use of were slowly divulged, spread, and reached the ears of scientists, who arranged them and disseminated them with the power that had arisen with the recent invention of the art of printing.
Interest and curiosity awoke in proportion as knowledge developed. The era of geographic discoveries passed because there were no more empires to conquer. Competition died out and there began a period during which a passion for natural history seized the nations, while individuals bore proudly the title of naturalists. Travelers visited unknown islands and continents, gazed with wonder at the curiosities of these lands, and wished to describe them in detail. They did not at first consider whether or not this would be of any practical advantage, but confined themselves to the knowledge that these things existed, that the forms of plants and of animals were unusual, and this was sufficient to interest them. It was the epoch of enthusiasm. From the middle of the last century until about the middle of the present the world was enamored of social ideas, of political ideas, of art, literature, science, and even geography. They were taken by everything. Like children in infancy, they rejoiced almost without suspecting it in the supreme happiness of possessing a faith—often, indeed, two or three rather than one. Setting out boldly to discover the Utopia of their dreams, so long known and yet always so new and so full of charm, they traversed the oceans. Great voyages were made. In 1772 Cook went to Tahiti, accompanied by the naturalist Forster, to observe the transit of Venus. In 1815 the Russian Kotzebue went round the world on the Rurik, with the naturalist Chamisso; in 1820 the future Admiral Fitzroy took Darwin aboard his ship, the Beagle; Bougainville on the Boudeuse, De Freycinet on the Uranie in 1827, Vaillaut on the Bonite in 1836, and still others studied the natural history of all climates and brought back large collections. There was the same enterprise on land as on sea. Victor Jacquemont went to India overflowing with ardor, intoxicated with love of science at the aspect of the wonders and grandeur of nature. Those who were born half a century ago look back on a childhood and youth brightened by the last gleams of these emotions. We did not then have encyclopedias of scientific romances, the quintessence of human knowledge contained in 500 pages as the meat of an entire ox is concentrated into one small pot, and we were, for want of more or less substantial nourishment, forced to feed our minds with fancies. We began with the history of Sindbad the Sailor, the old man of the sea, the valley of emeralds and of rubies, over which the roc hovered, beating the air with great outspread wings. We went on with the library of voyages—Cook, Dampier, Carteret, Lapérouse, the reminiscenses of Jacques Arago, the blind man, and the adorable letters of Victor Jacquemont. With our books of pictures—and what pictures they were!—we could bask in the dazzling light of the equatorial sun; we breathed the odors of primeval forests, where the lofty cocoa palm waved its leafy top
