BRONGNIART, Alexandre, a distinguished French mineralogist, was the son of the eminent architect who designed the Bourse and other public buildings of Paris, and was born in that city in 1770. At an early age he joined the army of the Pyrenees; but having committed some slight political offence, he was thrown into prison, and detained there for some time. On his release he was appointed professor of natural history in the Collège des Quatre Nations, and soon after succeeded Haüy as professor in the school of mines. In 1800 lie w as made director of the Sèvres porcelain factory, in which he revived the almost forgotten art of painting on glass. He did not confine himself entirely to mineralogy, for it is to him that we owe the division of Reptiles into the four orders of Saurians, Batrachians, Chelonians, and Ophidians. In 1816 he was elected into the Academy; and in the following year he visited the Alps of Switzerland and Italy, and afterwards Sweden and Norway. The result of his researches he published from time to time in the Journal des Mines and Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles. He died at Paris, October 7, 1847.

His principal works are— Traité élémentaire de minéralogie appliquée aux Arts; the Tableau des terrains qui composent l'écorce du globe, ou Essai sur la structure de la partie connue de la terre; and. the Traité des Arts céramiques 1845. Brongniart was also the coadjutor of Cuvier in the admirable Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris.