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24 a peer of France, and just before his death (which occurred on 13th May 1832) was made Ministre de 1'Intérieur. Cuvier died in harness, for he was lecturing at the Collège de France only a few days before his death. He was buried in the celebrated Cimetière du Père la Chaise, and his funeral was attended by an enormous concourse of people, his death being looked upon as a national calamity.

Cuvier was of a religious nature; his lectures and speech were clear, precise, and animated, often rising to the highest eloquence; he was a brilliant writer, and an expert draughtsman. In private life he was kind and affable, a lover of order and regularity, and was accessible to all, except during hours of study. He conscientiously performed his various and manifold duties, both to the State and to science, with increasing industry. So vast were his labours that he shortened his days.

Cuvier was the first to indicate the principle upon which the classification of animals should be based—from the standpoint of comparative anatomy. He was the founder of comparative anatomy, and the discoverer of the law of the "correlation of growth," and was the first to apply this law to the reconstruction of animals from fossil fragments, and hence the student of nature might see pictures of the earliest epochs in the world's history—before the advent of man. To the older zoologist, classification was based on external resemblances,