanical collec tions. He also contributed many botanical articles to scientific works. After a consid erable portion of his life had been spent • in the earnest study of botany, Lamarck.
devoted himself chiefly to zoology, and in 1793, was made professor of the natural his tory of the lower classes of animals in the Jurdin des Planter. He rendered very impor taut services to this branch of science. His greatest work is his Histoire des An /thaw ; sans n•tebres (7 vols. Paris, 1815-22; 2d ed., by Deshayes and Milne-Edwards, Paris, 1835, etc.). In Isis Philosopftie Zoologique (2 vols. Paris, 1809), and some other works, he indulged in extremely speculative views, some of which, however, are attracting great attention in the scientific world at the present day. Lamarck was the first (if we except a few obscure words of Buffon towards the close of his life) to set forth the theory of the "variation of species," which has been recently revived by Darwin. Lamarck died Dec. 20, 1829, after having been for 17 years blind, in consequence of small-pox.